Saturday, September 27, 2008
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I definitely don't blog as often as I used to and there's not much to write about anymore.
But I read. I read the Weekend Australian Mag today.. at work. I was so bored. And this article. It made me smile. It made me laugh. And although I really tried to find the article online to credit it, I couldn't find it. But I'd like to share this article with you all. I hope you find it just as amusing as I did.
Author: Will Storr.
Title: Sobriety? I'll drink to that - if you can keep your head when all about you are out of theirs... (no, I didn't get that line either..)
The first time I got drunk I was alone. Twelve years old, sat upstairs with a stolen cup of cider, just one sip of which made me want to spin with my arms out and giggle. What I remember most about that moment is how much it frightened me. One taste and I was transformed. Electrifies. Up in the air. The gabble of anxious voices in my head suddenly coalesced into a single one; a brand new version of me that was confident, joyful and fierce. As the happy danger spread warmly up my body, I knew. This was too nice to be anything good, too powerful to be holy. I poured the rest of the fizzing potion into the bathroom sink and watched it disappear down the plughole like a hissing serpent.
That night, I had a revelation from the most primitive depths of my brain. It gave me a terrible feeling, like that split-second when you know you're going to fall out of the tree but haven't yet started to tumble. I was scared because I knew, then, exactly what was going to happen: hedonism would possess me in my teens and 20's. It would piss its brilliant evil all over me and I'd have to drag myself, shivering out of its reach. I realise now it was inevitable that I'd one day become a teetotal. The truth is, some people simply aren't built for excess. I'm one of them.
For people like me hedonism is terrifying, an internal force, because it provides everything we need most in a form that couldn't be more dangerous for us. You see, we're full of holes, and in our hopeless attempts to fill them we crave love, attention and respite from anxiety. Hedonism provides all these things. Stimulants give us the confidence to talk and act like those miraculous people we see on TV. They enable us to negotiate dirty encounters in strange bedrooms and experience total acceptance in a concentrated dose.
But the problem is, we're not strong enough for it. When the amphetamines and gin release the pressure, we can't deal with the explosion. We can't be extroverted without hating ourselves later, we can't get drunk without crying or smashing stuff up, we can't have casual sex without falling in love. We need it all much too badly. We become tormented by fun. And so, inevitably, we give it all up. But for all the pre-teetotallers out there, I have good news: it doesn't have to be the end of pleasure. The teetotal way has many quiet delights, all of which are deliberately kept hidden from people still caught up in that noxious parade of spunk and shouting they call a social life. If you're planning on joining me, here's a l ist of things you need to do:
(Weeks later)
omfg. I lost my magazine. So I can't finish this post. You see what happens when things are left undone?
Fortunately, the best bits are mostly in the essay above.
-{ missing you 9/27/2008 03:35:00 pm }-