Addiction in Moderation

I'm not quite certain when addiction becomes a component of your make up, but something tells me it begins very early in life. A child has a basic need to be held, listened to-- one is desperate for attention, the child get's it and feels that amazing sensation of fulfillment and satisfaction...comfort. Or perhaps it's the instant gratification we get from putting a puzzle together, building a tower, or the salivating that takes place at the thought of M&M's or a Happy Meal. How does simple satisfaction become a ravenous want for things? For things that can even kill you? And, is that ravenous want when applied to passion a negative?

Isn't that person with extreme passion looked at as a person with ambition and drive? I had a ravenous want to be on Broadway. I had equal and ravenous want for toxicity. I had the bare, naked, human want to be loved and accepted. I had the simple want to feel good and be happy. Why are these needs that all people have wrong? See where this all leads to confusion within a child's mind? Even in an adult mind?

There has to be something right within the world of need or else we would not fight for the things we believe in and work towards the things we want. Why is it that everything that is looked at as an addiction something that is "bad for you"? Sex, drugs, drinking, shopping, hell--don't they deem texting an addiction now? There's a fine line there. I think the very same passion that runs through my veins that is satisfied by being on stage, singing and dancing, is the very same passion that felt satisfied poisoning my veins or from self-mutilation. Joy, fun, excitement, and even sometimes, elation. Isn't there even a scientific explanation, that we are doing whatever we can to release serotonin and endorphins? We've got to gush our system with all these natural chemicals to give us a high and it's wrong to force ourselves to have these unnatural highs, that is, of course, unless they are prescribed, right? Right?

No, I think it's understanding the side effects of our wants and the possible destruction working too hard and needing too much can get us. We are so desperate in a world of sad and angry people to feel good, to succeed at getting what we want. And if sex makes us feel good--we have a baby boom or we have a plethora of STDs floating about. If being a singer makes us a feel good we have an influx of talent based reality TV shows, or entire generations of kids losing their identity to the fame monster. If eating makes us feel good we have genius chefs creating edible art or we become a fast food nation full of obese poster children. If tobacco feels good we have 400 thousand people die in a year from tobacco related illnesses. If music feels good we have Beethoven. Art-- Van Gogh and Basquiat. There are pros and cons to the extent that we want. EVERYTHING IN MODERATION. To know the boundaries, the limits, what's safe, what's acceptable within you. To eat to live, not live to eat. To appreciate, not devour. To partake, but not take advantage. Sample, don't steal. Experience, don't expel. In my humble opinion, this is how we experience heaven on earth again, and again, and again.