Joseph G. Phillips

How Not to Live

My world. See it as four corners. In this first corner, my cigarettes which I need or I will go crazy with boredom. Over here in this other corner, my computer which I need or I will suffer ‘social media withdrawals’. In this third corner, my addiction to weed which drives me to go to great lengths to get it. And in the fourth corner of my small, suffocating world, well that’s my restlessness what drives me and everybody else I come in contact with insane.

These four corners comprise the box that my life is in. A routine perhaps? No. A rut maybe? Not a rut. Then what? Don’t see my life as just simple, I see my life as conditioned, yes perhaps by my addictions and by my isolation. But wait. My fault? Deep down, I have always ran. I have always preferred hiding in my room then associating with people. As for my addictions, I am the one who often prefers a cigarette or a joint to food.

I am the jailer. I have the key to my freedom. I only hate that freedom. I do. I am out of control with the smoking, the weed, the internet addiction, all this. It is the freedom I experience in all this pleasure that is suffocating me. I need to simplify my simple life then would I be free?

I don’t know. Boredom be my arch-nemesis. Boredom robbed my heart of its natural smile. Boredom always turns my room from a sanctuary to a hellhole. Can’t win.

Can’t beat the same old same old, the everyday. I can only try and if I sleep at night, there is my escape. Good night and hope you don’t live as bad as I do.