You are stardust. And to stardust you will return.
“If you can go 40 days without it, you probably don’t have a problem with it.”
I heard a pastor say that said once about alcohol around the time of Lent. You could substitute alcohol for weed, carbs, caffeine, whatever. Maybe even shorten the time period to 30 days. His point was that Lent can serve as a litmus test to the severity of our problems - a pass/fail “I’m a good human” test.
I think sometimes we give ourselves those kind of goals/challenges because we want to be able to point to something to prove we’re good enough. Sometimes we trick ourselves into thinking we don’t have problems because we are able to exert a calculated amount of self-control over a period of time. It’s the same functional mechanism of the “I’ll have made it when” reasoning. If X, then Y.
I’m not sure that’s how it actually works.
Maybe you can go 40 days without a drink or a smoke. Maybe you can’t. I challenge you to find out. There have been times in my life when I couldn’t. Did I have a problem. Yes, but at it’s core it wasn’t a substance abuse problem. It was a shame problem. Going x number of days without anesthetizing only served to boost my self-esteem, but never addressed the underlying issue.
I think it’s better to get curious about why it is we go to certain things for comfort. Really curious. Like why are you drawn to erotica as opposed to professional video pornography? Is it because you are tying to escape the shame you feel about your sexuality and need to live through some other character? And what in particular about that character are you seeking to live out in fantasy? How might that be linked to your shame pain?
Why do you allow yourself the indulgence of wine, but not weed? Is it because you need some arbitrary rule to follow to have something to point to if your “sobriety” was questioned? Or why do you prefer edibles to smoking? Does being a connoisseur boost your self-esteem?
The solution to our shame pain problem isn’t to increase our self-esteem though action or restriction. The solution lies in engaging the desire that was shamed in the first place. But more on that next week...
Of interest
1. Poem -
men give birth, too.
to children.
to longings.
to dreams.
that they must hide.
their stomachs.
their uteruses.
their hungers.
their softness.
their cravings for touch.
to be a man.
is the thing that closes their light.
and eats their eyes.
- him
Nayyirah Waheed
2. Book - I’ve taken to only buying books I need for class. Most of my pleasure reading consists of audiobooks I check out from the library. But every now and then a book comes along that I can’t say no to. This week I bought Neville Symington’s book The Psychology of the Person. I think this will be a book a read slowly and multiple times. Time to nerd out.