Some Thoughts on Addiction

What do you think of when you hear the term - Addiction?

Heroin? Drugs? Perhaps, alcohol? How about nicotine, sex, shopping or gambling?

"Addiction is a condition that results when a person ingests a substance or engages in an activity that can be pleasurable but the continued use/act of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary life responsibilities, such as work, relationships, or health."

One often hears: "We're all addicts" or "we all have addictions."

Songs are written about it.

"You might as well admit it, you're addicted to love." - Robert Palmer

"There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes." - John Prine

Addictions come in all shapes, forms and sizes. Some we cope with, others destroy us. Many of them simply chew up the fabric of our lives.

Take the Internet and it's death eater - Facebook.

I'm on a sabbatical from FB right now. Even went so far as to delete my last several months of posts, comments and likes. Addictions not only steal brain cells,  kill relationships and undermine well-being; we often overlook the ones that are just time sucks.

Minutes, hours and days can be consumed by the internet. Television, well admittedly in somewhat of a Golden Age right now, has spawned so many orphans (Netflix, Hulu, Roku, Sling, Amazon Prime) we can binge watch shows that haven't even aired yet.

Regrets, I've had a few but into the future the only Time Bandits I'm allowing in my world are those from Monty Python and Kim Stanley Robinson.

Oh, and Game of Thrones when it comes back

and the Coen Brothers

maybe PokerStars

but that's all

except for Ben & Jerry, which is a whole other addiction . . .


composite photo by Stephen McMennan

Auto Idiocy

I saw an ad the other day for a new car. Brand new car, totally redesigned or so they said. You know what they promoted for the entire commercial? The pre-programmed dashboard that will take calls on your cell phone, your twitter feed and your Facebook.

Now I give them credit, there is a button that you can push which sends the message: "I'm driving, will get back to you later." A button mind you that you still have to push while you're going 75 mph, looking at the dashboard instead of the highway where you are about to end my life.

I believe the expression I'm looking for is: WTF!

Why aren't we banning all cell phone and internet use while driving? Sorry, am I making too much sense? I've been in cars with drivers who are on the phone. I told one of them to pull over and let me out, when they laughed, I took the phone and threatened to throw it out the window.

This is not wave of the future, it's the way of death.

Sure, sure, I know. You always pull over to answer a call or take a message. You're a responsible adult and/or a lying asshat. But you know teens are not going to do that, you know because you've either attended a funeral for one of them or know someone who has. Dead kids splattered on the tarmac because they had to OMG! about Jason dumping Brittany.

Drivers need to drive, not talk on the phone, not text, not write pithy twitter comments or read their friend's Facebook updates.

Start-up steps for driving a car:
1) unlock the car door
2) sit in car
2a) [alternate - strap young child into car seat]
3) turn off your damn phone
4) start engine
5) do not buy any automobile that has on-the-road internet or phone access, when the car starts up, the internet should automatically shut down [exceptions allowed for pre-driving GPS programming and auto-porn].

Facebook

It's been forty days since my last visit to The Facebook. I feel no sense of withdrawal nor emptiness in my life. I do, however, miss knowing that Sally Slanders in Des Moines loves her new puppy.