Recovery Radio
KMP300.
It's somewhere right in the middle. But
here we are.
You and me. And I am glad for that.
And I am grateful. I have no desire to
drink today.
And I do have a piping hot cup of French
roast coffee from Trader Joe's mixed
with some Don Francisco's hazelnut. It
is absolutely delicious.
One of my favorite sentences in the big
book is on page 133. Paraphrasing
slightly, but it does say to avoid the
deliberate manufacturer of misery.
I have discovered a way to manufacture
misery and I wanted to share it with
you.
I was really excellent at doing this
and did this for a really long time.
And here's how you do it.
Don't do anything.
Except think a lot about you.
Analyze the shit out of everything.
Think about everything. Think about
whether or not it's selfish.
whether or not God is in it, whether or
not it's God's will, whether or not it's
not God's will, whether or not it's some
test.
Analyze how you feel from moment to
moment,
how each thing defines you or doesn't
define you in every single moment.
Put a thermometer in your mouth.
Take your emotional temperature
constantly. How do I feel now?
What about now? What about now? Am I
thinking of others now? How about now?
Is the thought of thinking of others
helping me think of others?
Is this God's will? Is that God's will?
Is this thought God's will? I drop my
car keys. Is that God's will? Am I
supposed to be 3 seconds later to this
event? Is this a test? What's God trying
to show me?
I have gas. What's God trying to show
me? I have an itch. What's God trying to
show me? What does this mean? What does
that mean?
You know what I should do? You know how
I should feel.
You know what I should be thinking?
You know what I shouldn't do?
You know what I shouldn't be thinking?
You know, I wish I was doing,
you know, I wish I was somewhere else
spiritually.
I should be further along.
I'm failing.
I suck. I'll never get this. I can't do
this right.
I'm a fraud.
You know what I should do?
You what I should have done.
You know what I need to do?
You know what I'm going to plan to do.
I know I should do that, but I'm not
going to.
I know I should do that,
but I tried and I failed. So, I suck.
So, I'm a failure, so I shouldn't try.
How am I doing?
How am I doing now?
What about now?
How about now?
Is this selfish? Is this God's will?
What about this?
I'll stop right now because I've been
doing it for a few minutes now, but I
did that for years.
And I manufactured plenty of misery as a
result of that.
And my life got really good. I don't
know when it was. I don't remember
exactly when it was, but things got
really good.
When I was able to stop finally doing
that,
when I was able to stop
analyzing everything I was doing, taking
my emotional temperature, reading into
everything, trying to figure out
everything,
the entire exercise of being in my head
was not helpful.
It is in the self-forgetting
that one finds. In my experience,
all of those thoughts are selfish.
All of those thoughts are selfish
because I'm thinking of me. It's that
it's so simple. It's almost invisible.
Think of someone else. There's billions
of people on the planet. There's people
everywhere who are having totally
different experiences than I am.
We're having different mornings or
afternoons or evenings and different
trials and struggles and
celebrations and there's
I imagine it like it was a helmet that I
was wearing was just I was just
listening to my own
station. What about me? How's this? What
about now? What about now? What about
now?
And I don't remember exactly when I was
able to take that off
and be present for someone else and
think about someone else.
Make a sentence or an event
or a moment about someone else.
Why it took years for me to be able to
do that?
to actually celebrate someone else
took years.
I could fake celebrate other people
pretty good.
But it took a lot of time for me be to
be able to make a moment about somebody
other than me.
It just took a long time for me to be
able to make a moment about somebody
other than me.
to ask somebody how they're doing
with no
plan of what I'm going to say,
of no self-seeking motive in it,
with no like hoping I hear this or that
or this is how I'm going to respond if
this or they're probably thinking this
with none of that. Just how are you? and
then
practicing listening. I mean, it took me
a long time to be able to do that. When
I talk about it now, it sounds crazy,
but
I couldn't make a moment about somebody
else. I couldn't I couldn't do it
cuz I'd be like, should I make this
moment about them? Am I making this
moment about them right now?
right now is what I'm doing. Am I making
it about them or I'm making it about me?
I don't think I'm making it about me cuz
I'm thinking of them.
I'm thinking of them, right? I'm not
thinking about me.
Just all of that. Shut up. All of that.
Am I making it about them now? How about
now?
How cool is it that I'm making making it
about them? That's so cool. That's so
humble of me. I'm so cool to be able to
make it about them. I think I'm making
it about them right now. Just all of
that exhausting mental masturbation that
went on for years and years
and the end result of all that
misery.
Also, I noticed that nobody cares.
All these things I would think about,
nobody cares. Nobody gives a shit. It
doesn't matter.
The world was not like the world is not
going to fall apart without me.
It was fine before I got here. It'll be
fine when I'm gone. It's not like it's
hanging on by a thread and needs my two
cents. It needs my analytical, you know,
study of how I'm doing at this moment.
It's like it doesn't I can't find a
place in the universe where that means
anything.
But I spent years
in this state of mind.
But I just have never been able to
discover any valuable
place to put all that. It doesn't
matter.
I used to play music for a living and
one time I
was at a show.
We're about to perform standing on the
street with some fans
and one of the fans said, "I missed your
show, you know, the other day. How was
it?"
And I was like, "Well, I think it was
out of tune. I think the first song was
and he
he said, "I don't give a shit about
that. How was the vibe?"
And that's kind of a perfect little
microcosm for like what matters all
around. Like
it doesn't matter all these things I'm
thinking. What is what am I putting out
there?
What is it like to be around me?
Is it exhausting?
Is it frustrating? Do I make people walk
on eggshells? Do I shut people down?
Do I ever celebrate anybody else?
Do I ever make a big deal out of anyone
but me?
And I've talked about this plenty, but
it's like having gone to a lot of wakes
and celebration of lives and funerals, I
noticed that this is all people talk
about. They don't talk about
really anything other than
how they felt
around the person,
how the person made them feel.
But for years,
I tried to sort all kinds of stuff out
that just doesn't
mean anything.
I know. But it does mean something if
I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking
about it. If I think about it for long
enough, maybe I'll figure out just all
of that.
Just shut up.
Not you, me.
So, if you want to
deliberately manufacture some misery, I
suggest
get in your head and stay there as much
as you can. No matter what's going on
around you all throughout the day, stay
in your head
and check out the Black Rhino's
International Big Book Study. You can
look it up. They have an Instagram page.
And if anybody needs to hear it,
everything is okay.
I got to go do a photo shoot
for PFB.
It's actually for PFB Italia.
It's like an Italian. It's like a
version of Italian Vogue.
It's like perfect fucking body.