Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Addiction and Other Compelling Ideas

I'm thinkin' everything is made up of ideas. I am an idea, humanity is an idea, this planet, this solar system, this galaxy, all ideas. Thoughts strung together like pearl necklaces all having an inception and a completion, alpha and omega.
What if addictive behaviours and repetitive patterns in life were also simply thoughts playing out until they are complete. Completion could come in many forms such as the realization of what is really going on, an understanding of the motivation behind the behaviour in such a way that the underlying idea is fully realized and so the patterns are no longer necessary, having a perceived need met fully thus completing itself or death.
People tend to struggle endlessly with addictions, trying to stop the behaviours without the fundamental idea compelling the habit patterns being addressed or completed. This also appears to be the case with desires that we judge to be less than acceptable for moralistic reasons. Ideas like wanting something expensive or sexually different or selfish are often discounted and rejected because of beliefs or moral codes we were taught or circumstances of our upbringing. Some of those ideas just never really go away though and tend to haunt people much like addictions do except people refrain from acting on them, thus having the appearance of being in control or better than those who do act on them. Either way, whatever the idea is that is playing itself out must be complete before it can be fully released.
So what's my point? I'm not sure really, it's just been on my mind after talking to some people about things they were struggling with. Here was my question to one of them, 'What if you just gave yourself permission to enjoy the behaviour and completely surrender to it?' That was met with a great deal of skepticism as you can well imagine but I invite you to look at it again. What would you be most afraid of in letting yourself off the hook of guilt and shame around a behaviour you are not proud of? Do you fear you would then be completely annihilated by it or that you would be out of control or your self-image would be irreparably damaged? Could happen, may not happen, truth is you don't know but you are being controlled by the fear laden beliefs anyway whether you act on your addictions or obsess about them. What is that self-image you're trying to shore up all about anyway? Is it the truth or is it another layer of the illusion?
Just some fun stuff to think about...

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