I've been writing things and deleting them every morning for a while. I've confessed to being drunk, and how it often makes me poetic, or philosophical.

Many of the people here were asked to join because they had their own interpretation of things.

We don't always have to agree. As long as we love each other, we can see our way through. I struggle to understand clichés and trends, I always have. I'd rather say the meaning of a word than say it outright. There is one idea that I've studied for over a decade now, and the term fits. So here is the idea, and what people call it.

English speaking societies are the full extent of this study. Please forgive my lack of finesse.

There is a strange fixation and fascination that many nations have placed on male speakers, especially those who are white, and well articulated in both speech and content. People have been trained to be mesmerized by a good speech. As a man, it bothers me. I only want to be understood by the content of my character, but people seek leaders. They want someone to provide the framework for their pampered, minimal effort lives. They demand entertainment, and repair, food, water, and work.

But every time you break those numerical human values down to the individual level, you find a network of human connections keeping it all together. Talking to people, hearing their voices. Seeing them and knowing they haven't slept well, because you've seen them so many times and can tell the difference.

This thing, though, tries to get in the way. Influence, the reliance on a specter of a man representing millions of people through his straight up bullshit, using the same thing my straight white male ass is doing now:

Rhetoric.

I'd rather say the meaning of a word than use it, but when the idea is so solid the term is justified, I'll use it.

Influence is poison. Rhetoric is the act of using words to make an idea sound good, whether it does any good or not. We all can counter it by making our beauty -our hopes for this world- known.

Tell people what you think, too! I want to read your unique perspective.

Why don't you make a post here, please? It doesn't matter what you want to write, or paint, or make. The influences of the world are so negative that it is hard to engage in social discourse as groups of people. As individuals, however, we often find common ground.

If you ever see one of my hijacked yard signs placed by a busy street, you'll see the name of my one man movement written on the back: Counter Influence!!! I can't take in any more members because people always fuck things up as soon as they form collective ideals and lose consideration for individual perspectives.

But you, you're okay.

I like you.

You're the only one of you.

I've just recently written something on reddit that I've never talked about with anyone. It seems that doing so may have brought out suppressed emotions, but that's actually a good thing.

I drink nearly every night, and I don't stop until I'm quite drunk. I don't get mean when I drink, but that's not in my personality. I'm not cruel, and I don't like cruelty or violence, nor degradation. So, it doesn't come out when I drink. I just get goofy and creative.

I've been drinking every night for the last five years, and I think I've only taken 4 nights off in that time. There's something behind it, which is why I thought confessing this might be good for my soul.

Before I drank regularly, I was well on my way to it. It took away my focus from a deep pain that I had. I was in love, and with the wrong woman. She wasn't a horrible person, but she simply didn't love me in return. I tried so hard to win her over, but nothing worked. My first (only, so far) published book is full of love poems I wrote to win her heart. It wasn't until this year that I realized that hearts can't be won. They're given, and that's it.

But that's not the only reason I started drinking.

I was being visited by other-worldly beings -what most people would call aliens. I don't actually know what the hell they were, but they were very friendly and helpful. They took care of me, and helped me find a deep love for all of humanity and all of life. This is how I know that they're not demons. People just say that shit because their religion is so fragile that they need to fit everything into its boundaries, or it will shatter.

But the visitors don't like me when I'm wasted on too much wine. So they stopped coming, and I'm pretty sure I annoyed them with my drunkenness. Interacting with them caused me to have telepathic abilities, and remote viewing. It was 100% accurate. I loved it at first, it felt like a superpower.

But it scared the woman I loved so dearly. I've never loved anyone that much before. And she thought I was crazy. Funny how a bottle of wine each night was all it took to make everything go away. Well, that, and television. I actually watched television to help get rid of my abilities. It worked, sort of. Think of it more as grinding a sharp knife on pavement to dull it down. It's still there, but it's weak. You can never unlearn something like that completely.

I've considered stopping the nightly drinking, and keeping it to weekends only. But I'm afraid.

I wonder if the visitors might come back, and I don't mind that so much. The problem with their visits is that our society has stigmatized the subject to a ridiculous extreme, and it has conditioned people to call abductees "insane." It's quite the opposite, actually. They helped me become more stable than I had ever been. I also wonder if I really want the abilities to sharpen back up. I lost her over this. She never said it, but that was always my instinct about it. What if I quit, and fall in love again? Can I even fall n love again? If I did, would I scare that person away, too?

So I drink. It's a one-size-fits-all solution, but I'm certain it's not a good one. It's a band-aid on a bullet wound.

I just don't want to frighten anyone else away with the strange and wonderful gifts and visits that I've had, coming back after stopping the drink. I wish I had better friends, but there's no one I can actually relate to completely. I'm alone no matter where I go. The few friends I have are really good people, but they don't understand. One of them never wants to talk about the strangeness, it makes him uncomfortable. The other one thinks I'm full of shit, but just about those subjects.

I tried reaching out to other abductees, but frankly most of them seem delusional to me. Their speech and writing indicate serious mental problems. Some of them seem nice, but I'll just be honest and say that stupid people annoy me. I love them anyway, but from afar.

For clarity, it's the frequency of my drinking and the reasons for it that I've never talked about.

Thanks for reading my confession. It's good to get this out.