Addiction Treatise

I think a lot about human nature and I would just like to receive criticism for my latest treatise on a particular topic of the human condition. I would gladly accept any criticisms or thoughts you might have while you read these.

Friday, July 27th, 2007

Today's topic: Addiction

Every human being deals with addictions, be it cutting to feel, lying to hide, shopping to satisfy, a boy or girl, a video game to be entertained, or even chewing gum to do something.

People involve themselves in a particular activity of the mind and/or body and put a severe amount of priority into that action. It starts as a small activity that is pleasing to someone and either slowly or rapidly it grows into a self absorbed obsession if not kept in check. Keeping something in check means that one has the discipline to constantly observe the certain object or habit to make sure it does not become excessive and/or hazardous. Why do we need discipline though? Because, discipline is the attitude that may help keep urges in check, and helps get done what needs to get done. So often do people let their addictions or obsessions get the best of them and distract them from the things that need to be attended to in order to progress in life.

Everyone is searching for something. Something to call their own, something they think they need. Yet that is not the case, not even close. They think they want it because they can put their attention into it and get back a fair amount of compensation for their time and trouble.

This "relationship" is either with something inanimate or something that is animate. Most often it is inanimate objects that consume people's attentions because they are easy to manipulate and utilize. Sometimes it is an animate object, say, a human being, or a cat. Someone who is addicted to cats is addicted the same way as someone who is addicted to inanimate objects, because they are easy to manipulate and they provide a pleasant feeling in us. When it is a human being, it is because they are intrigued by them or because they expect or intensely expect love from that person. The addiction to being around or of a human being can be a great or horrible thing. To be in love with someone and have a mutual connection of love and companionship and be addicted to it, thats a good kind of addiction, a good obsession. But on the other hand of the moral spectrum, to be addicted to someone because you want them to love you but the feeling is not mutual is when you encounter serious ethical dilemmas.

People do not reach out to the nearest thing and become addicted to it because they find it interesting or that they even find it to be something that be love them, they reach out because THEIR love needs to be needed. We all need something to hold onto because we are constantly doubting either ourselves, the world, love, and even life itself. We need that something to get us through the day. We need to have that something, or someone, NEED us, because deep down inside of us, we yearn to be needed. That sense of self-necessity gives you a purpose, which we all so desperately try to find throughout our lives. So when we find something that we can commit ourselves to in order to feel that necessity or what appears to be it, thats why we always latch onto it with dear life without regarding the consequences.

This is where discipline comes in. Simply put, discipline is doing what you don't want to do when you don't want to do it, and it can also reversely be said to not be doing what you want to when you want to do it. Discipline may seem like a horribly tedious and disenchanting principle, but in fact it is how you stop yourself from being entirely consumed by your addiction whatever it happens to be at the moment. Discipline, or fortitude, as well as prudence, temperance, and justice are the keys to moderation. Too much of any one thing is bad for you, even too much water can be bad for you. Moderation is a habit of the mind in which the human soul can achieve self-regulatory control over addictions and hazardous habits and maintain a reasonable interest in the addictive habits but not to the point of harm.

Moderation is not the only thing we can call this attitude of restraint, a more noble word for it is virtue. Virtue is keeping everything within reason. As Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, "Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason." Virtue keeps every habit and action in check, and allows not only a productive life, but also a happy life. "It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions." Aristotle once said.

Practicing the self-regulating principle of virtue will help you not only control and suppress unhealthy urges, but also keep in check the things that are involved with what we like to call the "gray area" so we don't get carried away. Practicing virtue is hard, as Aristotle above has stated, but if you dedicate yourself to this rewarding habit of mind then you can achieve great things and not be sucked into senseless frivolities.

There is always excellence in moderation.
There is always turmoil in addiction.