Dear world,
My name is Tom. Well, it’s Thomas actually, but everyone calls me Tom and I got used to it.
I’m a schizophrenic, currently stopping my medication and going back to my hallucinations and I just wanted you to know why.
I have been coping with my disease for almost 6 years now. Ever since it was diagnosed, I’ve had a pretty normal life in my drugged-up state. I went to college, I found a girl, got myself a job, moved out of my parents’ house, and felt completely empty.
Everyday life, regular purposes, standard living...all of those are overrated.
Take the Amish for example. They live in a completely alternate world, they use no electricity, and they live from what they grow, completely frozen in time, oblivious to technological and social innovations. And they are happy. They register higher happiness levels than people living in most of the major cities, they live in far less stressful conditions, they are, in their own way, a balanced, "happier than you or me" civilization.
Society has evolved into a discriminative, selfish state of mind, in which for one to be considered “happy”, one must be so, in their own, pre-conceived notion of happiness. One must work, struggle through life in hopes of succeeding, reap some of the benefits of his accomplishments and be a little better off.
Buy a better car, get a bigger house, go on an extended vacation, retire, all means to an end: happiness. Be it temporary or long-lasting, we all strive for happiness.
I found it when I was 20 years old.
I remember going to bed at night, falling asleep to the most beautiful songs while staring at the aurora borealis forming up in my ceiling and thinking “I am crazy”.
I was. Hallucinations were constant, not always beautiful, but I managed.
I conversed with people of all colours and shapes. I spoke to dogs, owls, travelled around the world, beneath the sea, to places most of you can’t even imagine. I saw shooting stars at night, slowly fading away into the blackness of space while standing on the moon.
“I am crazy” I kept saying to myself. Now, 6 years later, I know I was...but I was happy.
On some of my “worse nights”, I laughed and smiled more than I did in all of my lucid days combined.
I could be as happy as a kid in Christmas, and as miserable as a wrongfully accused criminal at the night before his execution.
Those are the kind of ups and downs you strive for in a lifetime. The moments that take your breath away and make you rethink who you are, are ignited by the type of feelings I had every night.
So why should I have to go through the so-called “normal” process of living in order to achieve and marvel at the wonders, travels and people life throws at you at a steady pace, when I can enjoy it all, fast, brutal and hassle-free?
So fuck you and your medicine. I’m off to live more in one year of my life than you will in 60.
I’m crazy, I’m happy, I’m sad, I’m depressed, scared, ecstatic, tired...all in one day.
Can you beat that?
Sincerely yours,Tom. Thomas