A brush with sobriety
The thought occurred to me, during my lovely long weekend in Sydney, that I haven't had a single weekend in which my mind has not been altered at some stage with narcotics or alcohol for at least a year. I say a year but really it's an indeterminate amount of time which only serves to further illustrate the unscrupulous lifestyle upon which I've been subsisting for however long it's been! Not that this has been a shocking revelation to say the least, but I've allowed myself to ignore the moral and health related implications of this Machiavellian existence in the interest of satisfying my own curiosity and risk taking, fun seeking nature.
But what prompted me to seriously think about these implications was a conversation I had with a boy named Danny over the weekend, while he was coyly sharing with me the assortment of information he'd come to know about me through other people. One such morsel was that I am apparently a drug addict (thanks Josh), to which I protested of course, admittedly with slightly less vigour than I could probably have mustered if I really wanted to. Danny asked me how often I dabbled with the illicit party favours, and after a few seconds of mental mastication I replied, "Um, every weekend?"
Well, apparently this is not normal behaviour. It was his surprise at this confession which catalysed my reconsideration of my reasons in pursuing my wily weekend antics. The obvious reason being that I want to escape from the monotony of my job but perhaps more paradoxically, the routine lifestyle perpetuated by a monotonous job and the desire to escape it using drugs and alcohol at every feasible opportunity. So, it appears we have a dilemma.
On the surface simplicity, we have a fairy-tale boy who grows up in a provincial village, always dreaming of the limitless possibilities and exciting characters of the big city, a magical land far, far away. He happens to like taking drugs and drinking with his friends because like practically every modern bohemian human, he believes this behaviour is conducive to fun and excitement. But the darkest pit in me knows all too well the futility of this perpetual cycle, and the fatalistic paradox contained therein. So what is our fairy-tale boy to do?
Well, I'm going to do what I always do... experiment. After another throw of metaphoric dice we may be able to see just how fatalistic this cyclical lifestyle really is.
I will go an entire weekend without alcohol or drugs.
A toddler's stride to be sure, but experimentation with sobriety is not something to be taken lightly. This is dangerous territory, after all.
But what prompted me to seriously think about these implications was a conversation I had with a boy named Danny over the weekend, while he was coyly sharing with me the assortment of information he'd come to know about me through other people. One such morsel was that I am apparently a drug addict (thanks Josh), to which I protested of course, admittedly with slightly less vigour than I could probably have mustered if I really wanted to. Danny asked me how often I dabbled with the illicit party favours, and after a few seconds of mental mastication I replied, "Um, every weekend?"
Well, apparently this is not normal behaviour. It was his surprise at this confession which catalysed my reconsideration of my reasons in pursuing my wily weekend antics. The obvious reason being that I want to escape from the monotony of my job but perhaps more paradoxically, the routine lifestyle perpetuated by a monotonous job and the desire to escape it using drugs and alcohol at every feasible opportunity. So, it appears we have a dilemma.
On the surface simplicity, we have a fairy-tale boy who grows up in a provincial village, always dreaming of the limitless possibilities and exciting characters of the big city, a magical land far, far away. He happens to like taking drugs and drinking with his friends because like practically every modern bohemian human, he believes this behaviour is conducive to fun and excitement. But the darkest pit in me knows all too well the futility of this perpetual cycle, and the fatalistic paradox contained therein. So what is our fairy-tale boy to do?
Well, I'm going to do what I always do... experiment. After another throw of metaphoric dice we may be able to see just how fatalistic this cyclical lifestyle really is.
I will go an entire weekend without alcohol or drugs.
A toddler's stride to be sure, but experimentation with sobriety is not something to be taken lightly. This is dangerous territory, after all.