Nature of the Beast

Really, crazy busy today.

I took a sick day on Friday, and the catch-up has been a bit...overwhelming.

Eh. These things happen. My body done broke. Like I wasn't broken already. Or at least put together wrong. I was assembled from an IKEA catalogue. I don't know if you know that.

At the end of the day, I imagine every issue you face come down to faith, and what you put your faith in. I liked how in A Million Little Pieces, James relates people's recovery by using the Twelve Steps as just replacing one addiction for another. I understand that an addiction to God or some other Higher Power is at least healthier than, say, crack or whatnot; but there has to be an awareness that you are filling one hole of one need with something else. Even Anne Rice has both lost and found her faith. Her newfound faith has made my roomie Devon lose his.

But I guess that's what we all do. What is habit? ritual? addiction?

Speaking as a fairly compulsive person myself, I struggle with the idea. I never go through physical withdrawl when I stop smoking, but the habits I develop around smoking are fairly fixed and in place. I wouldn't know what to do with the five minutes after I eat. Or when I need to escape a bar after a drink. And then there's that drink in the first place.

We are addicted to drinking, drugs, smoking, shopping, sex, money, each other...

Is there a single thing that we do that we are not inexplicably drawn to by some sort of need beyond the very basic? And to what degree does it become unhealthy? You could say that it's unhealthy when it starts to affect other areas of our lives, but if you've structured your life around certain habits (take a "harmless" one--like shopping, or something), is there ever a gauge of when it turns to the unhealthy?

Habit. Hobby. Addiction.

Withdrawl.

We're all trying desperately to fill the void. Ritual. Substance. Substances. Pattern.

I am in withdrawl. I don't know for what, but I have felt almost desperate about clinging to everything around me, and I haven't figured out what I lost in the first place that makes me feel this way. I am trying to replace something with anything, but I have nothing more to modify and clarify other than those general terms.

I am missing Something. I have lost Something. I am looking for Anything.

Rinse. Repeat.

These are the rituals and addictions that help us sleep. They bring us dreams from the Big Empty and seek to fill it with something else.

Sleep well. The void is lonely and wants some company.