Monday, July 17, 2017

Lesson 016 ~Addiction~

Hey Lady Lu,
First, let me say, RIP George Romero, the man created his own genre and is responsible for my preoccupation with death, not my own, zombies my dear zombies. Of course, the rest of world, my country, for the most part, seems obsessed with death, leave it to billions to end the living and just one man to make sure the dead stay down for good.

Dead men tell no tales, George Romero and some law enforcement have put an end to that don’t you know; another reason everyone is trying to live forever. What are we afraid we’ll miss the next meme, getting a few more likes, our chance to be famous, and of course we don’t want anyone finding out all of our secrets do we. No, Luna, we want to broadcast them out loud ourselves or maybe we just seek to leave a part of ourselves, inspiration perhaps as George Romero has done.

Now I can’t say if the man could have been addicted to all things zombie and yes I’m well aware I’m a fanboy myself of zombie culture but today’s lesson is about our addictions. I wish I could be nicer about it, call them passions, enthusiasms, interests and the like but I’m not one to look on the bright side of life, despite what the song says. So what is an addiction because I’m never one to take my own word for these sort of things so of course, I have been doing a bit of reading on the subject.

“Addiction is a persistent, compulsive dependence on a behavior or substance.” The Free Dictionary

“the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.” Dictionary.com

“a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences.” Wikipedia
Would I call my zombie fix as my friend would call it an addiction, I would say I could be reading a book except “I Am Legend”, “The Walking Dead” and hundreds of others are books so if it is, I wouldn’t call it a bad one. Then again Lady Lu you remember me and books at school once upon a time and then when I was growing up, let’s just say I learned all of Victoria’s Secrets…Cara Delevingne nowadays.

“There’s no time for us,
There’s no place for us,
What is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us.” – Queen, Who Wants To Live Forever (1986)

You know when I was in school I was “addicted” hmm… obsessed, manic, anxiety driven to read, and no not my school books but anything else, especially end of the world scenarios or final battles, from Alas, Babylon to “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”. My parents, my teachers, pretty much everyone I knew considered this a problem, yeah I was the epitome Henry Bemis “Time Enough at Last”, and people wonder why I pray for the end of the world, as long as a library is still standing or I find a way to generate power, I’ll be good.

There are so many worse things Luna, I know people who drink plenty and to be perfectly honest, some have problems, some don’t but it’s annoying as hell but I don’t drink do I. How about this girl at work who quit smoking and then I see her yesterday, not smoking but vaping and I asked was there a difference and she said “scientifically yes” What about drugs in general, yeah I’m no one to judge because I take pills to try and keep me reasonable and when I’m without them… if today was any indication I screw up plenty.

“Since the day I met you
And after all, we’ve been through
I’m still a dick
I’m addicted to you
I think you know that it’s true
I’d run a thousand miles to get you
Do you think I deserve this?” – Simple Plan, Addicted (2003)

This is the worst of it for me love/lust, let’s just put it under the term of intimacy and like most guys, it’s in our freaking genetics, our biology, and like most medications made in the USA the cure is worse than the virus. Don’t worry Luna, between memories of “the incident” yet again, having a “fix” this morning, I think I’m back on the Ned Flanders band wagon but I’m sure I’ll be back to being “Pookie” in no time. Isn’t that just another one, if it isn’t violence, or “stuff and things”, I’m addicted to pop culture and that’s not helping anybody really.

“We just have to hope they remember the antidote.
That’s assuming they ever bothered to create one.” Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Babel

If you ask me how most addictions start it’s the fact that no one wants to be here, now tell me what’s wrong with here, why does it take all these things to feel or even to dull the senses of what’s here, to live through this. Once upon a time I swore, I would have one more addiction, one more vice, and then I would grow up and that I did Luna, from Pokémon to The Hunger Games, and now erotica.

How about the time I swore I would never be like one of those people walking around glued to their phone, what happened to the guy that would sit at the lake all day lost in the water or lost in his own mind? I walk around Luna watching while the masses played Pokémon and now they have those fidget spinners and for some reason, I feel better than them.

“Look at yourselves. Unplug from your chairs, get up and look in the mirror. What you see is how God made you. We’re not meant to experience the world through a machine.” – Surrogates (2009)

We’re lost my dear Luna, some more than most, I hate those fidget spinners, I abhor the idea that people can’t sit through a movie in a theater or even on my couch without checking their phone every two minutes, people are killing people because of texting while driving, animals who should be free are made examples of because of stupid moms on smartphones and hunters. I’m no better though, I thought that machines would make me free and we’ve talked about freedom but they also make me, what was her word “skeevy” am I right? The fact remains though the simple fact that I can talk to you like this, that there is some sort of record at all, isn’t that worth something, is it safe to say this right here is an addiction?

“Mr. Henry Bemis, on an eight-hour tour of a graveyard.” Time Enough at Last

I’m sorry if I sound preachy when I talk to you, again you’re the best therapist I know and here’s something else I know, I’m sounding like that TV show Mr. Robot, which can’t be a good thing. The fact that I’ve never watched it but thanks to Facebook I know the “F*uck Society” monolog means either A: I’m more lost than I thought or B: I’m actually seeing this stuff first hand and it’s just coming out of me. Personally one of my biggest addictions is anxiety and that’s not one I chose but for me, it justifies the rest if you only saw what I did this morning all on the grounds of avoiding social interaction, even with all this technology we have.

So what have I learned, we’re all sick, all addicts, that it’s all in the eye of the beholder, and that I don’t know how to stop it. Well actually I know but that would make me sound like a psychopath and I’m trying not to be; Ned Flanders Addiction.

“I really don’t hold with knowing the future, even my own, which is short. I mean, if we knew for a fact there was an afterlife, and that the afterlife was bliss eternal, we’d all commit suicide in order to be able to enjoy it.” Mandemus – Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

“We are the Walking Dead” Rick Grimes, The Walking Dead