When we start out we are taught a few things about drugs and addictions in general: they’re dangerous, sinful, yada yada yada. If we listen, like responsible children, these cautions become landmarks that steer us away from such behaviors. But for most of us other things sneak in and the thought of playing with fire becomes less black and white: it might be fun, we could meet interesting people, or we could have some sort of ineffable experience.
So we take the plunge, it becomes a part of our life, and we justify it, and in justifying, our ritualing becomes more conscious, deeper, with ups and downs, and soon it is we, who label the others – those who study, start working, raise families, who take the well-traveled path – in black and white. Their dull-seeming lives become cautionary landmarks to us.
Of course, these responsible ones discover that the shallow qualia such as studying, working, raising a child, is rich and deep also. They once knew nothing of these endeavors, but their ritualing became conscious, too.
Right now, in the Big Dopamine, human economy, the addiction aesthetic reigns supreme. Even the “dangerous” addicts support the economy, while “responsible” addicts just cultivate responsible addictions, like shopping, and making money. Ritual, for the majority of us, has lost its conscious aspect, for consciousness has gone the way of the attention-span.
There is no real way to reinvigorate ourselves because there is no teleological purpose or aesthetic driving us, other than “more.” And thus, it is all too easy to turn away from duty when we can play.
But our duty is to save ourselves, to save ourselves by saving the planet, to learn the language of ecosystems: to be qualiadelic.