I Was Blind Once by Dave Mustaine (Monologue)

I set aside the horse (heroin) and the crack in my life, but there are still times when I’d like to get high. I wouldn't have been an addict if that hadn't happened to me. I would simply be someone who could quit, and therefore, I wouldn't be, in physiological or medical terms, a drug addict. I have a physical, spiritual, and mental connection with drugs because they help me escape reality. Growing up as I did, in the situation I was in—I'm not going to say I had a dysfunctional family, because that seems to be the cliché, and the epitome, and the epithet, and the colloquialism, and the anecdote. Everyone has bad experiences like that and is mistreated like that. I just had a hard time figuring out who the hell I was and what I was going to be. I escaped a lot of that reality by getting blind, until I finally realized that things hadn't gone so badly for me, and that things could be much better if I quit drugs.

I had a rabid ego and no self-love; so I externalized my internal ego, and that turned into confidence. Now I'm sure I don't need to get blind to have fun. The party isn't over, it's just beginning. A lot of this has to do with some things I do in my personal life. I know a guy who is a Taekwondo black belt. He used to work with me and give me a lot of attention while I was trying to quit heroin. For a while I suffered a kind of hallucination that I couldn't take care of myself and that people were after me. I needed people around me to publicly ensure my every move because I was extremely paranoid that people wanted to hurt me.

I met a guy who told me about kickboxing classes, and I thought, 'well, damn, I did Shorinryu karate when I was 12, and when I was 18 I did San Soo Kung Fu. If this guy is so good, if he is a legend, I want to check it out for myself.' I started doing kickboxing, and I was good. I mean, I was really good. In fact, last year I received the academy's most dedicated student award. Last August I decided I wanted to try that guy's martial arts program because it seemed very organized. It is a cross between Judo, wrestling, Muay Thai kickboxing, Okido, Kento, and Shotokan karate. These are six different styles rolled into one, which I like. I've been training for almost two years and I'm about to get the fourth degree.

Recently, a lot of other things have happened in my life that I never would have thought I would do. I tried skydiving. I got into that because taking heroin and cocaine gives you a pretty radical edge, and I needed to replace that madness. I thought, well, I do kickboxing; that's pretty violent. What else can I do that is completely absurd? Skydiving! It seems to make the desire to go crazy disappear. Is there any madness greater than jumping out of a plane at more than three and a half kilometers high? The only thing that can compare to skydiving is love, and love trumps everything. If there wasn't love, I couldn't feel passion for skydiving.

Anyway, I don't think there is anything that can exactly compare to what I felt in February when my son was born. There I was, this scrawny, totally broken Yank—I thought my balls had lost effectiveness and that they were firing blanks—and my wife, who suffered from anorexia... There we were, the two of us, embarking on this journey of pregnancy and fatherhood. I watched the whole operation. I videotaped it, cut the umbilical cord, I did everything! Seeing people come in and help my wife through the birth process, thanking people—what a change for Mustaine! I finally realized that I'm not a loser; I just acted like one. Obviously, I haven't been abandoned; I just forgot that God is there. God hadn't abandoned me; I had forgotten Him. That, and all the problems I had, were simply manifestations of my ego. If you break that ego everything takes a different perspective.

I live in what is called the now, because the past and the future are not real; they are not here. The now, the present, is real. If I only live right in the present moment, I live in the light. The darkness of yesterday and the darkness of tomorrow—which I don't know—don't interfere with what I'm doing right now. When I see, live, and perceive things right now, as they are supposed to be, knowing that I have to accept it and that I have no control over what happens in my life, then I begin to take a different understanding of things.

If you're going to have a child, be sure you love the woman, because she's going to tighten your screws. My wife tried to hit me! If it hadn't been for the fact that I had been training so hard, I probably would have had a contact lens permanently embedded. I wore glasses and my wife wanted to hit me in the face, but I managed to dodge the blow. There were many times when things got very heated. But I managed to get through it by praying a lot. I simply knew that, hey, that wasn't the woman I wanted, the one I married, the one who was going to have my son; it was the damn Antichrist! My view of women is that they are equal to men, but the inside of their plumbing and their hearts are a little bigger. They are the most passionate of genders, and they are also a little more lascivious than us. When true intimate acts occur, men give love for sex, and women give sex for love. It's a drag because we can actually coexist and cohabit on this planet without having to play those games.

You don't realize this until you find someone who is—this is a hateful cliché, but—'the perfect spiritual partner'; someone who, if you were broken in bed and soiled yourself, would come and clean it up. I have never been married before. I was close, but I didn't want to communicate. At those times, I rejected many things due to my drug problem. Given that someone, my higher power, has placed this other individual in my life, I now realize that, hey, I deserve to have a partner for as long as our relationship has to last. As long as I don't interfere and get in the way of how things work, everything will be fine. The preacher who married us in Hawaii said that the key is communication; I think that is one of the most overlooked fundamentals of all humanity. People don't have the guts or the mindset to communicate.

It's like this: there are only two emotions in the world: love and fear. Fear encompasses everything. All other negative feelings that exist—jealousy, lust, envy, pride, selfishness, and all that—fall into the category of fear. Fear that you will lose something you have, or fear that you will not get something you want. Fear of the unknown, fear of the challenge, fear of being discovered, fear of being disliked. Insecurity, emotional instability, infidelity, impotence—all these kinds of things—it’s the weirdest crap in the world. None of that has anything to do with love.

People say I'm getting soft and weak. Well, I can still make my head work; I still jump out of planes. Really, I don't worry about anyone. If someone wants to challenge me physically, I'll try to dissuade them. If someone wants to challenge me mentally, I'll shake the dust off them. As far as a spiritual challenge goes, I'm totally willing. I will subjugate myself to be spiritually challenged. I would love to learn more, in spiritual terms, from someone else. Many people have also said that I am becoming religious. Well, I have discovered that religion is man-made. Spirituality is offered by God. Religion is for people who are afraid to go to hell, and spirituality is for people like me, who have already been there.

I'm going to make sure my son has two things: the knowledge that there is a God, and a black belt. Because as long as he has power from above and power from this earth, no one can touch him. It's fantastic to have that inner peace—knowing that you walk better, talk better, and have a physical balance within you—and then knowing that you are always protected by the blood of Christ. For those of us who believe in Christ, it is good that we can understand that. Dave may be on a very, very wrong path right now, but Dave is definitely much happier now than he used to be. I just made the best record of my life, and, you know what? if people don't like it, I don't care. Someone else will buy your copy.

Dave Mustaine