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About Me Well, cool, it's nice to see you wanted to know more about me. I was born in California and now I live in Virginia. I'm 19 years old, and after the experiences I went through the past couple of years, I've been wondering what is the meaning of life. Why are we here? Well, I don't know exactly why we are here, but I do know that since we are here, we have to learn. For me, that is the purpose of life. To learn from mistakes and to learn how to cultivate love and kindness. When I was growing up, I was never really taught anything about God or spirituality. I was curious about the Divine when I was about seven or eight years old. My mom just told me the basic christian stuff like God created us, she told me about heaven and hell, etc... I think my mom considered her self a christian, but I don't ever remember going to church. But, I did know that she was a spiritual person. I never really knew my mom that much because she died when I was only nine years old. When I was about eight, I noticed she was really sick. She went to the doctors and she had a rare disease called Scleraderma. I read later on that it takes about 10 years to kill you. My mom never told anyone about it. When she did die, I was glad that her suffering was gone, but yet I was really sad. I knew she was suffering badly and it killed me watching her suffer. It broke my heart. After she passed, I had to go live with my dad. I had never met him. He left me and my mom before I was born. So, it was quite weird meeting him for the first time. By this time, my mom's death had really gotten to me, so I was always acting out in anger. My dad didn't like that at all. Me and him never got along with each other at all. I think I was just too much to handle for him, which by the way I don't blame him. So, I decided I didn't want to live with him anymore. I was then put into foster care. I stayed with a very religious family. They were seventh day adventist christians. They were very nice people. I really liked them. But because of staying with them, I became a christian, which in the long run, put a serious halt in my spiritual progress. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with christian religion. It's just later on when I started to study about other religions and when I started to learn about how the bible was composed, etc... I was scared. I thought I would go to hell if I stoped beliveing what the bible says. So, fear was a major concern when looking outside the christian faith. But anyways... I finally got in contact with my grandma and she adopted me. By this time, I was pre-teenager, so I was even wilder. I don't know how my grandma ever handled me, cause she's pretty ill. When I was 14 I started to get involved with drugs. I started to smoke pot and drink. That continued on for about 3 years. Since my mom died, I was just bottling up my emotions. I never let them out. I moved to Virginia to stay with my uncle cause I was doing really bad in school. I enrolled in school here in Virginia and graduated with A's and B's. I thought I was fine. I didn't feel depressed that much cause I was feeling good about my self for getting good grades, which I wasn't getting in California. When I was 18, I signed up for the Marines and then I went to boot camp. Heh, that's a whole other story. I won't go into details. After 13 weeks of suffering, lol, I finally graduated. After I graduated I went back to California to visit some friends. I got into the rave scene and did some ecstacy. I was there a month before I had to go back to Marine Corps. training in North Carolina. I didn't want to go back at all. I had found myself back into drugs and always wanting to party. That's when things took the turn for the worst. So, I went AWOL and went to Oceanside california. I met some new people. I was basically homeless. After a couple weeks, I met some people who let me stay with them. We were always partying, drinking, and smoking pot. I was having the time of my life. But I soon needed some clothes. Mine were dirty and stinky. So I went to the store and stole some clothes. I got away with it. I went to another store and stole a new back pack. Went to another store and stole some shoes. As you can see, I was going a little crazy with the stealing. Then I had the bright idea of stealing more clothes, but, this time I got caught. Unfortunatly for me, I had my military ID on me, so, they called the cops. The cops dropped me off with the MP's (military police) at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. By that time, I had been AWOL for 35 days. So, I was facing brig time. I was put in the brig at camp pendleton for a day before they would transfer me back to North Carolina. I would be put in the brig there until further notice. Well, I stayed at Camp Lajune in the brig for 55 days. It was quite an experience. I learned a lot. I learned that this is not how I want to spend my life. So, I finally got out. I had to stay with the separation platoon on base until I got all the paper work done so I could go home. That took about another month or so. Then, I finally got discharged and I was sent home with an Other Than Honorable discharge on October 30, 2000. Yes! I was finally out. But, when I got home, I was lonely and I was so disapointed in myself. So, all the years of bottled up emotions started turning into depression. The depression deepend over the months. I couldn't take it anymore, so in january this year, I took 40 or so pills of robaxin, which is a muscle relaxant. I had been drinking that night. I had a 40oz plus another 3 cans of beer. I took the pills, then I fell asleep. When I awoke I was in the hospital. My uncle, who I live with, found me in my room on the floor going into seizers. He said it was horrible. I had taken the pills just a few hours before hand so I was very very close to death. When I recoverd a few days later, I was held in the psychiatric ward at the hospital. I was there about 2 weeks. The doc's thought I had recovered and they said my psychological progress was good. They wanted me to take anti-depressants, but I turned them down, which turned out to be a very bad idea, cause little did I know, I'd be back in the hospital 2 months later because of another suicide attempt. Once I was out of the hospital I was clean for about a week. Then, I started to get back into drugs... Once again, my depression came right back and this time it hit me very hard. I was feeling sorry for myself cause I felt like I was a failure. I just wanted to be with my mom. I would do anything to be with her again. So this time I cut my wrists, but my blood clotted up too fast. I lost some blood but not a lot. So, I then took 48 sleeping pills. When I did all this, I was in a wooded area. From taking all those sleeping pills, I fell asleep very fast, but before I fell asleep, I was hallucinating very hard. Once I woke up, it was about midnight. It was freezing outside. The irony here is, that I was wearing my back pack and my shoes that I stole. When I awoke, I was wandering around in this wooded area all confused. I had lost my shoes somehow, and my back pack. Talk about karma, eh! Well, I finally ended up in a super market and the security guard saw me. He noticed my wrists have been cut so he called the ambulance. The abulance came and picked me up and brought me to the hospital. This time, I didn't get put into the psychiatric ward, which is kind of hard to believe. I fully intended on dieing. But, my wish didn't come true, and I'm glad it didn't. I was so ignorant. I was confused. When I got home, I had to go see a doc who gave me some prozac. I felt really bad, because I had put my family through a lot. When I wanted to die, I was so selfish. I never really thought about what would happen to my family. Then I finally came to my senses. This was a new beginning for me. I then wanted to find what life was all about and why we are here. These questions led me to all kinds of religions and philosophies. I read things about Buddhism then I finally learned of Philisophical Taoism. Taoism, for me, answered my questions. I can't say I know everything about Taoism, but what I do know has helped me. I'm only a novice, but I have already felt the effects on my life from studying the Tao Te Ching and the Hua Hu Ching. That is why I put this web site up. I hope that I will be able to help others with their search for truth and happiness. May you find peace and happiness in life.