We all know how devastating, destructive, and distracting our coping mechanisms can be, right?

Like, how they can COMPLETELY destroy our ability to face our realities and deal with our problems/issues head on… Right?

You know, the way they become our means of communication and comfort, our reflex, our reference point, our refuge and respite from what we perceive as danger(s) or deliberate harm to our safety, security, and significance…

They become our default means of dialogue and demeanor. They become our identity. We define ourselves through, with, and by the notion of these devices.

They often, far too often, become enough of who we are to then be what and how we are known, and recognized, by others. These coping measures and techniques become our common practice, our habits, our tradition. They become culture. They become learned, and then passed on.

They become the only picture we paint after awhile. We perfect them and swear by them. We put them on display, for others to admire, appreciate, and soon accept. These coping measures and mechanisms develop into routine and ritual. We practice them to the full and wholeheartedly. We cherish and protect them. We defend them at all cost to the extent of all we are capable of and at the expense of all we possess.

And we don’t want to hear anything else. Because this is what we know. We are comfortable. We are safe in knowing this, whatever “this” is. Because this gives us something to hang and hold onto.

And the thing about coping is that the accomplishment of it- or what we perceive as the accomplishment of it- gives us the justification to maintain the measure. Because we often, far too often, determine that this thing is how or why we survived. Or why we were able to survive.

And you cannot tell us much of anything after we realize that we survived, and after we believe that this thing is the reason why.

—

Yea, just thinking about how religion has become the coping mechanism for so many of us.

Whatever or whomever our “Jesus” is has become our vice.

Crazy.

-see

©2014 Cornelious “See” Flowers
@seethepoet