Manns Medium

Some years ago I was asked about what I thought the meaning of life was and along that vain, I penned an article and a book calling it “The True Meaning of Life”.  The idea behind my definition of the true meaning of life was based on perception.  How you see things will determine where you stand.  If you see greed as good then you will defend it.  If you perceive that there is good in everybody then you will look for it. If you perceive that there is a heaven and a hell then you will stand firm on those grounds.  In the search for the true meaning of life, we tend to try and ascertain it for the sole purpose of understanding why people do some of the things that they do. We want to try and understand why people commit crimes and we have come to accept that there are sometimes outside forces that cause them to do so.  We have come to accept environmental, societal, physical and even mental excuses.  Once we find out which ones made them choose cri...

When it comes to any type of substance abuse whether its alcohol, drugs or just plain over-the-counter medication, many experts say that to truly understand the reason for abuse, we must first understand the reason that caused the abuse.   Not being an expert, I have come up with another way to deal with this issue. Through observation and the seldom used talent of listening, it occurs to me that the primary reason to take begin substance abuse is nothing short of a desire to see how it feels.   The primary reason to continue is nothing short of fear and embarrassment.   Fear that any short comings or long hidden desires which may have crept out during your time of abuse will never be erased.   Embarrassed because you were so very sure that no drug or substance would ever be able to control you only to find that you were so very wrong and is now being literally led by the nose by your need to have it. The fear is soon masked by your rationalization to blame ot...

Was watching the Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and saw a piece of the interview which was shown on the Today Show with Charlie Sheen.   At first I was truly not interested in hearing some spoiled Hollywood multi-millionaire whine about how everyone was being mean to him but because it was Lawrence O’Donnell bringing it up, I listened.   I must now admit that the way Lawrence portrayed the story was nothing like the message that I got from watching that piece of it.   I saw much more than that. What I saw was a man, who was more determined than I had ever seen, speaks about something that I had never thought about before.   He spoke out about Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) and how less than impressive they were at making him better.   He had decided to stop wasting his time in an organization where he did not get better by following the rules created by someone else.   He decided to tackle this problem on his own and rely only on those who to believe that bef...