I've been thinking a lot lately about the effects of alcohol, both social and personal. It seems to me that people come to the use of alcohol for a variety of reasons.
I believe the reason people first choose to consume alcohol is simply for the fact that it is a culturally sanctioned substance, it is in a sense a rite of passage for young people making the transition from childhood to adulthood (in fact it is one of the select few rites of passage practiced in 21st century North American culture). This first taste of alcohol gives people a vague understanding of the effects, the advantages and disadvantages and the social etiquette accompanying it. From this point on people will choose to either incorporate or disclude alcohol intoxication from their lives.
In order to proceed with this idea I can no longer rely on speculation as to why other people do or do not use alcohol, I can only state the options and dilemmas and the justification of those options and dilemmas which I encounter in the face of alcohol consumption.
Before I can effectively carry on I feel that I must give a brief personal description allowing you to see how and why I come to the conclusions that will state in this text.
I am inherently somewhat shy and self conscious. I am not a physically imposing person and I am not over confident in my abilities. Instead I hold a self doubting and critical viewpoint in relation to my self and the society in which I reside. Because I am not a physical presence I tend to play to my strengths ( which I believe everyone does in some sense ) and seek virtuosity in the realm of cognitive function.
Humans tend to be social creatures, we enjoy conversing with each other, experiencing with each other and just existing in each other's presence. When I put myself in social situations I have the tendency feel anxious, to question what others may think negatively about about my ideas and to simply disclude myself from verbal communication for fear of ridicule. Of course I do not openly show these attributes because I do not want to be perceived as having weakness, what I do instead is put on a sort of act. I pretend that things that bother me do not, I share in the beliefs of others when inside I may question them, I try to project strength, coolness, happiness, and adjustedness because I think that is what people want to see and I myself want to have seen so that I may pass under the radar of society and not be singled out as different . This I think is a common technique of intellectuals for survival in the social world stemming from the desire of human beings to feel a fitting in and connectedness to the space they inhabit.
Through early life and most of school alcohol does not really embody a factor in social interaction until highschool when one becomes aware of the party scene. The party scene is a very peculiar thing that places value in unusual places. For instance, this scene imparts honor on people who can drink the highest amount of an intoxicating beverage in the shortest duration of time and still remain standing. Even if you can not remain in an upright position and your body induces profuse spewing from the mouth your actions are simply dismissed as comical, set aside as inevitable in the grand scheme of things and forgotten. Accolades are imparted on those who are the loudest, strongest and most obnoxious, while quiet, questioning intellectual individuals are ostracized. This sub-culture is a funny one indeed. This is highschoolean popular culture as I know it. You may come from a different place at a different time where this was or is not the norm, and so you may reject my ideas, I only wish to convey experience as a tool to allow like minds to converge.
The goal of admiration among peers I think is quite high on the to do list of the average person. To feel validation and acceptance is quite an attractive prospect and I myself am rather attracted to it, even though I think that sometimes the easiest way to a possible outcome is not necessarily the best I still sometimes feel like a moth drawn to the flame. Of which I can conceive there are two possible ways to gain respect from ones peers: The first is to defy, reject and bend the wills of those around you collecting disciples who will follow you down your intellectual journey, or to blindly submit to the excepted notions of your time and place. The first of this duality requires much laborious effort, uncertainty and quite possible alienation while the latter requires only hollow belief, self compromisation and offers unwavering acceptance. This poses quite a quandary, and one that I think has plagued many encompassing all time and location. Do you become the self righteous, cynical, misunderstood intellectual, or the slack-jawed, all-accepting un-questioning automaton? The choice is ultimately yours, choose wisely though because the implications are dire.
Now to my dilemmatic options regarding social alcoholiastic tendensations.
I. My first means to an end concerning alcoholiastic tendensations is to simply deliver myself to the ways of the party scene, surrendering my beliefs and embracing the beliefs of the of the whole of alcohol sub-culture.
II. My second ends to a mean is to place myself in a party situation absent of alcohol being just an observer of the current state of affairs. This option is a lonely and disconnected one for I do not feel a connection to the whole based solely on my chemical difference in opposition to the group.
III. My third option is to disclude my self from the party going scene indefinitely eliminating all social contact and forcing myself to drift in my own imagined belief system.
IV. In the final option I can factualize myself moving completely from the party sub-culture, and erasing all of its beliefs intending to use for alcohol for it's cathartic and self realizing psychoactive effects in order to utilize it for my own selfish purposes.
The choice is is mine and it is yours, I am not here to guide you down a path or to even open you up to the path but to simply say that there is a path, choose it as you may. Insanity can be defined as repeating the same pattern over and over again expecting a different result
Question everything and assume nothing and remember that there is no knowledge without experience.
I believe the reason people first choose to consume alcohol is simply for the fact that it is a culturally sanctioned substance, it is in a sense a rite of passage for young people making the transition from childhood to adulthood (in fact it is one of the select few rites of passage practiced in 21st century North American culture). This first taste of alcohol gives people a vague understanding of the effects, the advantages and disadvantages and the social etiquette accompanying it. From this point on people will choose to either incorporate or disclude alcohol intoxication from their lives.
In order to proceed with this idea I can no longer rely on speculation as to why other people do or do not use alcohol, I can only state the options and dilemmas and the justification of those options and dilemmas which I encounter in the face of alcohol consumption.
Before I can effectively carry on I feel that I must give a brief personal description allowing you to see how and why I come to the conclusions that will state in this text.
I am inherently somewhat shy and self conscious. I am not a physically imposing person and I am not over confident in my abilities. Instead I hold a self doubting and critical viewpoint in relation to my self and the society in which I reside. Because I am not a physical presence I tend to play to my strengths ( which I believe everyone does in some sense ) and seek virtuosity in the realm of cognitive function.
Humans tend to be social creatures, we enjoy conversing with each other, experiencing with each other and just existing in each other's presence. When I put myself in social situations I have the tendency feel anxious, to question what others may think negatively about about my ideas and to simply disclude myself from verbal communication for fear of ridicule. Of course I do not openly show these attributes because I do not want to be perceived as having weakness, what I do instead is put on a sort of act. I pretend that things that bother me do not, I share in the beliefs of others when inside I may question them, I try to project strength, coolness, happiness, and adjustedness because I think that is what people want to see and I myself want to have seen so that I may pass under the radar of society and not be singled out as different . This I think is a common technique of intellectuals for survival in the social world stemming from the desire of human beings to feel a fitting in and connectedness to the space they inhabit.
Through early life and most of school alcohol does not really embody a factor in social interaction until highschool when one becomes aware of the party scene. The party scene is a very peculiar thing that places value in unusual places. For instance, this scene imparts honor on people who can drink the highest amount of an intoxicating beverage in the shortest duration of time and still remain standing. Even if you can not remain in an upright position and your body induces profuse spewing from the mouth your actions are simply dismissed as comical, set aside as inevitable in the grand scheme of things and forgotten. Accolades are imparted on those who are the loudest, strongest and most obnoxious, while quiet, questioning intellectual individuals are ostracized. This sub-culture is a funny one indeed. This is highschoolean popular culture as I know it. You may come from a different place at a different time where this was or is not the norm, and so you may reject my ideas, I only wish to convey experience as a tool to allow like minds to converge.
The goal of admiration among peers I think is quite high on the to do list of the average person. To feel validation and acceptance is quite an attractive prospect and I myself am rather attracted to it, even though I think that sometimes the easiest way to a possible outcome is not necessarily the best I still sometimes feel like a moth drawn to the flame. Of which I can conceive there are two possible ways to gain respect from ones peers: The first is to defy, reject and bend the wills of those around you collecting disciples who will follow you down your intellectual journey, or to blindly submit to the excepted notions of your time and place. The first of this duality requires much laborious effort, uncertainty and quite possible alienation while the latter requires only hollow belief, self compromisation and offers unwavering acceptance. This poses quite a quandary, and one that I think has plagued many encompassing all time and location. Do you become the self righteous, cynical, misunderstood intellectual, or the slack-jawed, all-accepting un-questioning automaton? The choice is ultimately yours, choose wisely though because the implications are dire.
Now to my dilemmatic options regarding social alcoholiastic tendensations.
I. My first means to an end concerning alcoholiastic tendensations is to simply deliver myself to the ways of the party scene, surrendering my beliefs and embracing the beliefs of the of the whole of alcohol sub-culture.
II. My second ends to a mean is to place myself in a party situation absent of alcohol being just an observer of the current state of affairs. This option is a lonely and disconnected one for I do not feel a connection to the whole based solely on my chemical difference in opposition to the group.
III. My third option is to disclude my self from the party going scene indefinitely eliminating all social contact and forcing myself to drift in my own imagined belief system.
IV. In the final option I can factualize myself moving completely from the party sub-culture, and erasing all of its beliefs intending to use for alcohol for it's cathartic and self realizing psychoactive effects in order to utilize it for my own selfish purposes.
The choice is is mine and it is yours, I am not here to guide you down a path or to even open you up to the path but to simply say that there is a path, choose it as you may. Insanity can be defined as repeating the same pattern over and over again expecting a different result
Question everything and assume nothing and remember that there is no knowledge without experience.
