The Debauchery of Being Human

http://julesbar.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/the-debauchery-of-being-human.html
From the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch
http://julesbar.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/the-debauchery-of-being-human.html

With one short addition, this was possibly the first article I ever wrote about 5 years ago, and well before I had discovered Zeitgeist.
It was written for a Health Department funded Street-Hip magazine and I actually got paid for this piece...



Ok all you users, abusers and 6 time choosers, you Diva’s and dreamers and big time schemers,

You flotsam and jetsam and let me just get some.

You believers, romance readers and contract cleaners, you ranters and ravers and close call shavers.

You that jealously guard your collected misfortunes in a vacuum jar and hide them under your pillow, obsessively sifting through the days grievances and hurts, the word is out:

If you prick us, You bleed, and its OK to be sensitive, vulnerable beings all tangled up in maple syrup feelings, it’s OK to be Human.

Its OK, don’t believe all their crap, sometimes you’re supposed to feel like shit.

You that cry long into the dark night of your soul that there’s got to be more to this maddening, nauseous tapestry of life than just another day of bowing and scraping and “Oh yes Sir, that’ll be 3 bags full Sir!”

Then after a day of routine monotony comes the big build-up and the pay-off…and here it comes…;

Wamm, Bamm and thank you Mamm... and in the morning?

You could swear that this was just another re-run of Ground Hog Day on Valium.


And in the morning?

You could swear and scream until your throat runs white-hot with the magma of your solitary rage against the absurd.

Against the madness inducing tedium of modern slavery in the work force...inside the Machine.

They promised us so much more! Remember? When we were young…

Listen.

There is a message for you in the pigeon hole that bears your name.

There is a message for every living person on the Planet, for it is the ‘Human Condition’.


You never noticed it before? Listen…

Listen carefully and you might hear the soft whimpering cry of my street Angel, brushed just ever so lightly by the wings of madness as she jacks back the syringe again and again, clutching her knees as she sits on the bare floorboards rocking and swaying, becoming physically sick just from the realization flooding in to her that after all that hard work with those pathetic, greasy, gangster wannabes with their 2-bit street thug ways of walking and talking, all she has to show for it, for all the sweat and stickiness is a half empty foil of glucose, in other words; Sweet F.A.


Listen, in the outer boon docks of the Western Suburbs, you can still just make out all those weekend warriors, those suburban desperadoes with their nice, freshly painted double garages and imitation Corinthian columns supposedly just looking for ‘an edge’ in their mundane, predictable lives, with Mum’s borrowed Mercedes and a confused girlfriend in tow piling one lie upon another so that they can get the cash to make the splash, get down to the Street, to the Entropy Café just one more time…

You should hear the promises that spew from their mouths, as they sell off their self-respect in tiny little packets.

Listen...

They can’t get the words out fast enough before all those lies cave in like a house of cards.

Plee-eaze…Daddy, just one more time and then She will leave the kids with Nanna, go to Tel-Aviv and work on a kibbutz, or together they will go to the Bahamas and work on a cruise ship, or go to the Kimberleys and work in the salt mines, go any where and work in any job, this one last time…

Just this one last time and she’ll be cured for sure…

Just this last time and the hideous disease will have run its course.

Baby, just this last $1,000 and he’ll go for that dead-end job in that dead-head department store.

Oh how they beg, plead and implore, oh how they writhe and twist.

Mama, this one last time and he’ll go back to Europe, back to the old country, live with his long lost relatives and get a real job for sure, maybe driving a Truck for Uncle Joe.



Look at how they squirm and skulk one and all, from the Baby Boomer Doctor shooting his Pethidine whenever the receptionist goes for lunch, how he trembles and shakes trying to pop the glass vial...

To the up market Solicitor defending his Dealer clients and rapidly developing a taste for their unique method of payment.

Look as he barricades himself in the bathroom yet again… meanwhile breathlessly, obsessively listening for that tell-tale sign, that unmistakable ’click’ on the line…

Look at the Rich-bitch Housewife, with her pills and potions, who’s in complete denial about absolutely everything.

Ensconced in her pathetic suburban ivory palace, cocooned inside her pseudo-opulent bathroom which smells suffocatingly of gaudy perfumes and powders, with a shower curtain displaying a neat motif of international bank-notes, and customised lights that could have come from a Star-Trek set, look at her now, as she writhes and wrestles in her hand-carved wooden bed late at night, fleeing breathlessly from phantoms cowled in blue...

All of them poor tormented bastards, all over the Cities, all over the Country, all over the World, all of them poor misguided victims of Societies ignorant prejudices.



Why didn’t anyone ever tell them?

That its OK to feel the blues sometimes, to be sad sometimes, to cry…

That it’s OK to be Human, to be vulnerable and want to feel good, and that No, you are not a bad person for feeling like this.

That sometimes a nice cup of tea just won’t cut it, and that sometimes its ok to get high, to get on that roller coaster and feel the euphoric rush.

Mankind has been experimenting with his state of mind for thousands of years whether through external chemicals or through his own internal physiological processes, I mean there has always been dopamine, serotonin, endorphin, adrenaline, carbon dioxide etc., through meditation and other means we have always altered our states of mind; is there a problem here?



When looked at from a Neuro-physiological point of view, the sheer hypocrisy of contemporary society is stupefying.
We need to recognize the new reality which Neurological science imposes upon us.
This states that we are all addicts...addicted to our own Neuro-peptides.

It's merely a matter of degree once more.

Therefore, there is no longer any moral high-ground.

A Gambler is the same as someone addicted to the emotion of rage and anger, is the same as someone addicted to Shopping, or to Fast Cars, or to Sex, or some other poor individual who is addicted to one of the illicit drugs in our society.

It's all the same on a Neurological level...


My God, listening to our Media sometimes as they crucify another celebrity at the stake, they sound like a pack of rabid dogs, like some archaic refugees from the Luddite community;

“Tis pure wickedness, they will be punished for their evil ways”

“He was actually seen indulging in drugs” Really? Whoa!

Hang on, has he grown cloven hooves and a tail yet?

He took drugs? I don’t believe it!

You mean to say someone in the Entertainment or Sporting Industry actually indulged in drugs?”

You mean he’s Human? That can’t be!

Hang on, let me shout you another round of flavored Vodka’s while I report this to the United Nations.

Sigh…

I have come across people in all walks of life who (at least when I was with them) managed to use drugs with very little deleterious effect on their lives.

Society’s narrow-minded prejudices and conformist pressures are largely what create so much unhappiness on the part of the user.

We are gregarious creatures after all, and as such are constantly seeking acceptance and approval from Society at large, imagine if that Society treated all dope use the way they treat alcohol use i.e no more guilt, deception, need for lies, criminal behavior etc.

And yet ironically, sadly, the Drugs in our Society which have caused the most destruction and damage to the Family, the Individual and to Society at large such as Alcohol, and all the pills from Big Pharma are socially acceptable indeed applauded by Celebrities and Role-Models of the Mass-Media in our sick, twisted Kulture and those which have over centuries proven to be of most benefit and cause the least harm are outlawed…condemned… vilified to such an extent we have manufactured an Artificial War against them.


The Hungarian-born Author and Physician who specializes in the study and treatment of addiction Gabor Mate once said concerning this :

“The War against Drugs?
There is no such thing as a ‘War on Drugs’.
How can you have a War against an inanimate object?
It is not a War on Drugs but rather a War on the individual Drug-user, the person, and in that climate it is extremely difficult to help them” Paraphrased.

‘Go figure’ as Americans like to say.

Oh yes, and the next time you go to an NA or AA meeting, just remind them politely with your most endearing smile to chill out a bit, that taking drugs wasn’t ALL bad, I mean there actually were some good times amongst all that madness and mayhem, that it wasn’t and isn’t just an endless litany of doom and gloom, of horror stories one after another, lets add just a dash of perspective and reality to the proceedings.

Now as they say, to business...

I have a cute lil’ Labrador puppy in my lap with those great big, doting eyes of his beaming unconditional love.

Well, he doesn’t need drugs, he doesn’t get melancholy, ah yes but then he doesn’t get euphoria either.

It’s a Law of Nature, you can’t have one without the other, and the higher you go, the harder you are inevitably bound to fall…

Now, remember that cute little Puppy?

He’s looking at you right now with his great, limpid eyes…he’s wearing a little placard round his neck…I’ll see if I can read it (he’s so adorable ) it says :

“Pay me for this piece…otherwise I Shoot the Dog”

Comments

  1. well written - william burroughs would be proud of you luv grace

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