Have you ever used someone like heroin?
From some descriptions I've heard, smack is a very philosophical drug. Russell Brand, in a 2009 Fresh Air interview: "...nothing seems as important when you've got heroin. One of the key components of opiates is that it diminishes the significance of all else, you know? If you've got heroin, nothing else really matters, everything comes in second. In fact, I've often thought that opium addiction is like the materialization of the abstract idea of need. Most of us have an idea that we're missing something from our lives. Some of us think of it as God, some of us think of it as a new pair of shoes or the success a football team that we follow or the craving of the embrace of an absent lover. But with heroin---once you're addicted to it---those needs, those abstract needs, that hole that I feel is within all of us, doesn't seem to be nameless, some unknowable entity, but the clearly material, definable, accessible drug of heroin. You don't think, 'Oh God, what is it, I wish I had a new girlfriend or a new car.' You think, 'I've got to get heroin.' And once you align that physical addiction with that psychological need, your life just has a very clear linear narrative: 'I want heroin, I want heroin, I want heroin.' A tiny, cyclical loop of futile desires. In a way, in the rest of my life and in other people's lives, it seems we pursue similarly futile endeavors...the futility of consumerism is less obvious than the futility of heroin addiction." (Interview available at npr.org.)
No, I've never used heroin, and no, I don't think that everyone who tries heroin ends up feeling this way about it. But I think it works as an analogy. This is how I perceive some of my relationships with people. If I have some name and a face to desire and please, then the futility of my life seems less apparent. The lack of direction. Lack of self-knowledge and self-confidence. If I can find company to crave and events to look forward to, I can push my fears and self-doubt to the back of my mind, because they matter less than pleasing this person or these people. My desires to be useful in the world and to find myself and what I can do best can be focused onto a more immediate entity, a person. Or, more accurately, my desires are forgotten. This is why people change their lives and plans for another person. I did, once.
I've used several people in this way, even if they didn't know. I've felt that craving to see, hear, touch that person, even though I knew the relationship wouldn't last. While it's not physically destructive, it means I have pretty fucked up relationships, and I'm sure in the end it's not healthy for the other party either.
This all made more sense to me yesterday, and once again I've frustrated myself with my inability to articulate what's in my head. I hope you've made some sense of it, even if you believe it's untrue. I'm not even sure I believe it. I do know that I use people as an escape. Now I understand that people and relationships are not supposed to be an escape from real life but a part of it, but I'm not sure what that means I'm supposed to do. I have been stupid about people, and about myself, my entire life. How do you overcome 24 years of stupidity?
So, now that I really don't have any one or any thing to take away my nameless desires, my directionless life is staring me in the face. I have to convince myself every morning that it's worth it to get out of bed, that my part-time job is worthwhile, that I'm capable of doing what people expect of me. I have to tell myself that I really am not a failure if I get an internship next semester or summer. I tell everyone I'm ok with it, hoping one day that I'll believe it. Maybe I do believe it.
Cross-posted to The Color Disgusting.
