Epiphany

I swear to God that I can hold onto this train of thought before it slips away. Please bear with me. This might be a fucking weird post but I have to get these thoughts down so I apologize of it comes out all jumbled.

What would happen if you took a kid, whom, due to a quirk of nature and chemistry of the brain, gets super obsessed with ideas, concepts and things and introduced him to a couple of different simple ones at a really early age?

What about sex for starters?

Just as his body is growing and waking up to the reality of itself, in a series of events, he discovers that, Damn! This feels good! The complicated world of his body chemistry is just beginning to fire and the neural pathways are being laid down early. If he does this, than this is the reward. If he chooses to make these actions, than this is the pay off. I am not talking just about in terms of physical pleasure, but also in emotions, social acceptance, position, power and as a basis for relationship and friendship to people? Suddenly every single person he meets is being graded in criteria and worth as a bargaining chip in this new game of sexual pursuit. And then you leave him there. You let him go through puberty, with hormones raging, sexual activity unchecked or influenced by the norms and mores of the people and society around him? Anything goes as long as you are happy and get what you want? Friendships always have this built in component of the possibility of sexual activity and the way he learns to relate to others and gain his self worth is through sex. Everything in life revolves around his penis and what he can offer people or they can offer him. It becomes his second language that always speaks louder than words and lives in a silent world of acceptance and in the blind spot of those nearest him who could have offered a different world view.

Second, all those around this little weird kid continually tell him how great he is, how smart, how different, unusual and unique. Due to their love for him, there is nothing they won't do, no thing they deny to give him, no place they will not take him and no opportunity spared from his grasping mind and hands. He is already crippled in the currency of their world and rarely deigns to interact with others. When he pulls himself indoors out of the wild or will look up from a book to engage with reality, whatever catches his attention is seen as the new thing to keep him rooted in the present, if just for a fleeting moment. Nothing but praise is offered him and no misstep or error is corrected for fear of losing him back into his own little world for days, weeks and months to come.

During all this, the kid starts believing his own PR and Marketing Department and slowly starts building his palace and throne room against the possibility that others discover how small and alone he always feels, so cut off from others. Emotional pain and loss is always coped with in some diversionary fashion. Feel bad? Have sex. Don't like how your day went? Disassociate in a new book about something fascinating. Someone hurt your feelings? Wander off into the woods or the city and explore. Never talk about how you feel. Don't you dare reach out and tell people how your insides are knotted.  If you need to hurt, do so alone. Heavy is the head that  will wear the Crown.You will be King. Remember? You are destined for great things! Don't ever forget that! You cannot let us down. You are amazing. You are a genius. Nothing will ever stand in your way. You can do anything you set your mind to.

And this kid becomes King in his own world while living like a Brat Crown Prince. All those layers and trappings of mystery and silence he builds around himself become his protection from the hurtful world and strangers he meets that he knows someday he will rule. The world is his but none of it is ever let in. People are loved and then discarded. They become the back drop to the amazing story he is writing in his head and then living into the reality of the physical world. Since he no longer feels emotions, if he ever did, then certainly all these other humans are the same way. They love having sex, too! They like nice stuff, too! Give them what they want and they love you. Take what you want and they love you even more. Wait...that one is mad or sad or confused. Destroy them or walk away. This world is your playground, your kingdom. Use it or lose it.

So he starts a new religion. It is called everyone bow down and worship ME. I mean, hell, he is the best thing that this world has going on! Everyone tells him so and the evidence seems to point in that direction. Success always finds him. He is a pretty good god! He can do this! He buys into this new religion and becomes its best new convert. No goal is too lofty. There is nothing he will not do for his new god. He moves from Crown Prince to King to a god in a blinding fashion. Others convert, if for a while, and life seems to be well in his new world.

Then one day he wakes up early for church, gets into the shower, looks over at the wall and realizes he has been sold a lie? All of it.  He is not god. All this stuff. All the people. All the money, success, things, experiences, partners, sex, relationships, love and career have been nothing but sacrifices to the god of Himself. Pride is written on every page of his life. Sure, there were people he loved, but they stood in his way. Of course there were good times and amazing experiences. That is what life is about.

But...

He doesn't want to be the Prince anymore. He doesn't want the throne as King. He hates being such a pitiful god who is in pain and hurts and cries and can't solve any other persons problems, much less his own. He is imprisoned in the dungeon of his life and for the first time he wants to ask for help but realized he never has.

What if that kid was me?