Intoxication

I like looking up synonyms for words.

I try not to use them too often, but I like knowing what they are because they often tell us a little more about a word.

The synonyms for intoxicate are things like inebriate, befuddle, and impair. Also, things like excite, exhilarate, enthrall, delight and entrance.

When we get intoxicated we are generally seeking the latter set of effects and experiences, but they are closely tied to the former set. Part of what makes intoxication so alluring is the way it, through “befuddling” us, makes things seem much more exciting and interesting than they are.

It is weird that we need this at all.

We suddenly, through no effort (or fault) of our own, arrive in this reality.

We have to learn how to exist and survive on this planet in a hostile and crazy universe. There are all these ironclad laws built into reality. Then, there are these created rules and beliefs about why they are there. We are surrounded by other members of our own species, some friendly and others hostile. There are also thousands of other species, not to mention these weird things that grow from the ground.

It’s all wide-open, all brand new, all completely up to us.

And we react with boredom.

It is an odd thing that this life is not enough for us. It is an odd thing that we constantly try to add new things to it. That we take so much for granted. I think that this is getting worse and worse as we walk deeper into the delusion that we have conquered reality and that nature exists apart from us (or that we are above it).

This week we will look at things I have used to intoxicate myself over the years, and how I try to avoid this now.

Thanks for reading.