Seriously, more than half the population uses something that numbs, alters our state of mind, or sedates us. whether it be medication, drugs, alcohol, tv, gambling, compulsive shopping, food, needing constant company of others, the list goes on. It’s alarming to think that there are so few people that are actually living life completely sober, with nothing to distract them from themselves or life. If you could respond to this questionaire your answers would be appreciated, also any other commentary you might have.
Why do we do this? Why do you do it? Is it because we don’t want to deal with our own personal issues? Do we not want to deal with life? Are we weak?
If you use something as a way to numb yourself what is it?
The way I see it, humans have got to do two things: 1) Eat and 2) Fuck. Modern society makes it so that we don’t have to hunt for our prey, we simply need to go down to our local grocery and fulfill that very basic need. Done. Now the other part is slightly more complex, however very achievable.
Once we have accomplished both of these things something interesting happens. We get bored. So we try to simulate the primal desires of 1 and 2 by what you consider “sleeping”. Some people engage in recreational drugs and other activity that society attaches negative moral judgment upon. Others exert themselves creatively, be it through music, writing, conversation, painting, or being part of a captive audience etc. In any case, an element of escapism is involved. But I would argue that every single one of these activities are reflections upon the human condition itself and therefore there can be no morality attached to any of these acts.
So basically, we’re not asleep, so much as we are living out Nietzsche’s Dionysian.
Sometimes I’ll find myself staring at a rerun of Highlander, then staring at the commercials when they come on - completely comatosed. No real thoughts going on… I’m just taking in the data in some delta state trance that puts my brain less active than when it actually is asleep.
Then I’ll smoke a joint and watch the same show, suddenly I’m not even focused on the show so much as my own thoughts. I see the show for what it is, some moving pictures on a screen. I see the props in the background… etc.
Awake/Dreaming… I think so long as you’re asking the question in the first place, you’re probably alright. It’s when you wake up one day, for real, and realize you flushed 5 years of your life down the toilet watching ‘Meet your new mommy’ and ‘Fox News’ that you’re fucked.
Like Bruno said, it’s escapism. Do you want to null your brain after work, or do you want to gun it into the red while in neutral with a hit of crystal meth?
Even the effects of sex and love are no escape from the neurochemical sweatshop we all work for.
its hard waking up into a world thats sleeping. and once you do your the crazy one, your fucked up, this isnt like you. you stop hiding yourself thinking others are nice. but no one will look at you, and you will get sick again. unless of course you can stay awake long enough to find love.
You may not be completely awake yet. Seems to me that such an assumption is mostly a reflection from within, an internally generated illusion or fantasy rather than something based on external observation.
So love will make it all good? Isn’t this the same mistake as “assuming” that others are nice?
If you include TV in the list you are basically widening the range of objects to almost anything humans find pleasurable. Our day to day pleasures are our way of maintaining a kind of equalibrium. Do Not confuse pleasures with being asleep, humans always need something there for them, there is always something in someone that they like to take to the extreme.