“ There is a price to be paid for every increase in consciousness. We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.” - Alan Watts
What if I told you, that you couldn’t fix anything and that some things are meant to stay broken?
There’s a harsh truth about the world that I’ve only just now learned. I don’t think the world is meant to be perfect at all. I don’t think humans are supposed to alter anything. I think the world was made exactly as it was supposed to be made.
I’ve noticed that humans see something less than good and rush to remedy it. We are zealous over pleasure but cannot take the pain. But, I believe that the relationship between pleasure and pain is like a slingshot. The farther you pull it back, the equivalent amount of distance it will be shot. Likewise, the more pleasure you succumb to, the equivalent amount of pain will be dawned upon you. I call this the “congruent law.”
This makes sense when looking at illegal drugs and their consumption. The larger the high, the bigger the fallout. There is a reason they say when you start using alone or you start injecting that it’s over for you — once the high becomes so large that you cannot see the other side, the other side starts to come for you. By trying to outrun, you get slower.
The congruent law is most often seen with opiates — the effects of opiate withdrawal are exactly opposite to the symptoms of using. Symptoms of using include pain relief, decreased blood pressure, pupil constriction, flushed and warm skin, and euphoria. Symptoms of withdrawal include extreme pain, increased blood pressure, pupil dilation, chilliness, and irritability/dysphoria. It’s almost comical how congruent they are in opposite ways. If anything, the symptoms of using are a warning sign for what it will be like without the drug.
People use these drugs because they are attempting to fix their brain and their circumstances. They are trying to fix things that aren’t supposed to be fixed. When I used drugs a lot, it was under the guise of trying to fix my consciousness. I was under the assumption that a sober consciousness is too boring and “lame” to deal with. By taking mind-altering drugs, I was trying to rewrite what it meant to be human. I was essentially saying that life itself was not entertaining enough for me, and I was saying that I was powerful enough to make life a spectacle, instead of an obligation, which looking back now, is very naive.
I’m not writing this to be the uncool parent who hates drugs. I’m writing this to alleviate the notion that drugs can and will be your “dream escape.” The only thing that will escape you is all the habits and hobbies you’ve built up thus far. I look around me and I see kids my age with personalities no bigger than the drugs they abuse. I wonder if they have any attention span, any motivation, or any natural source of drive anymore. I wonder if they can do homework without Adderall. I wonder if they can sleep without tranquilizers.
Another big issue is the promotion of psychiatric medications to people who don't need them. Sure, some people do in fact need them when their condition cripples them from functioning in society. But if you are high functioning, there are alternative methods than trying to "fix" and rewire the brain with questionable correlational methods.
As someone with bipolar disorder, I had been put on mood stabilizers when I have mild symptoms and all it did was numb me so severely that I had no care for anything in my life and I had to go off of them. But after I had a manic episode that landed me in the psych ward and was exhibiting extreme bipolar symptoms, the medication only stabilized me. This is typically the same for anxiety and depression medications. For people who don't need them, they just end up numbing them to the point of ceasing complaints.
To me, this just shows a very human desire to control the brain and personality traits. We see someone anxious or show symptoms of mild depression and we become scared of abnormality. Before you know it, everyone is on the medication and that becomes the new normal. Where does it stop?
I wonder how that is fixing anything. We take anti-anxiety medication to fix our anxious moods and overthinking. We take antidepressants to fix our emotional outbursts. We take stimulants to fix our distractibility and boredom. Everywhere, we are looking for a “fix.”
But, as someone who loves the brain but also loves drugs, I sat confused for a long time. I didn’t know how those things could coincide. It seemed like it was one or the other.
I am going to tell you a secret. You can’t be fixed. And that anxious trait of yours…that’s all it is: a personality trait. At the center is not that there is something fundamentally wrong with you that requires fixing. No, what lies at the center is hatred and a desire to control. We hate that we were born with these predetermined traits or characteristics. We were born with unfixable troubles that seem to only be remedied by a pill. At its core we are not anxious or depressed: we are fucking angry. And it’s a frustrating thing, to be born with unchangeable circumstances and be able to do nothing about it. We, as humans, want to be able to do something about it! That’s the reason we have come so far with innovation and invention. We love fixing and advancing and changing. But we cannot change our circumstances. We cannot change our brains. We cannot change our consciousness. And instead of pondering over this and letting it destroy us, we self-medicate. We cover ourselves with the blanket of self-denial, that we are more powerful than we actually are. We just really, really hate being human.
I feel now I have accepted my role as a human — and that is to live. But by trying to capture life and put it into a snow globe, we are missing the whole point of the damn thing. I have been doing everything other than live. I have been avoiding the present moment like the plague, the moments in my life seeming like I was either taking a hit or I was waiting for a hit. That's absolutely no way to live. I know domesticated dogs who have a happier time in life than that.
We can’t live like robots — our addictions being our power supply, that if someone pulled the cord we would be dead in days.
The only way to use drugs healthily is to research their impacts on the brain. If marijuana smokers actually read up on the effects of the drug, I can promise you not as many people would be smoking daily as they are now. This goes for alcohol as well.
I made the mistake of taking drugs without researching them properly, then acted surprised when they slingshotted me into addiction and reliance.
You must realize, maybe you are meant to be broken in this way. As Rumi said, “the wound is the place where the light enters you.” Maybe there is nothing you can do to fix who you are. Maybe this is what you are supposed to be. Maybe it's time you accept who you are.
People say to act the way you wish to be. I think the only person you should aim to be like is yourself, but it seems like everyone is spending time working on being everything other than themselves. It seems like humans are spending time working on being everything other than being human.
