Saturday, July 4, 2009

Cancer and Addiction

In our society we tend to get the impression that in order to be happy in one's life you must do certain things in order to attain such a state. You must get a good job, make a lot of money, have a family, etc. Once you do all of these things then somehow, magically, you will be fulfilled and that void in the center of your being will cease to exist.

It is apparent to me now, that our society as a whole has no clue how to live life in a healthy and meaningful manner. In life, it does not matter what you do, who you are with, where you live; in order to be fulfilled and close that void in the center, you must realize that there is nothing you can do to close the void. There is no action or inaction that you can take which will force yourself into a state of happiness. There is no use trying to avoid fear or any part of life that is distasteful, in fact this only makes things worse. It is only a matter of knowing that life is truly simple in its mass complexity. The moment; the here and the now is where the mind must be if we are to ever survive as a species.

As far as we know, we are the only animal on the planet that is consciously self aware. This is our blessing and our curse. It means that we have the ability to see how our actions will alter our reality and change our future. The only problem being that we are all out to make our own lives better. "I" come first and everything and everyone else comes later. If you look at the the earth you realize that everything that exists here lives in a simple balance of extreme complexity. The life of one species is mutually beneficial to others and vice-verse. This is true for all species, except for ours. If mother earth was a body and a life in of itself, humans would be the cancer of that body. We are the cells gone astray. We are not helping or being beneficial to the whole, we are simply there taking all the resources around us and using them to grow larger and larger. There are only two possible outcomes when it comes to cancer; either the cancer kills the host or the host kills the cancer. Unless we change, we are on a pathway to our own destruction. A path that we can all clearly see coming, yet cannot avoid. We would like to avoid it, but we do not understand why we are on this path in the first place or how we got there.

We are much to busy trying to control the future...trying to set things up so that we will be happy tomorrow or the next day or a year from now. We do not even know what this word happy means. It is just some vague idea of what life might be like if everything were perfect. Most of us have not ever experienced this happiness that we can remember. However, there was a time when all of us experienced that which we all seek. Memory cannot hold this experience which is exactly why an individual cannot think themselves into a state of happiness. Thought is all based on memory, knowledge and experience. As soon as we realize we are in a state of happiness and ask ourselves why, that state ceases to exist. Thought must be taken out of the equation.

There is a reason why in a state of economic depression, one of the industries that actually saw a gain in sales is the entertainment sector. When people feel down and out they look for something to distract them from how they are feeling. This is the true root of addiction. How can a person turn down the idea that they can do something here and now that will take their mind completely off of that which is troubling them? When the mind is completely focused on one specific thing, (be it video games, a movie, rock climbing, gardening, biking, sex or any action) the mind is then not focused on that which is unsettling. Of course, these actions are perceived to be relatively harmless and of course people would be right. The action is not harmless, but it is the reason that you are doing these things that are. If these actions are used as an escape from the thoughts that you are trying to run away from, then it is a huge problem...one that is not addressed or even understood in society as a whole. This is why the drug wars will go on forever. As long as we do not understand the root of our problems, they will never get solved.

Why is there such a dichotomy when it comes to Marijuana? There is a call by a growing group in America to legalize Marijuana because it is not harmful and actually helps people who have chronic pain. These people say that pot is non addictive, while others say it is. Scientifically we know that pot is not chemically addictive and mind altering like alcohol and harder drugs out there. Yet all of us at some time or another have met a person who seems to be addicted to it. Marijuana, like everything else, is not free from it's addictive capabilities. It all depends on why you are smoking it. Is a person using it to run away from the thoughts that plague them or are they using it for something else? Pot is just the lightning rod which blatantly demonstrates our societies misunderstanding with the true root of the problem. Anything can be addictive if it is used to run away from fear...and we are all running.