I think I was well and truly addicted to Facebook. I think it was a legitimate psychological addiction, dopamine and all. And I think walking away from that revealed a lot to me. And I’m coming back to some maybe acid thoughts here but life is a trip and you can go anywhere you want. You can smash stuff and throw things out the window- there may be some repercussions but you’re not nearly as enslaved as you think you are, or as you behave.
I honestly think going off Facebook gsve me some perspective on smoking. I think my “social” addiction might be worse than my nicotine addiction- which makes sense of you think about it because we are deeply social creatures.
So I’ve been a parasite, dependent on others for my self worth and validation to some degree. I tell myself that I’m smart and don’t have to work hard at anything and I use that idea to try and show off, maybe. I don’t know. Maybe what I’ve always needed was a really public failure. But even then I typically find some way to psychologically insulate myself. I’m really good at that. I protect my psychological state at the expense of my relationships, my legacy, my everything. Maybe.
The whole phenomena is honestly too complex for me to do justice to in one attempt, 1000 words or not. I’m not sure if clarifying it will be helpful. I’ll just dump some observations in the meantime. Remember this is what I do to pass time on trains instead of social media or games… why did I just say that? Trying to make myself look good. Overdeveloped skill. It might be useful on the other side of growth but for now it’s simply stopping me from properly acknolwedging negative feedback…
Its interesting to quit smoking and then pick it up again and then quit again. You start to get an understanding of what it really does to you. Your mouth, tongue and teeth gets coated in a layer of gunk that becomes filthy- it really stinks and it feels unclean, unhealthy… almost like some sort of death, decay. Your lips get parched and burnt. Sometimes your tongue develops ulcers and slight burns… so it seems. Your air passages get clogged up. This is especially noticable in the morning when you wake up- sneezes and runny nose, a deeper wisdom in the body anxiously trying to repair itself before the pleasure craving kicks in and takes over. You arrest the dissenters- gas them, ISA them. Everything looks safe and quiet. Everything is dying under the surface. The occasional cough.
When you stop you start realizing that cigarettes made you squint. Every time you took a drag- a grimace, it keeps the smoke out or something. Your vision changes. The world starts to look a little brighter and more colorful. Your field of vision expands wider. This can be overwhelming and hard to take in- which is part of what sent me back to smoking in some of my earlier quit attempts.
When you stop your digestive system gets a little confused, maybe excited. Burps and farts and unfamiliar bowel movements. You start to feel more relaxed and clear. You take deeper breaths.you start to smell and taste more. Your skin feels less abused.
Everybody kinda knows that stuff intellectually but it’s really something else to experience it. You realize how subjective your experience of reality is. It’s an entire different way of being.
(This is only 607 words. I had copied an earlier bit from an earlier post without realizing. But I know that previous vomits more than make up for the word count.)