I just had an epiphany about why people are drawn to addiction; especially in terms of a bright young lad like yourself.
There is a Buddhistic edict that one must give up desire. This is hard to do, particularly when your mind has a the bent and great yen for knowing and delving into so much; the heat for following your passions where ever they might lead. All this wanting to know often leads to a great deal of wanting to possess, if even because the acquisition of thing or person in question - that diadem you currently want to pluck - even if just because having it will lead to knowing it, and thus the world, better. Possession. The burning to have it, the great It at the moment, in your grasp. This is the sun-like engine of desire; it's very hot and can blot out all things near it. And how much worse if there's so many suns in your celestial cloak? So many because you want to know so much.
So then you go into deep and sustained meditation and give it all up, slow your heart rate down and begin in quietude to reach for only quiescence. The tree grows above you and you're free of that cycle of desire. And boy, ain't it all slow and easy.
But say you live in the city, that's usually all it takes to fuck up the rhythm in favor of wanting to know more, much more - all these info streams - and of not having the peace of mind to delve into peace of mind. And then a solution appears: total absorption in one desire. It's almost like a meditation in that is all but erases other desires. It quiets them right down in favor of it's own driving and all pervasive hunger. One desire, one great big feverish, warted and spunk seething Desire and aren't you almost an ascetic for giving yourself over so completely to the cause?
In my life I've primarily done my yen-ing for women, and in this centry I've been blessed to winnow it down to three women specifically, two of them still under four feet tall. That's my greediness. With my family as self-centered sacrement, I'm still aware that the need for Love is my driving force. Now in life it all comes to me so easily, but I don't forget how well it can sear at the flesh too. I know of the overarching NEED that is so painful but at least blots out other needs, and so I can take a shot at empathizing with you in your gut struggle. I raise a cheer to you for all that you are in all your great knowing's, and even in your struggles with being a Siddhartha of Substances. I'm proud of you for stepping up as Papa, for being the Man, when it could be altogether so much easier to just be the junkie. I'll tell Congress to send you a metal.
