Looking today in the book sales charts I saw 5 out of the top ten paperback non fiction were books about diets. That's half of all thought being spent on how to eat properly. What does this say about us? Overheating, bulimia, anorexia; all consumption disorders. For someone like myself who has to avoid alcohol, and other mind altering drugs, it is kind of reassuring. Left to its own devices the human animal developes weird habits. We can end up eating so much we die. Repeatedly gorging on fats and sugars, enjoying the sensory pleasures whilst our bodies distort and warp toward distorted bloated parodies of themselves. The mind and its sensations trumping the body and its physical reality. Or drinking to stave off an emotional reaction to normal life events. Ingesting opiates to mimic the endorphins that occur naturally in response to a thirty mile bicycle ride delivers the same sensation, but the body of the addict atrophys and withers to shadow form. A muddy puddles reflection of the self.
For it is not we who are in control. These things do happen. The stories we spin ourselves about who we are, the stories we spin others, are seldom near the truth. Consiousness is the 1% we are aware of. Our breathing, our heart beat, a million other body functions take place out of our sight. It is not 'we' who are in charge. There is no rider on the horse. Looking at the street junky dropping their trousers for a groin shot, having destroyed all other veins in the pursuit of that same feeling, again and again. Or the forty stone fatty, unable to walk or leave the chair to release their shit and piss, shovelling pizza after burger, coke after chip down throats lubricated with pig fat. These people are real and have stories they support a self on, and a self respecting self too. The human is the animal that tells itself stories. The narrative fantasy can run parallel to the physical truth. But equally so the two can diverge and drift apart. You can not lie to a dog. They can not understand language but they get the sentiment of what you say. Humans can ignore the sentiment of what is being said in favour of the meaning of words. And just as humans believe others lies, they also believe their own.
But it isn't just people like me who when allowed to drink or take drugs will drift off un to death, or people like the fatties who eat till they can not walk. We all lie to ourselves about what we are doing. In a sense, the reformed alcoholic, the conscious dieting eater, the 12 stepping teatotalitarian, is the more conscious. It maybe true that left with no restraint these folk run to greater dysfunction, but those whose lies and self deception never hit the walls of obesity or addiction are left in their deluded state. At AA meetings people are at least self aware. At weight watchers they are under no illusions.
The key to the 12 step success is the acceptance that the individual has no control over their behaviour. And herein lies great wisdom. We are none of us above our nature. Criminal court cases, particularly murders, are of interest as we can see people struggling to explain what they have done to themselves. No one, or very few, believe themselves immoral. Normally they spin a story where they retain some innocence. Or make themselves the victim.
Strip away the stories we tell ourselves, remove our narratives of being heroes, and we find the animal truth of what we are. A bundle of contradictory impulses and urges. And it ought to be understood that because there is no little man inside our heads responsible for resisting urges, addiction, over eating are not moral weakness. I never have to resist urges to go gamble, or eat twenty burgers. So I am showing no moral superiority or strength by not doing so. As a culture we are only just learning not to blame people for their own natures. Current political narratives are deeply enmeshed in notions of worthy poor and unworthy poor. Of benefit cheats and weakness of character. But no intelligent person, with the benefit of modern understanding of neuroscience, ought to blame the ill for being ill. Or blame the depressed for being depressed anymore than we blame a person for the colour of their skin.
No comments:
Post a Comment