The Junky

Is a junky the epitomy of existentialism?

people say 'drugs are bad, thyeyre short term fun and then you have consequences'

but isnt that what life is? you live, you die.

being a junky sorta rejects any fullfiling meaning in life and simply pleases the body that the mind is in just living away till death. what is achievement? what is sucess? to a junky, it is just about doing nothing except feeling good, or really, trying to feel good. i mean you do good things in life to get the good thoughts they bring to you of pride or whatnot. but what is pride to anythin other than you, whos gonna die and take the pride with you?

and so yeh i think the junky (and i mean the full essence of a junky, hardcore) is the epitome of living as an existentialist.


but i dont know too much about existentialism so what do you people think?

 

Nah - junkies are largely screwed up idiots who can't cope with life, or at least the one's I've met.

But anything that a person experiences is by definition 'existential'.

 

yeh but see junkies are all about the experience at the very moment and every other time is working towards just experiencing something thats independant of everything else

 

i dont know a whole lot about existentialism either, but isnt the point of it being able to just exist, in the moment, without searching for a false sense of happiness that drugs give u or anything else for that matter? just being happy to be alive at whatever moment?

 

'false sense of happiness'

what is happiness really?

what is reall happiness? meaningful happiness?

drugs mimic the chemical effects of pleasurable experiences. theyre not fake. unless you give meaningful value to different sources of happiness

 

I think to a true existentialist happiness, sadness, or the feelings obtained from taking drugs don't matter. Therefore being a junkie is not the epitome of existentialism. Junkies are generally doing so to obtain an altered emotion, but if you really know your place in the universe, you wouldn't have to do that.

... though I do know one person who eats shrooms to explore existentialism. I think sometimes it is easier for people to think deeply when they've forgotten about societies standards... but I'm rambling on now.

 

no i dont think exisentialism is like that i think existentialism is about not adhring to any sort of pride, your a human, youll prefer to be feeling good then feling normal, theres no point to following some sort of self righteousness, but drugs? if you want, whatever.

 

caus while you wouldnt have to, you may as well since its better than goin sober. now drug addicts are addicted to one way of thinkning, jsut like someon with ironhard morals would be adicted to going the other way, they can both be existientialists. although i think drug addicts go the step further in that they dont follow any sort of moral or code, just do what they want with the issue

 

Life is an experience. A totality of experience. Some people choose to experience deprivation, some happiness, some solitude, some sickness, some love, some fear, some addiction, you name it, there is someone experiencing it.

Life is for living, not watching.
Life is an experience.

 

A junky is a slave to the serotonin and dopamine balance in her brain. She's a kind of hedonist, or utilitarian, with a really steep time-preference (as we all know, Protagoras would happily partake; Plato, on the other hand, tells us to abstain).

Existentialism is a philosophy of freedom, not happiness.

 

The lure of drugs is to feel good or to have "deep thoughts". Both are rubbish because you need money to fuel your habit. That habit makes you a slave. Like alcoholism you are no longer free, it taints your worldview. Drugs may warp your sense of reality to the point where you become despondent.

So do things which cause you not to spend money.

 

--EDIT--
I had a bit too much to drink and was just sort of rambling...sorry, honestly didn't even mean to come into this forum.

 

My take is that any animal is the epitome of existential. Take a cat for example. It is full on into being a cat in every way possible. It doesn't worry that it's not a dog, or a bird, or something else (as far as we can reckon, at least), but it is fully immersed in it's cat life and condition.
So the question is, is a junkie full on into being human, or seeking to avoid the bits of human-being that are distasteful? Whereas an animal just cops everything sweet as it's lot in life, humans look to avoid aspects, so take drugs as a way out. So just maybe junkies are full on into avoiding the existence rather than existing the existence. Then there is the possibility that they are exploring further realms of consciousness, which would make them parallel existential surrealist explorers. Maybe then some junkies are existential, and others anti-existential.

 

junkies don't seem to be really living in the moment. They seem to be desperately fleeing it. Either agonizing about where their next fix is coming from, or zoned out on their drug (their escape from the pain of being without it). Their life is a long, unending series of pain-pleasure. The pleasure, I'm told, ends up just being a short reprieve from the pain of not being drugged, such that it's just them getting back to normal, rather than getting high. This is attachment on a very specific, very obvious scale.

Says who? Sobriety is a blast, man, you've forgotten. Being sober is only a drag to a junky, be it a junky to drugs, to sex, to success, money, fame, and so on and on. We all have our addictions, it's true, until one experiences ego-death, but the fun is in the ridding of these addictions. Getting high is alright, I'm not against it (do it myself) but stay sober most of the time. That's what life is, man. Not depending on anything, that's really living life.

 

Heroine is the only time that you as a modern man will feel what it is to be free of stress and all its neurotic fears.


That is a remarkable and unique freedom that paradoxically comes at a high price.

Modern Civilized Man is no longer capable of living an existential life. We are only capable of theorizing about it.

 

I don't buy any of that, m6m. First, there is nothing different about modern man. We are the same as any other human. Our circumstances are different, but who is to say worse? We all have this idea that the old days were the good old days. But a simpler life may still be full of attachments and desires. Look at all the prophets, buddhas, seers, and holy men way back, thousands of years ago. They had the same issues, it's just the details that are different.

Also, heroin does not bring freedom, it brings the illusion of freedom. It is really a very strong shackle.

 

Our different circumstances reflect significant changes in our mental health.

Effeminately seeking, like a woman, the authority and security of Hierarchy reflects the inballanced psycho-sexual energy of Hierarchical Civilization.

Effeminate Death-Fear gripped us when the Middle East was devastated by the last retreat of the ice-caps a mere 10,000 yrs. ago.

Free-men were not Civilized, because they did not encounter the same degree of Death-Fear stress, and thus, expressed little stress from fear of sexual inadequacy.

Modern Civilized Man's stressful circumstances as a grasping anal-retentive has only in the last century spread its repressed latent homo-sexuality to every corner of the Earth.

Alienation is the one word most often used to describe Modern Man because of the psycho-sexual effects of Hierarchical stress.

The simple life is only possible for the Fearless who are secure enough not to get trapped in a preoccupied complex of neurotic desires and attachments.

The freedom from stress is very real and physical with heroin.

Especially powerful in the high-stress regions of the lower-chakras(lower-torso).

That's why they named it heroin, and why morphine, from which heroin is derived, is used in every hospital in the world for relief of stressful pain.

That's also why One becomes psychologically addicted to heroin long before One becomes physically addicted.

 

The way I see it there is no reason for an existentialist to do drugs, or to not do drugs, so a true existentialist wouldn't bother continuing the habit.

 

Hmm... Don't mind me... Drunk posting lol

 

YOUR WRONG!!! J/k
Worms, birds, cat, dogs and the universe works off of one another.. Humans talents work in the same , farmers feed, filmmakers entertain to farmers. If everyone didn't do anythign, we would be able to sit around a be junkies. Thus Via