“America doesn’t appreciate moderation in any form, so it ricochets between Prohibition and the fraternity basement, glut and excess. Perhaps this moment will allow room for a reconsideration of our relationship with the substance — our inability to treat it as rite rather than anesthesia, or else shun it outright — as a symptom of something deeper.”
My fav quote. You’re an inspiration and rockstar, Sav
"A theology without grace" is the line doing the work here. Everything else follows from it, including the podcaster's sleep score, which is a penance in search of a priest.
The ritual question looks a little different from this side of the Atlantic, though. We have one. The round is a genuine rite, with rules and obligations, and it went on functioning perfectly well while the drinking underneath it turned into anaesthesia anyway. Half the pubs in Britain are full of people performing a rite they stopped meaning years ago. Which makes me wonder whether keeping the ritual would have saved us either.
Been chewing on it since I posted. Maybe the difference is who the rite is owed to. The round is an obligation to other people, so it survives even after the meaning drains out of it. The sleep score is an obligation to yourself, and there's nobody in that arrangement with the standing to forgive you. Which puts us back at your grace problem, I think.
This was very interesting, and I enjoyed reading it! Thank you!
One of my thoughts on the topic (or why I no longer wear a FitBit) is how often it seems like an extreme focus on health ends up resulting in fragility and neuroticism rather robustness. Like with the health influencer who felt like a sack of ass for three whole days just because he drank one Sazerac. Wouldn't a truly healthy person be (a) able to rebound more rapidly and/or (b) shrug off the woe and keep it moving?
“America doesn’t appreciate moderation in any form, so it ricochets between Prohibition and the fraternity basement, glut and excess. Perhaps this moment will allow room for a reconsideration of our relationship with the substance — our inability to treat it as rite rather than anesthesia, or else shun it outright — as a symptom of something deeper.”
My fav quote. You’re an inspiration and rockstar, Sav
Thank u Mase!
"A theology without grace" is the line doing the work here. Everything else follows from it, including the podcaster's sleep score, which is a penance in search of a priest.
The ritual question looks a little different from this side of the Atlantic, though. We have one. The round is a genuine rite, with rules and obligations, and it went on functioning perfectly well while the drinking underneath it turned into anaesthesia anyway. Half the pubs in Britain are full of people performing a rite they stopped meaning years ago. Which makes me wonder whether keeping the ritual would have saved us either.
Penance in search of a priest. I love. And I’m not certain…I have to think about this more
Been chewing on it since I posted. Maybe the difference is who the rite is owed to. The round is an obligation to other people, so it survives even after the meaning drains out of it. The sleep score is an obligation to yourself, and there's nobody in that arrangement with the standing to forgive you. Which puts us back at your grace problem, I think.
Is the anaesthesia an escape in search of a decent place to land, or a decent way to live?
This was very interesting, and I enjoyed reading it! Thank you!
One of my thoughts on the topic (or why I no longer wear a FitBit) is how often it seems like an extreme focus on health ends up resulting in fragility and neuroticism rather robustness. Like with the health influencer who felt like a sack of ass for three whole days just because he drank one Sazerac. Wouldn't a truly healthy person be (a) able to rebound more rapidly and/or (b) shrug off the woe and keep it moving?
The god of ecstasy, theater, transformation, music and sacred disorder? I doubt it gets any better than that.
Thank you for writing this!
No better god to be :)
Indeed!
Is there a name for the excess of moral virtue? Perhaps it too will be discovered to be addictive, a disease.
“Sometimes you need to moderate the moderation,” said the Zen monk, after the pastrami sandwich.
I like this
“There are virgins and sluts” -
Well, that’s clearly just nuts -
And a MILF may enjoy adoration.
Perhaps giving up booze and subsisting on plants
Will prolong Western Civilization.
What about the poor souls, unrepentant
bluff proles
With Big Macs, bargain smokes, and malt liquor?
They succumb to psychosis as well as cirrhosis
Who cares if they die a bit quicker?