It was almost midnight by the time I started to think about things again. An early October night in Manhattan where I couldn’t tell if I was hot or cold, wet or dry, humid or perfect. The yellow din of the city lights in the overcast sky made it impossible to tell the time from looking up. As I looked out my window into the average New York City courtyard I couldn’t tell if it was 1927 or 2019. Wooden water towers, exposed drooping wires and bricks, tons of crumbling bricks, all flanked by rusty old fire escapes.
This is the life we have chosen. With all the beauty in the word — this is where we spend our time. I know better. Everyone knows better. But we still do it. Always waiting to leave. Always taking the first invitation to get away and talk about how we just loooooove nature. But then we go straight back. Right into the city. We head back in with the same energy we ran away from. I gotta be back before 9am.
For what? For who? If this is your life right now and it could end at any moment (or so we read on inspirational Instragm accounts) then why choose to participate in something that we don’t enjoy for a large majority of the time. This is the opposite of all the teachings, all the learnings and basically all the laws of the way things are.
But we do it. And not just a few people — most people. And according to the statistics — more and more each year flock to the city for this energy.
Why?
Fuck! I do it. And I know better. But I’m addicted to it. In 12 step programs they say the first stage in dealing with addiction is awareness. When you begin to deal with your addictions you start by saying. ‘My name is Zach and I am addicted to XYZ.’ Or whatever it is that you are addicted to.
Now here inlies the problem — I don’t know what I am addicted to or what brings me to places like New York City all the time. What brings me back to the hustle, the grind, the office? It’s not money. If I was addicted to money I’d probably make a lot more of it. It’s not sex, that’s better when I don’t have daily stand up meetings and calendar notifications. It’s not drugs, those are better when you can be free and safe. Basically everything is better and cheaper outside of these places. But still — we rush, hustle, earn, achieve and spend.
It doesn’t feel like I am choosing it. It feels unconscious — something I can’t control. When I smoke a cigarette I know what I am doing. I buy the pack, light it and smoke it. But with this — it’s a series of small decisions and moments and before I know it; I’m scheduled, mortgaged, rented, leased and spoken for. “Please email me so I can work it into my calendar. How’s next Thursday at 4PM?”
It feels like we don’t have another choice. The other choice is to “throw it all away.” But it’s impossible to know what ‘it all’ is because this whole concept is just too complex to grasp.
Welcome to the post Industrial Revolution American Dream. Where we are here to produce, create and become more. The problem of becoming more is that infers that right now is not enough. That current striving for the future, which will be better than now — never happens. But it always keeps us from being present. It creates a pervasive and persistent agitation.
The culture we are in is gifting this ‘Dream’ to the world as we spread our philosophies and ways of life.
What is the cure?
Find the ancient, the still, the grounded and present. Seek the tribal cultures, the shamans and medicine men. Go listen to something that takes too long and spend a whole day going nowhere on purpose, Thorou called it a ‘saunter.’ Make art for arts sake, do something nice for somoen for no reason. Sit near a creek and watch the water go by. Seek all of these things and savor them — like a gourmet delight of human existence. Protect these moments, people and experiences. Learn their ways and help to keep them part of our human experience. Because like the white rhino or the great ape — you never know when the last remaining one will just be an attraction in a zoo held on by life support.
I’m addicted… was originally published in RETURN on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.