"... The use of an addictive substance produces illusory feedback of being well-attuned to the environment when the reality is the opposite."
From a PubMed article: Embodying addiction: A predictive processing account
This is quite a key, especially if you apply it to addictions people don't necessarily frame as addictions.
It's an even better key if you run further out and consider wanting to make something as addictive as possible, which is standard in this day and age.
Can you glean something from this?
This made me think about how we become "addicted" to a prescribed "reality" - it fits well with the idea of thinking you are attuned to your environment, when simultaneously your soul is experiencing being cauterised by this same attunement. Quitting prescribed reality seems as hard as getting off a substance, with the core issue being unexperienced grief. In the case I'm offering, the grief of the soul. This would suggest all manifest addictions, such as drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, porn, whatever, are really a facsimile of the deeper addiction to a false reality, one which demands that essential parts of ourselves are denied.
@sophiab this sounds right to me.
And on addiction:
Letter to my mother August 8th 1956
“…I was very proud to announce that Xxxxx has quit smoking. He must never start again. If he does, it will be much harder for him to quit again. The smoking habit is like tying a wicked giant with cord string. Every time you bind him with another string he has less chance to escape. One string does not make much difference (like one more cigarette) but when enough of them are applied he is helpless to break them. It is the same with cigarettes, one does not seem important, but each one binds the person that much tighter, and every day it becomes increasingly harder for him to break the habit. Cigarettes not only take a lot of money, they are bound to affect the health in time.”
- Henry
This is a wild topic. I’m just over here taking it in…
Thank you for sharing that article!
If the "powers that be" keep messaging that the future is bleak and hopeless, make you believe that your long-term goals of owning a home or starting a family etc are so slim that it's futile... the next best thing is for you to spend your money on something you know is inferior but will provide a guaranteed instant hit - even if you know it's crap.