Living Large or Barely Living 6-30-11

Anderson, South Carolina

The most sobering image I have from working with those caught in gravity wells of addiction and alcoholism is that of profound social isolation. Happy images of having a beer in the neighborhood pub where everyone is our best friend are mostly wishful thinking. Alcoholics often devolve into solitary misery, drinking alone at home until those homes are lost on the journey into the black hole of alcoholic despair. Lost driver’s licenses, jails, unemployment, fleeing spouses, frightened children, and alcoholic suspicion create a suffering staggering in its depths. Many alcoholics describe isolation so complete as leave them friendless save a cold glass bottle of death’s elixir.

Drug addiction often produces a profound paranoia that even has its practitioners boarding up their windows with plywood. Runaway fear of law enforcement and unpaid drug dealers keeps users running and hiding. As with cockroaches, the light of day becomes overwhelming for those journeying into this darkest night of the soul. A long-time cocaine addict related to me the oppressiveness of living in a small house with every window completely sealed with plywood, the only light coming from furtive glances out a barely cracked door. The most hopeful sign of his recovery came the day he took down his plywood and allowed life-giving Light to enter his inner world.

David Shenk’s Data Smog describes a world overwhelmed by too much information. In the mid 1990s as the Internet was just becoming a household reality, Shenk put to paper his concerns about potential abuses of personal information and the relentless sense of overwhelm and stress we might become subject to if cyberspace overflowed our daily lives. Identity theft, Trojan viruses, social networking, cyber-bullying, spamming, cyber-terrorism, and too much information have proven Shenk’s concerns well-founded. Only ten days ago I was targeted for cyber abuse and for seven minutes one night became an unwitting purveyor of links to everything from porn to weight loss to smoking cessation even male enhancement. Two days later a Russian Trojan virus was embedded in a photo file sent to me from an orphanage in India. My way of working and using the Internet was instantly altered, causing no small measure of inconvenience and expense. Part of me wants to isolate behind the plywood. Consultants tell me firewalls and virus protection are useless against these newest cyber weapons.

Shenk and others describe their concerns about our growing addiction to information and external stimuli. Addictive journeys by their nature demand ever more of us, eventually our souls. Addiction to electronic inputs has become surreal. I have to own my own addictions. Going without a computer for more than a week almost left me listless, unable to publish my written or photographic work, unable to interact with my readers and subscribers, unable to manage my financial affairs. Restructuring my days without a computer was surprisingly challenging. I couldn’t even upload my cameras.

A few days ago a neighbor was lamenting the meaninglessness of her life. Anti-depressants had failed in their mission to give her a spiritually satisfying sense of purpose and calling. In conversation I suggested turning off her television and getting out into the light and interacting with people might be a useful change. One would have thought I was proposing she go cold turkey from her meds. When suggesting she use the money she spends on a premium cable subscription to instead travel, she nearly wilted, declaring “TV makes my life barely livable.” She wasn’t the least bit interested in seeing a wondrous world with her own eyes, unable to consider anything other than the negative blue flicker that oppresses her soul. Taking $2000 a year spent on cable service and using it to make journeys overseas was inconceivable. But then most alcoholics and drug addicts will spend the rent and grocery money on their elixirs.

In the depths of his cocaine addiction, a year behind on the rent for his plywood prison, Scott managed to keep his cable TV hooked up, often describing to me tortured sleepless nights illuminated with the flickering blue glare of 3 AM infomercials. To this day he’s unemployed, unwilling to turn off the TV and find a different way. TV has become a thin substitute for cocaine.

Recently I was with a small group in the CNN studios in Atlanta. Those I travelled with are professing members of a large fundamental Baptist church. One of them described leaving her TV on 24/7. The idea of living without ongoing noise and input from TV was disquieting to the max. Another described a multi-year practice of structuring all her daytime activity around the airing of the soap opera “Days of Our Lives.” Curiously, most of those in my group displayed a nearly reverential attitude towards anchors working the news desks of CNN. I could not but have a secret curiosity as to what would happen if this devotion and reverence was applied instead to a life of service, one lived beyond entrenched addiction to TV.

Many sacred texts suggest we can place our focus and loyalty on but one thing at a time; serving only one master at a time. Christian writings declare strongly where we place our treasure is where our hearts are. Native American traditions describe the story of a young boy wanting to know whether to feed the white dog or the black dog. He was told to feed and care for the one he wanted to get bigger. The white dog is symbolic of those things good and virtuous in life. The black dog is representative of things dark and destructive. The Pauline Epistles declare the merits of feeding the right dog.

Whatever is true,, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure,, whatever is lovely,, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your minds dwell on these things … I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
Disconnect and you might just plug into a large life.