The mind’s power is a force requiring careful attention and often underestimated. During high school, I developed an ego-driven “sickness,” one I hold dear to my heart and I hope never to fully lose, for better or worse. It all started with a desire for my peers to think I was mad, genius, and beautifully tragic. Of course, I didn’t tell anyone about my personal program. They wouldn’t get it. But to me, it was romantic. In preparation, I started to self-destruct, drink carelessly, take drugs, and smoke a quarter of grass a day. I even started selling the stuff to afford my excessive use. Like I said, I wanted tragedy. I wanted to end up a bloody masterpiece. I just wasn’t yet sure how to make it beautiful.

I started to hang with a new group of friends, and don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t because of drug use. One was a writer and another produced music. They were a refreshing crowd and I enjoyed them more than my old friends. It wasn’t about surrounding myself with enablers. I liked the scene more, and my new friends were inspiring.

One of them was Charlie. He spoke in an entertaining fashion that developed my vocabulary just hanging around him. He was a writer, and he always talked about authors I had never heard of. I wanted to know more stuff, more things, more stories. I wanted a worthy response to every question. The conversation began to look like a canvas to me. I tried to speak with a particular style, mindfully choosing each word like a painter strokes with his brush. I figured reading would help, so I did that. I was ravaging through a couple of books a week. I dropped my baseball team and wound up comfortably lost in a world of words. I read author after author, following their blind efforts to seek truth every page of the way. They were always willing to explore further and further into the unknown, sometimes so far they knew they would never return. I saw these writers as courageous heroes. They were true savages, and I wanted to be one too. As the son of a Judge and an FBI agent, a graduate of a Catholic high school and product of American suburbia, I was bored with everything my life had to offer. The unfamiliar and provocative stories became my only source of enthusiasm, and after reading them I turned hungry for the world.Thinking about Thompson or Kerouac, I wondered how they found themselves in such debauchery and chaos, I wanted the same

The first time I sat down to write, I fell into a flow state, and in a moment I found myself free from reality. I felt passionate, the fire in my heart was sparked, and I quickly fell madly in love with the art. Writing became an excuse for my outlandish behavior, it provided a reason for my addictions, and I used those to justify my seeming insanity. It was a comfortable and dangerous system I created for myself.

After a couple years of this sickly character fixation, everyone except for my close friends began to see me as a fool, a troublemaker, and no good. Some thought I was crazy, others thought nothing of me. The mad writer I desperately wanted to characterize was lost, drowned in booze and suffocated by plastic bags of wasted brain cells. Nobody saw me for who I set out to be. I was another burnout. My mind was so powerful that I became the alter ego I had dreamed up before I actually had time to write. I was in trouble and I knew I was doing something wrong. My life was unhealthy.

I decided to lay off the drinks and pot, and pretty much everything for a little while. I read different types of books, the first of which was Albert Einstein’s “The World as I See It." In the book, he says that to read only the works of stunted, addled or lost minds. It got me thinking that I was caught up in a narrow-minded image of writing; maybe I focused too heavily on the distinct gonzo genre. Perhaps I only believed living a beautiful tragedy was a one-way ticket to a spot among the greats.

I figured I'd put my character fixation aside and read the works of optimistic, healthy and original thinkers. I chose figures like Einstein, Edison, and Eckhart Tolle. After this phase, I gained a much heartier awareness than I had previously. I found that in critically comparing myself to writers who I admired, I became paralyzed. I left myself without a chance to flourish, trapped in the shadows of those much older and more experienced. Not only this, but my specific influences, like-minded to each other, lead me to believe that writing was all about indulgence, depravity and mind-altering substances. Granted, this was due to my failure to keep a well-rounded bookshelf. Balance is key, especially when one realizes that what we know is what we see. Daring open-mindedness is central in the pursuit to see through as many lenses as possible, because sometimes you must look where you would rather not to find truth.

Today I still want to be a writer, but for different reasons than before. I have the same passion, but I now understand that I can write by my own nature and constitution, unique from any writer before me. And in order to receive a legitimate remark, this is actually necessary; that’s the beautiful thing about writing. Taking the time to learn new ways of thinking about life and writing allows me to adopt traits and influences from an array of various types of thinkers, and I can construct a balanced self. Now I can carve an original path and write my own story. I am no longer bound by one-dimensional thinking, no longer doubtful when comparing myself to one type of mind. I am myself, and what a shame it would be to waste my potential trying to live as someone else.

I now understand that originality holds a greater capacity for profound influence than vicariously living through an alter ego. Beware of the power the mind holds to sculpt an unhealthy yet justified reality. Remember to fearlessly investigate new perspectives often. Also, avoid self-comparison to others; its incapacitating nature can kill a man’s dreams. Think for yourself and be you. It sounds simple, but it’s tough to realize. At least, it was for me.