Sunday Vandals in Rexburg

     At precisely 2:35 A.M., oh wait, 1:35 A.M. thanks to daylight savings, a noise disturbed me from the late night movie I had been enjoying. I looked out my window in time to see two young men, unless they were two manly young women, running from door to door, picking up pumpkins and throwing them off the balcony of my apartment building. The pumpkins that someone spent hard earned money and precious hours on, and the pumpkins that someone so artistically carved, were thrown down two stories to their desecration. They all now lay in moist pieces on the hard cement below.
     When things like these happen, and they don't usually, I find myself asking, "Why?" Because some adolescent young men wanted to get a kick out of seeing the girls of the apartment the next day with frowns on their faces? Because they wanted the satisfaction of knowing that someone now has a mess to clean up? Because they wanted the adrenaline they got when they so sneakily ran past apartments and showed both their strength and speed in doing a devilish deed without getting caught? Because they wanted to put the pumpkins out of their misery? Because they wanted some laughs?
     As you can probably tell, I am not a fan, I was awake when their escapade was in progress, and I did see a little of the irresponsible fellows who are responsible for this pointless act of vandalism.
     There were two throwing off the pumpkins on my floor, one was wearing a red jacket with the hood up, the other wasn't. They met their friend near the stairs on the south side of the building. He wasn't wearing a hood either and I believe his hair was light in color. Then they all ran off towards the stairwell laughing and speaking in loud whispers as if it had all been some hilarious joke.
     Well, I have a roommate who is going through a major trial in her life right now and I doubt that she'll think this is a funny prank. She is the one who made the pumpkin outside our door. And what a lovely pumpkin it was roughly twenty minutes ago. These three sons of God weren't acting like sons of God. On this early Sabbath morning, they were acting like jerks. I know my roommate will be saddened by the news that her pumpkin, she spent so much time on, is now destroyed but knowing her she'll be even more saddened by the news that someone else will be forced to clean it all up. I just hope it doesn't hurt a lot because no one deserves to hurt a lot, even the pumpkin smashers don't deserve that.
     The identities of the boys are unknown, and, personally, I kind of hope it stays that way so I'm not tempted to be rude to them, but if I could ask those boys a couple questions they would be these, "Whose life is bettered by this?" and, "So, what in the world possessed you to do it?"

Book Addiction

I couldn’t stop to go to bed. I’d be angry or irritable whenever interrupted. I’d hide from people. I was reclusive. My happiness depended more on it. I was rejecting my agency and let an author who didn’t know me dictate my emotions.

I was addicted to books. My books were prison my guards, my jailors. They dictated when I could sleep and eat. They put me in solitary confinement. I felt so alone.  So I turned to my jailors even more. It made me feel almost completely empty inside. I was a stomach that no amount of food could fill.

My drug of choice one night was a novel titled, No Longer Strangers by Rachel Ann Nunes. My lamplight had been blazing for more than six hours.  My eyelids were heavy, but I’d just rub them a little and keep reading. I’d stayed up until about five o’clock AM. The book wasn’t even enjoyable anymore but I just kept reading. At the time I didn’t think of it as an addiction. I mean people get addicted to drugs and food and alcohol and shopping. Who in their right mind would get addicted to books? Well, I did. I needed to read. I couldn’t stop easily.

I have no idea how it started or when exactly it ended, my addiction with books, with novels. Actually it wasn’t just any books. It was particularly romance novels, LDS romance novels. These are novels that you’d think would be filled with happiness and love and they pretty much are, but they are mostly about people with major sorrows overcoming them and finding true love in the end.  And I mean the end. Reading about real people being depressed or really really sad is depressing! Well here I was chugging down story after story of some depressed person who found their happily ever after but it took what? A whole two hundred pages to get there! And when I finally got my high the book would be over and I’d need a new one. For this addiction were there withdrawals? If you consider needing another dose right after it to keep my mood up because it didn’t last long to begin with, then yeah, there are withdrawals. But if I didn’t have another book I could survive until one landed in front of my willing eyes.

                I sometimes would skim the books I was thinking of reading so I’d know if it would fill my craving or not. I skimmed a book where the girl had a twin. Her twin died, she got into drugs and alcohol, had a baby, then the baby’s father accidentally killed the baby. She was depressed the whole book. Finally near the end she met up with some LDS missionaries who shared with her what they knew to be true of there being life after death and there being a Savior. She then converted but she was persecuted for being “bad” before she converted by another Latter-Day-Saint who was jealous of her. She’d fallen in love with one of the missionaries who shared the gospel with her and it was going to be almost the most depressing book of all time! Up until the last few pages it was still depressing, so of course I chose not to read it all the way through. Those kinds of books wouldn’t help me feel better at all.  

There are a multitude of reasons for a person to become addicted to something but the main reason would be that that something is addicting. It made the person feel, and normally that feeling is a good feeling or in other words a high. So according to my own definition you could assume that the books I read were making me high or giving me a good feeling. The only problem with this conclusion is that they did but only until I compared the happiness the characters were feeling to myself and became even more depressed because fake people had real relationships with people. Relationships with people are what make life interesting, enjoyable and not enjoyable, easier and harder, but especially interesting. That is what is unique about book addictions compared to other addictions. Shoes can’t smile or laugh or cry. A cigarette isn’t going to yell at you. And no drink is going to fall in love. When you read a book you can imagine the people in them. You can imagine them having emotions and you relate. Because I spent all my time reading about fake people and substantially less time with real people I had few strong relationships with actual people. And all I could talk to people about were the books I’d read because that is all I’d been doing. And that is just sad.

Addictions steal your agency. You forfeited the ability to choose for yourself. You became weak, and that addiction now rules your life. It is your king. The only way to get rid of it is to choose, or cause, anarchy. Replace your addiction with things in your life that you actually want.

I chose one day to just stop, to stop reading books. And now I’m in rehabilitation. But I am starting to read books again, in moderation.