JANUARY 14, FRIDAY

ADDICTION

As usual, I have talked myself into a corner and don’t know how to get out of a problem which for most people isn’t even a problem. Most people don’t spend hours painting themselves into a corner and therefore don’t have to spend hours trying to get out. It comes, I guess, from having too much time on my hands during the pandemic. It also comes from getting a kick out of wondering about things, so it is my own fault, it is my addiction.

But this is exactly the problem that I am wondering about, is what I get high doing worth doing? What makes me alive? Put simply, if we are dropped onto earth with most of our inner drive embedded within us in our DNA and if the universe is indifferent to us and we are lost in the stars and in endless time, it seems to me like what keeps us going has to be buried within us, then shared with other inner driven human beings as we, because we are very social animals, create our own human reality in our languages and religion and other cultural conventions that link us together and allow us to communicate with each other. We live in a dreamed up human social construct which gives us meaning and purpose and guides us along. But this construct is fueled by the individual drives and dreams of billions of people. We construct a human bubble that is full of meaning. But how do we deal with this blind drive within us to feel fully alive?

That is the corner that I have gotten myself into. Because if it is almost blind inner visceral emotional drives that impel us through life, as is true of all other animals, then how do we sort out these drives.

The way I getting along is by doing, as much as I can, what feels most alive to me. I am impelled along to be as fully alive as I can be. And I have a pretty good idea of what impels me along and makes me feel alive which may different from the drives of other people.

My problem is that some of these drives seem wrong or a threat to other people and some of these drives seem to me to be a threat to myself. The drives that seem to be strong, but seem to block my life, I call addictions. I’ll list a few of my addictions.

Luckily I am not addicted to alcohol or opioids or cocaine or heroin or most of the drugs that people consider to be harmful addictions. This isn’t because I am a moral person but because those things for some reason don’t turn me on and don’t hook me.

The things that I am addicted to are things that many people feel are quite respectable and acceptable to so.

SPORTS. I am addicted to sports, to watching young men and women throw a ball around or bang into each other or move swiftly. I think I get a high from doing this both because it arouses some male competitive drive within me and because there is a tension in a close game that excites me. I also like belonging to a tribe that cheers for one side or the other.

The problem is this. I have watched endless games for thousands of hours and sometimes felt very high in doing this and then the day after can’t remember who played or who won. It isn’t the game or the people playing them that I care about, is the high I feel during the game, as if the game were a drug. And looking back on this it seems a waste of time, not immoral, just a waste of my precious time here on earth.

POLITICS. Politics is another addiction. It is considered admirable to know what is going on in the world and to be an engaged citizen. When I listen to MSNBC I get riled up and excited with intense feelings of righteousness on my side, of intense disgust with the other side which for a while makes me feel very alive. But another of the reasons that I feel high is the natural male desire to be able to one up other people with my knowledge, showing that I know what is going on better than the next guy. Another reason is that I feel a surge of tribal togetherness with the rest of my fellow Democrats, I am part of a crusading army. But, in fact, as a knowledgeable engaged citizen I don’t actually do anything except to vote for my tribe every two years. No, the real reason that I am addicted to politics and stay glued to the TV is, that like sports, it makes me feel high, feel very alive for a brief period. But neither lasts and I need another fix the next day.

But somehow being high with these two addictions, feeling fully alive, isn’t enough.

A third example was my ten year addiction to the flea market where I could afford almost anything until I had filled the carport to the ceiling. Then I was saved by photography which allowed me to capture almost anything, object or human, and to respond to it without taking up an space except a dot on a hard drive. It was the high of feeling my way along and searching for things that I finally realized was what made me feel so good and made me sing gospel songs as I walked. But that kind of addiction now doesn’t seem worth while either.

A fourth example is my addiction to food that is high in some combination of fat, sugar and salt and will probably kill me. Food makes a glutton out of me. Luckily I’ve discovered in my old age that all I can eat at an all you can eat place is one small plate full and then I am stuffed. I don’t eat for nutrition, I eat to get high and as soon as I get high I become lethargic and fall asleep. It doesn’t seem a good use of my time.

All of these things are things that I am addicted to and haven’t been able to let go of even when they seem to be a great waste of time and keep me from doing other more important things.

So what are these important things? One is writing right here and sharing it. But the reason that I write right here isn’t because I have something significant to say, it is because the process of feeling my way along in writing makes me feel alive. And it is enhanced by sharing it with someone else whether that someone else wants to read what I write or not. It is the process that is alive. But from the perspective of someone else it may seem like a colossal waste of time.

A second important thing is travel which I have recently done and want to do again soon. When traveling in places that are different from my own American conventions I feel very alive. But I don’t travel for any purpose. I travel to travel. I feel more alive when I am traveling. It is a high. Again, it is the process that matters. To someone else it could seem a waste of money and time and a nuisance to the people around me.

A third thing is listening to the stories of others. I don’t do this to learn from them or even to empathize with them. I do it because there is something about seeing other ways of getting along in the world that is a turn on for me. I feel high after fooling around in a conversation or reading a letter from someone else.

My quandary is that I don’t see any difference between my addictions and my passions. I get high from sports, politics and food and call them addictions because I can’t let go and keep reaching for more and more intensity with the result that I overdose and drop into depression but later come back for more. But these all make me high and all draw me through life in a universe in which there is not absolute meaning. If being high and feeling fully alive is the goal of life they do it.

But in a way that is all writing here or traveling or reading novels or watching PBS is, just a way of passing the time that makes me feel good. They are just ways of feeling intensely alive, ways of getting high. Maybe all that is wrong with the first three addictions is that they take my time and prevent me from getting to my passions, the other ways of being high. Maybe all I am discovering is that I am more turned on by writing and travel and listening than I am by politics, sports and eating. There is no moral judgment here, the second just feel better than the first.

But of course this opens the door to all passions being equal and makes the cruel passions which make some people feel very alive as significant as loving and creative passions that make other people feel very alive. Whose to judge? Follow your passion and be as fully alive as you can be. Enter stage left, follow your own passions, live as fully as you can in your own way, and exit stage right. And that is it. But somehow this leaves me unsatisfied, although I have felt alive while writing about it.