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Addiction to Experiences
    #6695279 -

I was thinking earlier today, do you think it is possible to become 'addicted' in a sense, to new experiences and insights? For instance, I sometimes, in fact, fairly often, find myself craving after new experiences, whether they come from meditation, breathing, eating or smoking something, whatever the source, I seek after new experiences in the hope that they will provide some sort of new insight into myself, int the universe, or into reality itself.

Could this be a sort of addiction? Not being content with what experience and insight one already has? Not being content with one's current experiencing of reality?


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"What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?"

"Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword"
- John Mayer

Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin.

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: dblaney]
    #6695372 -

I dunno mang...but I know I'm exactly the same way myself - I absolutelyt thrive on being able to experience new things (especially things that I feel no one else ever has the chance to do and/or embracing certain things that other people are simply too taboo to accept)

and...I would imagine that this whole mindset can certainly become a bad thing ifn you take it to the extreme (as I have) but it seems to me that if you can at least refrain from fucken dead bitches - then you oughta be in the clear on this one  :wink:


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:craven:  Ravings of a Madman  :craven:

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: dblaney]
    #6695442 -

Yes, this addiction stated when you were born. My primary goal in life is to experience and make the variety as wide as possible. It is quite possibly the only meaning our existence has.


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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #6695984 -

Quote:
My primary goal in life is to experience and make the variety as wide as possible. It is quite possibly the only meaning our existence has.



I have thought of that before but never really considered it. I really like the idea though.


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"People living deeply have no fear of death."
"Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love."
"Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #6696001 -

Well sure, there is a healthy attitude of being open to new experiences and seeking to broaden horizons, but is it possible to crave after new experiences at the expense of the current experience?


--------------------
"What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?"

"Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword"
- John Mayer

Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin.

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: dblaney]
    #6696006 -

Yes. That is what most people do...they either live in the past through past glories or live through the future and what they will accomplish. I like to focus on right now...that is where true experiences occur. The ultimate experience junkie should look no farther than the present.


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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

Edited by Huehuecoyotl (03/21/07 06:30 PM)

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #6696017 -

Our very aggregates themselves are addictive.


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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: dblaney]
    #6696128 -

It could be an addiction if it dominates your mind. If greater insight and more varied experiences don't lead to any lasting contentment then what is the point? Often those who live simply are the most content eg. monks,amish people, indigenous people.
That being said there is nothing wrong with being awestruck by the wonders of the universe and wanting to figure out its mysteries. I am just saying that it may be unhealthy to hold inflated expectations about what some new knowledge may bring you. Healthy social relationships and fulfilling personal and social responsibilities may be higher priorities and more effective ways of realizing happiness. These are often actions that act as determinants of the importance and ability of knowledge.

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: dblaney]
    #6696186 -

Addiction to Experience is 'Psychological Addiction': a propaganda term invented for political reasons in order to pathologize certain totally reasonable human desires.


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Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: dblaney]
    #6696217 -

Perhaps better termed as a healthy hunger for new experiences....(?)

(otherwise you might have to go to Experiences Anonymous....)
"Hi, my name is Morry Amsterdam, and I haven't had a new experience in 9 months...."
***APPLAUSE***
:tongue:


>^;;^<


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I'll be your midnight French Fry....  :naughty:

"The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...."
>^;;^<

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: dblaney]
    #6696306 -

Addiction to experience is what makes us go forward.
Being afraid of experiences... well, it gets you where our society is now.
I think that as long as we come up with new conclusions each time we're done with a particular experience it's one of the best things out there.


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs
:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: dblaney]
    #6696330 -

Curiousity keeps it fresh.


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Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: dblaney]
    #6696470 -

Absolutely. I've found that through meditation, I can feel a sensation in my third eye which is not unlike the feeling I used to get from smoking pot. Sometimes I get too caught up in the sensation, though I try to focus more on the level of awareness that this sensation brings to me.


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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: dblaney]
    #6696595 -

Addiction is just a word created by our current system with little relevance. What is an addiction and what is necessary? You could say you have an addiction to a stable home, to money, to your weekly church meetings. People accuse drug addicts of having an addiction to their drugs, but the word loses meaning quite rapidly in the real world as we see such a great variance of yearnings among different people. After all, if it's such an addiction, then people should not be able to stop cold turkey, and the system tends to brainwash people into thinking that they cannot stop their current actions without medication, treatment, detox, an in-patient program or what have you.

Your experiences are your existence. Everything you see yourself addicted to is just a misinterpretation of what your experiences really are. This existence is all we have, so there's no need to censor yourself because of your fears when no one else is standing in your shoes. No one can possibly know what your experiences are like, so there is no reason for you not to be content at this moment. Experiences will continue rushing through time to you regardless of how you judge yourself, so perhaps you will find the most joy in this existence without judging your mind with such terms as "addiction".


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: Ravus]
    #6696614 -

Hammer. Nail. Head.

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: Ravus]
    #6696615 -

I think the term addiction is a valid one. And it stands opposed to the term preference.

An addiction is a compulsion to do something you don't want to do because you can't stop yourself or to crave something so much you become miserable without it.

Preference on the other had is wanting something and being just fine if you can't have it.


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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: Icelander]
    #6696694 -

Seeing as though life is essentially one (endless as I understand it) experience and creativity is in our essence, it's only natural to crave and create new experience for one's self. Consciousness/understanding evolve through experience.


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Entropy is increasing.
To send me a PM, go to my journal

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: Grok]
    #6696760 -

I don't crave new experience. I would prefer some though.:grin:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: Icelander]
    #6697017 -

Icelander said:
I think the term addiction is a valid one. And it stands opposed to the term preference.

An addiction is a compulsion to do something you don't want to do because you can't stop yourself or to crave something so much you become miserable without it.

Preference on the other had is wanting something and being just fine if you can't have it.


These two terms stand opposed? To me, it seems like they're just blurring into one another. If addiction exists, it starts as a preference, and continues as a preference as you prefer one reality over another one. People only consider certain preferences to be addictions because people no longer care about old realities as they seek to constantly re-enter this new one through drugs, so that, even if they claim they don't want to do it, once they're back in that reality they sought they tend to be happier for a short period of time.

But is this just drugs that produces such a state of seeking these realities? What about people who work all week, make the time in their lives pass by quickly and then get depressed and enter a mid-life crisis in the weekend because their mind isn't so occupied? Nothing is sustainable, not even what we consider a sober reality, as that itself will be conquered by changes in our personality and eventually death, but just because people don't realize their inability to sustain altered states produced by drugs, work, television, sex, religion or social interactions, it doesn't mean the term addiction actually helps any of us at all. It's a definition that, at most, only skims the bare layer of the surface and misses the point while accomplishing nothing. Do you think that our current "cures" for addiction, such as substituting Wellbutrin for nicotine, methadone for heroin, nicotine for overeating, overeating for nicotine, martyrdom for religion, have any real relation to existence? Their connections seem arbitrary and I have no use for them in my experiences, but perhaps your mind is radically different from my own.


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Addiction to Experiences [Re: Ravus]
    #6698370 -

I agree.

Preference and addiction are different ends of the same spectrum. A workaholic or every day church goer are addicted to an environment every bit as much as a heroin user is addicted to a pleasant alternate reality.

Case in point: a friend of my mother's is a hard-core church guy. He's there every day, usually more than once a day and often until midnight, then he gets up at 6am to go to work. He constantly complains that, between his crappy job and the church he can't get enough of, he has no money and no time to eat or sleep, and as it happens, he's skinny like meth head.

I suggested that he back off from church and enroll in the local community college so that he can get a better job. He refuses. He'd rather work a crappy job the rest of his life so long as he can keep attending church whenever he's not at work.

If that's not the characteristic behavior of those called 'addicted', I don't know what is. On the other hand, he seems happy, so who's to say his lifestyle is any less valid than any other.

The only reason society ever started caring about addiction is because addiction negatively effects industrial productivity by re-centering people in aesthetic perception instead of utilitarian perception.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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