The New York City Journals, Part VI: It's Not a Habit; It's Cool; I Feel Alive
We've lived in bars, danced on tables, and collected grudges like antique dolls in a curio cabinet until each one came to life and haunted us to death
The word “addiction" comes from the Latin word "addicere", which means enslaved by or bound to.
Remember Gollum's unhealthy obsession with the ring? It read like a motorized compulsion—a soul-sucking, til-death-do-us-part love affair hijacking the mind, governing the hand. You know the story; there's no need to name it. And it's not a tale of reckless subconsciousness, unrealized dreams, or memoir besmirch.
I mention the best-selling and widely acclaimed Middle-earth tale because, interestingly, the actor who played Gollum in the film adaptation modeled his relationship with the ring on the concept of addiction.
Aptly known, One Ring—a fictional symbol of overwhelming control has a powerful, real-world parallel.
Controlled chaos. Mass hysteria. Collective consciousness.
If we are all one, we are working on a chain gang.
You should know that, amongst motherhood, a creeping economic recession, occasional outrage, apathetic ADHD, and the constant conscious choosing of water over vodka to wash it all down, I study, hypothesize, theorize, and dissect the human experience en masse, and ad nauseam.
Then, I write about it—likely for only my palate, semantically speaking. Intentionally, I address an audience of one. I behave selfishly like this. But I see you, dear reader, and I'm sincerely grateful you are here. Half my life I spent selfishly like that—guarded, cold, conniving, callous, and cruel for sport, survival, social status.
Nowadays, in waxing neurophilosophy, spotlighting my sins, and spitting prose—a self-proclaimed servant of truth—the inherent empathy and gentle intuition which I hid beneath layers of leather, tattoos, and temper tantrums sparkles bright like a fucking jeweled tiara.
Of my inner monologue's plethora of mantras and mania, I have a favorite line: Addiction trumps logic every time. Well, I did until today, anyway, when I repeated it for the thousandth time to my father during a conversation, and he reminded me of an even bigger, more significant L word defenseless against addictive behavior: LOVE.
Twenty years removed from penning pain on the death den diary pages before you, I am confident of one thing for sure: I am not an addict—never was.
Nope, you're not one, and neither is your neighborhood pothead or pill-popping relative on that side of the family. I will get flack for this statement; hear me out, anyway.
To paraphrase Dr. Gabor Mate (my #1 truth plug these days), we are not addicts but rather human beings in so much pain—whether mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or otherwise—that engaging in an activity often clearly adversely consequential and even fatal, seems a viable relief from such despair and existential misery, although only temporary reprieving.
Addiction, like the One Ring, drives people to act against their values and instincts, fostering isolation and damaging relationships. But you, I, he, she, they, them—we are not that.
We, hedonistic homo sapiens, are channels—love, hope, peace, ingenuity, kindness, sympathy, fortitude, wisdom, and safety.
Some folks will not accept as truth that sometimes human instruments play in a key that breaks our hearts–probably a D minor–when we want an upbeat dance anthem. Channeling love, empathy, and connection is to reveal mountains that need moving, messiness that won't wait until morning, and hard things that will not turn soft with time.
Watch for those who rub your stubborn selfishness the wrong way; they are your teachers. Perhaps they are mirrors, too. If you're lucky, they're multipliers.
I'm drinking someone elses liquor.
I don’t know what it is....
I could die. I want to cry.
Is it the city or is it me?
I don’t stop because I don’t want to,
or I don’t have the courage.
But I have the power.
My mind races. I’m lost.
I’m not happy, nor am I sad.
I’m uncertain. I’m young and I'm lost.
I want what I don’t have. I have what I don’t need.
I used to be so different, so pure, so real.
But I am immune to my feelings, and I don’t know what I feel.
Whatever your unhealthy attachment, vice, bailiwick, or bad habit, it does not define you unless you allow it, of course. Please exist as more than a diary of diagnosis after diatribe, dysfunction after dilemma after deathwish. Design your destiny and dance like this is all a dream, dammit.
Within the field of consciousness that contains our conscious awareness of existing and continuing sense of personal identity, an ego exists—sprawling, like a mycelial network, often called the World Wide Web, proliferating between our feet right this moment.
Inflated ego, all cavalier and cunning, rolls with saboteur cronies—resistance and resentment. Invite those bastards in, and poof! Suddenly, one understands the law of averages they referenced when they told you that you are the sum of your five closest cohorts.
I still don’t know exactly who they are.
But…
Identity, energy, attitude, idiosyncrasy: You write this script.
So who the fuck are you?
I'm Ashley, and I am a spirit having a human experience.
