Day Seven
One of my downfalls is that I often don’t finish what I start. In the first post of this journal I mentioned that I would update it daily for seven days and that if I did not it would mean that I didn’t make it through the week. Well, I did stay sober but I failed to update this thing daily. I suppose I didn’t post anything on days 4 – 6 because I didn’t really have s
hit to say and I didn’t feel like submitting journal entries with no content other than “didn’t drink again today.”
So here I am, late in my final day as a teetotaler and I may as well share some reflections of the week. I enjoyed the experiment and I’m certain that my liver is happy to have had a break from its hard work. I learned that I am not an alcoholic, just a bored reveler, which I suppose is fine. I’ll admit that a part of me was hoping to gain some deep insights into myself or a moment of intense mental clarity, or… something. But the truth is, other than some very mild withdrawal symptoms early in the week, I felt no different at all. No better or worse physically, mentally, or emotionally. Kind of disappointing really.
On the first day I decided that I wanted to read something inspirational in case the cessation was difficult. I would have probably gone for The Brothers Karamazov, which I’ve wanted to re-read for a long time but I didn’t want fiction. I decided on philosophy and immediately thought of Alan Watts but he was a hardcore drunk for most of his life and I would have found his writing and general outlook to be too colored by that. So I decided on Nietzsche. I generally pride myself on being able to look past (or maybe through) his harsh language that makes him appear fascist or whatever and instead find great inspiration, hope, and even compassion for the world in his words. So I picked up Beyond Good and Evil and started reading. It wasn’t really working. I couldn’t see through his writing this time for some reason. I probably should have chosen a different work. I found myself thinking over and over “this guy is just an as
shole” but I kept reading because I knew that something would hit me the right way. It finally did when I got to aphorism #29, which reads:
Quote:
|
Independence is for the very few; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it even with the best right but without inner constraint proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring to the point of recklessness. He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life brings with it in any case, not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes lonely, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience.
|
I read that part many times until it was embedded in my mind. This inspired me to exercise inner constraint and not be torn apart by a monster.
Anyway, it’s currently less than two hours away from the end of my experiment and I can hardly fu
cking wait.
