Great essay. We always used to wonder whether the future would hold 1984 or Brave New World- none of imagined it would be both, at the same time! It seems like tragicomedy is the theme of the last few years of the first quarter of 21st Century for the West. One has to laugh, or one would cry.
After reading the words of perhaps the greatest philosopher of the twenty century, Pogo, came to mind; "We have met the enemy and he is us."
On the other hand, lest Pogo, Huxwell, Buck Fiden and the six o'clock news bums me too far out, I take solace and comfort in the words of Pogo's student, Porky Pine; "Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent."
My pleasure, Heidi. Thanks for reaching out, and what a nice remark! Neither intellect nor freedom, to be sure, is a particularly good hedge against addiction. But the path to recovery is paved with gratitude: always a good place to start, always a great place to end. Thanks again.
"The ultimate tyranny in a society is not control by martial law. It is control by the psychological manipulation of consciousness, through which reality is defined so that those who exist within it do not even realize that they are in prison."
Thank you for reaching out, Gwyneth, and thank you for subscribing. Agreed: Martial law arrives spiritually, socially, and emotionally long before it shows up with prisons and prison guards. Maybe we have the world's largest prison population precisely because we are the most propagandized nation on earth...
The deadliest addictions sweeping the globe, destroying society, devastating the minds, bodies and souls of a once rational, insightful and open minded majority are blind hatred,, searing rage and mass conformity. A metastatic contagion.
Classic liberalism is dead. Pragmatism is dead. Curiosity is dead. The real pandemic is a mind virus.
Can’t say the “ Conservatives” are much better. They’ve not changed at all. Zero self awareness, zero desire to modernize, energize or expand their horizons. Singing the same hackneyed tune- off key and refuse to entertain new ideas. Either they are playing to lose deliberately or really have no desire to win. Managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when they have an edge.
Overturning R v W just before a crucial midterm election was a devastating miscalculation. Gunning for a complete ban was worse. Rather than dialing it back. They’ve doubled down, making it the the central focus of the election platform and highlighting the religious predicate. They learned nothing from the Todd Akin debacle which cost the ‘08 election. I am in no way an abortion enthusiast, but neither do I support stripping away another’ reproductive autonomy. Sane parameters, yes, but whatever her reason, the decision is between the womb and her Maker. We’re not a theocracy. . The Constitution is not the Holy Bible , Separation of Church and State, medical freedom, the right to privacy, patient/physician privilege, religious freedom, freedom from government overreach are self explanatory.
And the hypocrisy of the moral righteousness of “ pro-life” zealotry in the womb but cheering for war and now calling to reinstate the draft is stunning. The Party of Freedom? So long as said “ freedom” aligns with a particular religious ideology is not freedom. Nor is late term abortion on demand. Which will be the outcome.And the complete cessation of life as we know it. The Ultimate Revolution is no longer a pipe dream. The Great Reset Agenda 21 globalist takeover is well in the works. The “ Conservatives” havent uttered a peep . Yet abortion is at the top of the ticket? What world are we bringing children into? Slavery.Leaving to our children. Why are they ignoring it? Because they’re corrupt, fraudulent, craven, obtuse cowards.
Lew Rockwell should have run in 2000, or any election thereafter. He has the messaging ability to attract classic liberals, Independents and classic conservatives. Very articulate and unconventional. Those days are gone
Thanks for your comment, Gail. No love lost at this end for either political party right now. Happy to note, however, that Lew Rockwell has started to run my articles on lewrockwell.com.
Lew’s fabulous. Became a very close, unlikely friend that I mischaracterized initially. Matter of fact, I like him more than I do 99% of the population. Interesting story behind it,. As I often reiterate, there’s no such thing as coincidence.
"Sane parameters, yes, but whatever her reason, the decision is between the womb and her Maker. We’re not a theocracy. The Constitution is not the Holy Bible, Separation of Church and State, medical freedom, the right to privacy, patient/physician privilege, religious freedom, freedom from government overreach are self explanatory."
Okay, I see where you're coming from. Notwithstanding that many of us consider abortion murder, yes, we want limits on murder of the unborn. Total bans are unworkable in many jurisdictions, so I don't think you need to worry about that too much.
Can we at least agree that whatever limits are placed on this "procedure", nobody should be forced to subsidize it or pay for it? As Jefferson said, forcing someone to pay for something with which he vehemently disagrees is adding insult to injury.
I would be perfectly happy with a state of affairs in which abortions are rare and are the financial responsibility of whoever is seeking them. The public should not be burdened by them in any way. Abortion is not a right; nobody is obligated to provide for them.
My opinion is that almost nobody cares about the issue, as a political issue, except at the fringes of both camps. The problem occurs when the spin is introduced, painting the opponents of abortion as people who are against rights for women. That created perception is effective. It works for people who don't think very deeply about anything. Such are most of the voting populace.
I will agree that being pro-life but at the same time being pro-war is (or should be) an embarrassing double standard. Many conservatives are coming around on the war thing, although not nearly enough of them.
We human beings are an interesting hodgepodge of opinions, most conflicting with each other. Consistency is not one of our virtues.
Pro-warlife is self-cancelling hypocrisy ... but as juxtapostulated here by Gail it is also whataboutism.
I was born at conception. So was/is everybody else.
Was my birth "in/au/spicious" for the pair who preferred to believe sex was for their own purposes? Yeah, it was. And so some au (gold on the periodic chart) was bequeathed to me.
But despite anything rulemakers ever write down on parliamentary papers & compile into occult books, rights inherent & inalienable accrue at birth, which *is* conception.
A sibling of mine, conceived post rule v(ivisect) wombicide, I never met or got to know because s/he was thrown out with the sluicewater because rulemakers permissioned it.
Nuremberg tribunals were, of course, a sham. "Just following orders" is the norm. Always. Whether its Sherman's borrowed "Final Solution" or Operation Paperclip or Operation Coat Hanger & Vacuum in illegal & unlawful back alleys or in legal & unlawful surgeries.
So Niemoller.
First they came for the innocent babies. (So those had to be clinicalized, dehumanized "fetus," "clump of cells" etc. - to protect & assuage the guilty. Cuz get 'em while they are young - & keep 'em that way - is the definition of domestication & animal husbandry.) And I said nothing. Because I was not a baby clump of fetus cells (anymore).
To whom that applies, many will cry like babies when it is them that is come for.
And this is why the last shall become the first is trickery untrue. That last has always been first.
And those lasts - mechanical forms shaped like feet - make the boots made for walkin' all over you.
Pogo Possum continuously meets enemy-self ... but the parliamentarians permission pouches sacrosanct in narrowly specific situations. While absolutely everything surrounding the pouches, satellites included, belongs to the parliamentarians' owners (& that ain't you, citizen-comrade).
If TV addiction is the heart of the disease, then things won't get better until the NFL games, soap operas, and baseball are no longer available and those living in a leisure retirement do not have enough bucks to play golf anymore and watch golf tournaments on TV. Otherwise, people will stay dumb and blind that the country has been taken over permanently and we no longer have a democracy. There has to be hardship and deprivation for anything to change.
It was easy for me to cut the MSM TV cord a decade ago, and go online to replace my information sources. Their horrible intelligence insulting commercials made it even easier for me to get rid of it. I still don't understand how some people can even watch that propaganda.
I also like to read more than the TV watchers, which is what separates readers and watchers.
Unfortunately, most people still prefer to watch the boob tube than to read, and that's really hard to fix or change.
Thanks for reaching out, Wayne. Addiction is not the primary problem as long as it remains the exception to the rule. But now, of course, it is the rule. Addiction is a coping mechanism that helps us deal with spiritual, social, emotional, and physical trauma and pain. As long as the trauma and pain persist unabated we will likely remain addicts regardless of the narcotics we consume or ingest. That said, addiction is not about the narcotic; it's about the behavior -- and all addicts behave pretty much the same way regardless of the narcotic du jour. Be careful what you wish for. Hardships, deprivation, and other extreme circumstances only tend to manufacture more addicts. That's why abstention-based recovery programs are -- for the most part -- statistical failures: abstention is just another form of extreme behavior. And that's why I suggest moderation over abstention. Statistically, the vast majority of addicts in recovery learn to moderate and live with their addictions. And the vast majority of them do so with no expert or medical intervention. At the end of the day, most of us are pretty functional in spite of our addictions. Still, all addictions steal our time, our money, and our freedom. The antidote to addiction is the reintroduction of meaningful ritual in our lives. Like the family dinner table and the Sabbath day of rest. Over time, meaningful rituals replace the mindless rituals of our obsessions and addictions, and compel moderation. BTW, the exact opposite process is how we become addicts in the first place. It happens when the mindless rituals of our obsessions and addictions crowd out the moderating influence of the meaningful rituals that protect the quality of life for ourselves, our families, and our communities. Check out My Ritual Inventory at https://open.substack.com/pub/qolrm/p/intro-to-my-ritual-inventory?r=7hc45&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web. For more on my thoughts about addiction, please check out The Truth About Addiction at https://open.substack.com/pub/qolrm/p/the-truth-about-addiction?r=7hc45&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web. Many thanks once again for reaching out, Wayne. Much appreciated.
Quoted passage refers to a similarly good scene in Peaky Blinders.
Good TV entertainment is moderation & bad TV entertainment is addiction & value / taste / meaning continues as ever to be elusively-exclusively subjective.
Including all the objective impositions of this &/or that subjection.
“Rather, they are toxic byproducts of a commercial mass media whose primary product is addiction…”
Agreed. Undeniable can be disagreeable but not denied or disagreed with. Ha - the addicts beg to differ.
But ….
“The antidote to addiction is the reintroduction of meaningful ritual in our lives. Like the family dinner table and the Sabbath day of rest. Over time, meaningful rituals replace the mindless rituals of our obsessions and addictions, and compel moderation. BTW, the exact opposite process is how we become addicts in the first place. It happens when the mindless rituals of our obsessions and addictions crowd out the moderating influence of the meaningful rituals that protect the quality of life for ourselves, our families, and our communities.”
If nuclear & extended family ritual was all some crack it up to be, including the oft touted ostensible bulwark & barricade separating us from all things worse (or addictive), well, there’d be a lot less worse & addict-directed action.
And Wally & The Beaver, June & Ward would “still” be Cleaver’ing the good life.
The Huxwells are going to say/do what they must. Addiction is compulsion, yes?
So will the Huxtables (well, the writers for that show).
But scratch a Huxtable & often enough you’ll find a Cosby underneath. With roofies in his pocket.
“Well wise up folks, we’re all alone out there, & tomorrow we’re going out there again.” The Big Chill
“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” ~ Hunter Thompson, teetotaler
The bed is made at conception. Courage is not widely distributed, so it must not confer enough advantage. So cur-rage it is.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, but if/when you are in bed with dogs, the fleas are free.
And the fleece feels just like Linus' blankie. Gimme security or give death ... but do disguise that last one.
Thanks for your well-received comment, Andy. The rise of state-sponsored default addiction in the early 21st century happened not in spite of strong families and communities of faith, but in the deliberate absence of them. The dinner table and the sabbath day of rest had long since disappeared from the spiritual and social landscape, at least for most of us. Our addictions are opportunistic; like commercial advertising they prey on unresolved pain and trauma...
I like the addiction skeleton. I think its true. Where the meat meets the road (tires are sometimes slanged “meats” - or they used to be). I guess roads are more often considered circulatory, rather than skeletal, but that’s just on/in, innit? The Tube’s The Road (Cormac McCarthy), too.
And when roads are laid, fossilized skeletal remains turn up. But memento mori ain’t for fainthearts, eh? Get that skull away from me! Fill mine own with pleasantry!
But from Roman Roads to Autobahns all that has gathered is evermore momentum. Speed.
(And ever shorter attention spans. Which is good in the moment on the highway or the racetrack. But the rat race rut race converts, elongates, those appropriate moments into entire lifetimes.)
Now the Romanimal Caesars have decided, apparently, the time has come to slow most of us down. Infrastructure, including roads, maintenance budgets have long been redirected. 15-minute “cities” ~ Shawshank Huxwells ~ are on the march. Quaaludes, not the benzedrine Kowalski gobbled on his high-speed Denver to San Francisco run. And most everybody wants the Vanishing Point.
So acceleration in the 21st cent/ury was just the addition of some more top end (max speed) to the hurtling 20th sentiencery.
More top end at the dead end of “immersive virtuality” &, apparently, heaping helpings, seemingly purely self-served, of rope-a-dopamine … just like what Ali served up to much bigger, much younger, much stronger George Foreman.
That albino (& bleached of character, too) in Cold Mountain: “That’s what you call a conundrum. I tell you what I’ve got on my side. The confidence of youth.”
Bang. There are more precise, accurate, words than “confidence” in contexts like these.
(And a cent’s worth is how much these days?)
As I see it. Experienced it. Drinking lots of wine from lead goblets just isn’t a new thing.
The Beaver was 50’s (When predator hereabouts was Apex. And possibly still is.) sold to the 60’s. So was “Mother’s little helper” sung 60’s re the previous decade (well, valium was ’59, but there were other “helpers” in the 50’s, lots of them). “Mad Men” 50’s period homage to Fast Eddie Bernays et al was dusted off & polished up in the aughts & tens.
Smoking addiction-maximized cigarettes was cool, & the good doctors were paid to attest to the health promoting properties of tar & nicotine. Cocktail hour every afternoon & plural on the weekends in the suburbs, urbs, & way out in the yonder country, too.
Emphysema took my Great Depression stepfather. (After his heart attack he sucked addiction through tar-guards; we kids were tasked with regularly cleaning those out.)
When we cleaned out my Great Aunt’s place (she & the rest of what was left of my ancestry boated over from Germany after The Great Addiction* made lower case t tenable upper case U (belong to us) untenable, we found old, heavyweight paper, shopping bags filled with draw-strung velvety blue Crown Royal sacks … so many that several Emperors Robes could have been “repurposed.”
*Same Great Addiction I - the addiction to end all addictions & make the joint safe for democracy - that fulcrum-informed the writing, scripted dynamics, of Peaky Blinders. And then, after that gauntlet run, Cillian Murphy / Tommy Shelby went on to be/play Robert Oppenheimer. Exponential symmetry turtles all the way down, turtleshroom clouds all the way up, & I am tempted to say “of course.”
Just one purpose, eh?
Trauma & getting high, or low, on this or that self-medication, or doctor-prescribed (as via ranSacklers, for just one more example) medication … well, that ampersand’s a trick.
Like as here: Ouroboros swallows its own tail “&” its own tail infiltrate-penetrates its own throat. The Fight Club schizo beats hell out of himself, & does so regularly.
“Time is a flat disc.” The turntables, tonearms, needles, vinyl, speakers tech gets better & better but the music - cuz the musicians - stays the same.
The illusion of change is the only constant. Because illusion is selected for. And propa-gated behind (psst! Hey kid, wanna get) high granite walls festooned with concertina turner wire (What’s Love Got To Do With It Beyond Thunderdome?) & good little Germans with rifles.
P.S. Speaking of consciousness, Timothy Leary, like Darwin, had it right but backwards: Instead of turn on, tune in, drop out, we might be better advised to turn off, tune out, and drop in...
Thank you for restacking my essay, Winston.
Thank you for restacking my essay, Ahmed.
Great essay. We always used to wonder whether the future would hold 1984 or Brave New World- none of imagined it would be both, at the same time! It seems like tragicomedy is the theme of the last few years of the first quarter of 21st Century for the West. One has to laugh, or one would cry.
Good essay!
After reading the words of perhaps the greatest philosopher of the twenty century, Pogo, came to mind; "We have met the enemy and he is us."
On the other hand, lest Pogo, Huxwell, Buck Fiden and the six o'clock news bums me too far out, I take solace and comfort in the words of Pogo's student, Porky Pine; "Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent."
Thank you, Jim. Truer words were never spoken. Gratitude and laughter are the great tonics of our or any age.
Thank you for the kind comment, Frederick.
Top shelf essay
Excellent, ty. Explains why former addicts are some of the freest cherishing ppl I know.
My pleasure, Heidi. Thanks for reaching out, and what a nice remark! Neither intellect nor freedom, to be sure, is a particularly good hedge against addiction. But the path to recovery is paved with gratitude: always a good place to start, always a great place to end. Thanks again.
thought you'd be interested in this substack as well, an amazing story:
https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/two-generations-to-lose-it-all
I'll check it out. Thanks.
Kunstler's update on the Blob in the District of Corruption.
"“Our government has not failed us. To fail implies there was at least a good faith effort to do the right thing.”
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/blobitis/
Agreed.
Connecting the events of history to see how and why we got where we are today.
"Never in U.S history has any POTUS ever needed a “wag the dog” moment as much as Joe Biden does in 2024—a pivotal POTUS election year."
https://stateofthenation.co/?p=187391
Thank you, Ursel. Check out my latest, When All That Remains is Power: https://open.substack.com/pub/qolrm/p/when-all-that-remains-is-power?r=7hc45&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Teachings from the Pleiadians
"The ultimate tyranny in a society is not control by martial law. It is control by the psychological manipulation of consciousness, through which reality is defined so that those who exist within it do not even realize that they are in prison."
Barbara Marciniak
Thank you for reaching out, Gwyneth, and thank you for subscribing. Agreed: Martial law arrives spiritually, socially, and emotionally long before it shows up with prisons and prison guards. Maybe we have the world's largest prison population precisely because we are the most propagandized nation on earth...
Why not go for broke? The Island of Dr. Moreau, Andromeda Strain,, The Matrix and Soylent Green add a certain je ne sais quois.
Just needed to draw the line somewhere, Gail. Brave New World-1984-Dr. Moreau-Andromeda Strain-Matrix-Soylent Green is a bit of a mouthful...
The deadliest addictions sweeping the globe, destroying society, devastating the minds, bodies and souls of a once rational, insightful and open minded majority are blind hatred,, searing rage and mass conformity. A metastatic contagion.
Classic liberalism is dead. Pragmatism is dead. Curiosity is dead. The real pandemic is a mind virus.
Can’t say the “ Conservatives” are much better. They’ve not changed at all. Zero self awareness, zero desire to modernize, energize or expand their horizons. Singing the same hackneyed tune- off key and refuse to entertain new ideas. Either they are playing to lose deliberately or really have no desire to win. Managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when they have an edge.
Overturning R v W just before a crucial midterm election was a devastating miscalculation. Gunning for a complete ban was worse. Rather than dialing it back. They’ve doubled down, making it the the central focus of the election platform and highlighting the religious predicate. They learned nothing from the Todd Akin debacle which cost the ‘08 election. I am in no way an abortion enthusiast, but neither do I support stripping away another’ reproductive autonomy. Sane parameters, yes, but whatever her reason, the decision is between the womb and her Maker. We’re not a theocracy. . The Constitution is not the Holy Bible , Separation of Church and State, medical freedom, the right to privacy, patient/physician privilege, religious freedom, freedom from government overreach are self explanatory.
And the hypocrisy of the moral righteousness of “ pro-life” zealotry in the womb but cheering for war and now calling to reinstate the draft is stunning. The Party of Freedom? So long as said “ freedom” aligns with a particular religious ideology is not freedom. Nor is late term abortion on demand. Which will be the outcome.And the complete cessation of life as we know it. The Ultimate Revolution is no longer a pipe dream. The Great Reset Agenda 21 globalist takeover is well in the works. The “ Conservatives” havent uttered a peep . Yet abortion is at the top of the ticket? What world are we bringing children into? Slavery.Leaving to our children. Why are they ignoring it? Because they’re corrupt, fraudulent, craven, obtuse cowards.
Lew Rockwell should have run in 2000, or any election thereafter. He has the messaging ability to attract classic liberals, Independents and classic conservatives. Very articulate and unconventional. Those days are gone
Thanks for your comment, Gail. No love lost at this end for either political party right now. Happy to note, however, that Lew Rockwell has started to run my articles on lewrockwell.com.
Lew’s fabulous. Became a very close, unlikely friend that I mischaracterized initially. Matter of fact, I like him more than I do 99% of the population. Interesting story behind it,. As I often reiterate, there’s no such thing as coincidence.
Would love to hear your stories. Feel free to contact me directly at jeff@qolrm.com.
"Sane parameters, yes, but whatever her reason, the decision is between the womb and her Maker. We’re not a theocracy. The Constitution is not the Holy Bible, Separation of Church and State, medical freedom, the right to privacy, patient/physician privilege, religious freedom, freedom from government overreach are self explanatory."
Okay, I see where you're coming from. Notwithstanding that many of us consider abortion murder, yes, we want limits on murder of the unborn. Total bans are unworkable in many jurisdictions, so I don't think you need to worry about that too much.
Can we at least agree that whatever limits are placed on this "procedure", nobody should be forced to subsidize it or pay for it? As Jefferson said, forcing someone to pay for something with which he vehemently disagrees is adding insult to injury.
I would be perfectly happy with a state of affairs in which abortions are rare and are the financial responsibility of whoever is seeking them. The public should not be burdened by them in any way. Abortion is not a right; nobody is obligated to provide for them.
My opinion is that almost nobody cares about the issue, as a political issue, except at the fringes of both camps. The problem occurs when the spin is introduced, painting the opponents of abortion as people who are against rights for women. That created perception is effective. It works for people who don't think very deeply about anything. Such are most of the voting populace.
I will agree that being pro-life but at the same time being pro-war is (or should be) an embarrassing double standard. Many conservatives are coming around on the war thing, although not nearly enough of them.
We human beings are an interesting hodgepodge of opinions, most conflicting with each other. Consistency is not one of our virtues.
Pro-warlife is self-cancelling hypocrisy ... but as juxtapostulated here by Gail it is also whataboutism.
I was born at conception. So was/is everybody else.
Was my birth "in/au/spicious" for the pair who preferred to believe sex was for their own purposes? Yeah, it was. And so some au (gold on the periodic chart) was bequeathed to me.
But despite anything rulemakers ever write down on parliamentary papers & compile into occult books, rights inherent & inalienable accrue at birth, which *is* conception.
A sibling of mine, conceived post rule v(ivisect) wombicide, I never met or got to know because s/he was thrown out with the sluicewater because rulemakers permissioned it.
Nuremberg tribunals were, of course, a sham. "Just following orders" is the norm. Always. Whether its Sherman's borrowed "Final Solution" or Operation Paperclip or Operation Coat Hanger & Vacuum in illegal & unlawful back alleys or in legal & unlawful surgeries.
So Niemoller.
First they came for the innocent babies. (So those had to be clinicalized, dehumanized "fetus," "clump of cells" etc. - to protect & assuage the guilty. Cuz get 'em while they are young - & keep 'em that way - is the definition of domestication & animal husbandry.) And I said nothing. Because I was not a baby clump of fetus cells (anymore).
To whom that applies, many will cry like babies when it is them that is come for.
And this is why the last shall become the first is trickery untrue. That last has always been first.
And those lasts - mechanical forms shaped like feet - make the boots made for walkin' all over you.
Pogo Possum continuously meets enemy-self ... but the parliamentarians permission pouches sacrosanct in narrowly specific situations. While absolutely everything surrounding the pouches, satellites included, belongs to the parliamentarians' owners (& that ain't you, citizen-comrade).
If TV addiction is the heart of the disease, then things won't get better until the NFL games, soap operas, and baseball are no longer available and those living in a leisure retirement do not have enough bucks to play golf anymore and watch golf tournaments on TV. Otherwise, people will stay dumb and blind that the country has been taken over permanently and we no longer have a democracy. There has to be hardship and deprivation for anything to change.
It was easy for me to cut the MSM TV cord a decade ago, and go online to replace my information sources. Their horrible intelligence insulting commercials made it even easier for me to get rid of it. I still don't understand how some people can even watch that propaganda.
I also like to read more than the TV watchers, which is what separates readers and watchers.
Unfortunately, most people still prefer to watch the boob tube than to read, and that's really hard to fix or change.
Democracy was ALWAYS a myth that many still worship - https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/search?q=Democracy+myth&updated-max=2021-11-15T09:26:00-08:00&max-results=20&start=0&by-date=false&m=1 - a collection of articles on the subject revealing REALITY.
Thanks for reaching out, Wayne. Addiction is not the primary problem as long as it remains the exception to the rule. But now, of course, it is the rule. Addiction is a coping mechanism that helps us deal with spiritual, social, emotional, and physical trauma and pain. As long as the trauma and pain persist unabated we will likely remain addicts regardless of the narcotics we consume or ingest. That said, addiction is not about the narcotic; it's about the behavior -- and all addicts behave pretty much the same way regardless of the narcotic du jour. Be careful what you wish for. Hardships, deprivation, and other extreme circumstances only tend to manufacture more addicts. That's why abstention-based recovery programs are -- for the most part -- statistical failures: abstention is just another form of extreme behavior. And that's why I suggest moderation over abstention. Statistically, the vast majority of addicts in recovery learn to moderate and live with their addictions. And the vast majority of them do so with no expert or medical intervention. At the end of the day, most of us are pretty functional in spite of our addictions. Still, all addictions steal our time, our money, and our freedom. The antidote to addiction is the reintroduction of meaningful ritual in our lives. Like the family dinner table and the Sabbath day of rest. Over time, meaningful rituals replace the mindless rituals of our obsessions and addictions, and compel moderation. BTW, the exact opposite process is how we become addicts in the first place. It happens when the mindless rituals of our obsessions and addictions crowd out the moderating influence of the meaningful rituals that protect the quality of life for ourselves, our families, and our communities. Check out My Ritual Inventory at https://open.substack.com/pub/qolrm/p/intro-to-my-ritual-inventory?r=7hc45&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web. For more on my thoughts about addiction, please check out The Truth About Addiction at https://open.substack.com/pub/qolrm/p/the-truth-about-addiction?r=7hc45&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web. Many thanks once again for reaching out, Wayne. Much appreciated.
Good stuff.
“Well said, Alfie.”
Quoted passage refers to a similarly good scene in Peaky Blinders.
Good TV entertainment is moderation & bad TV entertainment is addiction & value / taste / meaning continues as ever to be elusively-exclusively subjective.
Including all the objective impositions of this &/or that subjection.
“Rather, they are toxic byproducts of a commercial mass media whose primary product is addiction…”
Agreed. Undeniable can be disagreeable but not denied or disagreed with. Ha - the addicts beg to differ.
But ….
“The antidote to addiction is the reintroduction of meaningful ritual in our lives. Like the family dinner table and the Sabbath day of rest. Over time, meaningful rituals replace the mindless rituals of our obsessions and addictions, and compel moderation. BTW, the exact opposite process is how we become addicts in the first place. It happens when the mindless rituals of our obsessions and addictions crowd out the moderating influence of the meaningful rituals that protect the quality of life for ourselves, our families, and our communities.”
If nuclear & extended family ritual was all some crack it up to be, including the oft touted ostensible bulwark & barricade separating us from all things worse (or addictive), well, there’d be a lot less worse & addict-directed action.
And Wally & The Beaver, June & Ward would “still” be Cleaver’ing the good life.
The Huxwells are going to say/do what they must. Addiction is compulsion, yes?
So will the Huxtables (well, the writers for that show).
But scratch a Huxtable & often enough you’ll find a Cosby underneath. With roofies in his pocket.
“Well wise up folks, we’re all alone out there, & tomorrow we’re going out there again.” The Big Chill
“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” ~ Hunter Thompson, teetotaler
The bed is made at conception. Courage is not widely distributed, so it must not confer enough advantage. So cur-rage it is.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, but if/when you are in bed with dogs, the fleas are free.
And the fleece feels just like Linus' blankie. Gimme security or give death ... but do disguise that last one.
Thanks for your well-received comment, Andy. The rise of state-sponsored default addiction in the early 21st century happened not in spite of strong families and communities of faith, but in the deliberate absence of them. The dinner table and the sabbath day of rest had long since disappeared from the spiritual and social landscape, at least for most of us. Our addictions are opportunistic; like commercial advertising they prey on unresolved pain and trauma...
I like the addiction skeleton. I think its true. Where the meat meets the road (tires are sometimes slanged “meats” - or they used to be). I guess roads are more often considered circulatory, rather than skeletal, but that’s just on/in, innit? The Tube’s The Road (Cormac McCarthy), too.
And when roads are laid, fossilized skeletal remains turn up. But memento mori ain’t for fainthearts, eh? Get that skull away from me! Fill mine own with pleasantry!
But from Roman Roads to Autobahns all that has gathered is evermore momentum. Speed.
(And ever shorter attention spans. Which is good in the moment on the highway or the racetrack. But the rat race rut race converts, elongates, those appropriate moments into entire lifetimes.)
Now the Romanimal Caesars have decided, apparently, the time has come to slow most of us down. Infrastructure, including roads, maintenance budgets have long been redirected. 15-minute “cities” ~ Shawshank Huxwells ~ are on the march. Quaaludes, not the benzedrine Kowalski gobbled on his high-speed Denver to San Francisco run. And most everybody wants the Vanishing Point.
So acceleration in the 21st cent/ury was just the addition of some more top end (max speed) to the hurtling 20th sentiencery.
More top end at the dead end of “immersive virtuality” &, apparently, heaping helpings, seemingly purely self-served, of rope-a-dopamine … just like what Ali served up to much bigger, much younger, much stronger George Foreman.
That albino (& bleached of character, too) in Cold Mountain: “That’s what you call a conundrum. I tell you what I’ve got on my side. The confidence of youth.”
Bang. There are more precise, accurate, words than “confidence” in contexts like these.
(And a cent’s worth is how much these days?)
As I see it. Experienced it. Drinking lots of wine from lead goblets just isn’t a new thing.
The Beaver was 50’s (When predator hereabouts was Apex. And possibly still is.) sold to the 60’s. So was “Mother’s little helper” sung 60’s re the previous decade (well, valium was ’59, but there were other “helpers” in the 50’s, lots of them). “Mad Men” 50’s period homage to Fast Eddie Bernays et al was dusted off & polished up in the aughts & tens.
Smoking addiction-maximized cigarettes was cool, & the good doctors were paid to attest to the health promoting properties of tar & nicotine. Cocktail hour every afternoon & plural on the weekends in the suburbs, urbs, & way out in the yonder country, too.
Emphysema took my Great Depression stepfather. (After his heart attack he sucked addiction through tar-guards; we kids were tasked with regularly cleaning those out.)
When we cleaned out my Great Aunt’s place (she & the rest of what was left of my ancestry boated over from Germany after The Great Addiction* made lower case t tenable upper case U (belong to us) untenable, we found old, heavyweight paper, shopping bags filled with draw-strung velvety blue Crown Royal sacks … so many that several Emperors Robes could have been “repurposed.”
*Same Great Addiction I - the addiction to end all addictions & make the joint safe for democracy - that fulcrum-informed the writing, scripted dynamics, of Peaky Blinders. And then, after that gauntlet run, Cillian Murphy / Tommy Shelby went on to be/play Robert Oppenheimer. Exponential symmetry turtles all the way down, turtleshroom clouds all the way up, & I am tempted to say “of course.”
Just one purpose, eh?
Trauma & getting high, or low, on this or that self-medication, or doctor-prescribed (as via ranSacklers, for just one more example) medication … well, that ampersand’s a trick.
Like as here: Ouroboros swallows its own tail “&” its own tail infiltrate-penetrates its own throat. The Fight Club schizo beats hell out of himself, & does so regularly.
“Time is a flat disc.” The turntables, tonearms, needles, vinyl, speakers tech gets better & better but the music - cuz the musicians - stays the same.
The illusion of change is the only constant. Because illusion is selected for. And propa-gated behind (psst! Hey kid, wanna get) high granite walls festooned with concertina turner wire (What’s Love Got To Do With It Beyond Thunderdome?) & good little Germans with rifles.
Thank you for your good work.
My pleasure, Andy. Thanks for the illuminating and most entertaining river of consciousness...
P.S. Speaking of consciousness, Timothy Leary, like Darwin, had it right but backwards: Instead of turn on, tune in, drop out, we might be better advised to turn off, tune out, and drop in...
That's why it all has to be destroyed. And it will be.