Hibbit, Addict, Immoderant, Obliviate
Oblivious:
Not aware of, or not concerned about what is happening
around about; forgetful; unmindful.
happening.
Hibbit
There is a dotted line in the sands of our consciousness
beyond which we have a sense that control – whatever that may be for us – goes
walkabout without us. It is where hibition
sets in.
worth mentioning here because, although the word is not in the dictionary – it
IS in the urban dictionary.
When we are inhibited, there is an extra level of conscious
control we are bringing to our thoughts, our behaviour, our awareness – and we
use inhibition as a cloak to hide our persona,
our personality, behind. It is all about our reserve, the private and unshared Me, the considered and thoughtful person
we want the world to see that we are. When the world – the world we inhabit – the
world our persona and behaviour
collides with – sees any degree of hibition
from us, the perception of our Me within
that world changes.
that we witness in that world changes as well.
You could say, “The Me that I see that I am” – also changes.
Now hold, if you would, onto that notion, that sentence, that sentience for as
long as it is necessary to consider whatever may be your addiction.
Addict
We are all addicts. Yes ,we all have addictions. The vicar,
the train guard, the minister, the lollipop lady, the shy man, the shaman, the salesman and
the rest of us; we all have addictions.
on a judgemental meaning surrounding some destructive area of human frailty.
The ones high up the scale of perniciousness are drugs, drink, gambling – and
why is that do you think? Consider what lies behind them all for clues.
There are other things certain of us become addicted to –
sex, power, fame, for instance. We call these addictions Lust, yet they are
still addictions. The bankers are addicted, the politicians are addicted; the
religious zealot is addicted, the bully is addicted.
night hedonists are addicted, the prim and proper Prudences are addicted and the workaholics are addicted. Addiction
is part of all of us.
And we love our addictions, we love indulging ourselves, we
greet these loves as regular as clockwork, as familiar friends. “I just can’t do without my X,” whatever
X that may be.
as it is necessary to consider what lies behind moderation.
Is moderation about not indulging or not over-indulging?
talked about certain words that have been twisted out of shape in our modern
world. Moderation is one of these words. There’s this notion in the world that
moderation means diluting pleasure. However, my argument is that moderation is
about diluting the quantity of one particular pleasure. If we have a Menu of pleasures then we can be
indulgent in a qualitative way over a number of pleasures rather than indulgent
in a quantitative way over one pleasure. The key is to enhance our Menu!
But I digress –
So which is it … Immoderate or I’m moderate?
Which are you? How do you rate your modes of being, of behaving? Do you ration
yourself in some of your modes so that they become mode-ration?
addictive condition. And any pursuing of any pleasure, to excess, eventually
destroys the pursuer.
“Come on, Pete – I love gardening. How will that destroy
me?”
“Well, how far are you prepared to take
that ‘love’, for I suspect you love doing gardening but you are not yet addicted
to it. It remains, for the present, a pleasure.”
We need to find a way of balancing our pleasures and
addictions with a moderation based on quality.
that sentience for as long as it is necessary to consider whatever may have
been your sense of oblivion.
If it is that oblivion, for you, means being unaware or
unconscious of what is happening, then ask yourself why would you seek to be oblivious?
What purposeful gain would accrue from such an experience?
who was wary of hypnotherapy, which we can also refer to as “a therapeutic process facilitated
by hypnosis”. He was concerned at what would – or might – happen to him
while in trance.
“I’d lose control,” he said. “That worries me, because I
wouldn’t be in charge of Me. The idea of it spooks me.” This
was indeed fascinating language – his personal representation that “I” always
controls “Me” and that “Me” is worried, nay spooked, when “Me” had a felt sense
that “I” wasn’t in control.
I raised the subject of oblivion, of being oblivious, and he said, “That’s it –
like that in a nutshell. I’d feel I’d be under someone else’s control, and not my own.”
“So, tell me what you did last Saturday
evening,” I invited. He then proceeded to relate his meeting up with some
mates for a drink, going on to a club etc. Now this is all a very common
pattern for quite a swathe of society, as we know it.
“For what purpose; what do you get out of this?” I asked.
He seemed
amazed that I’d asked such a naive question, smiled, and then elaborated when I
gestured him to go on.
“To have a good time, have a load of drinks, have a great laugh, get rat-arsed,
just generally enjoy myself in great company, etc.”
“Tell me about rat-arsed,” I said, and he did.
“And after rat-arsed, tell me about what
happened next.”
And he did, and the detail was graphic until he reached the point where, due to
alcoholic influence, he couldn’t remember what had happened in the next part of his night out.
“So, would that be something like oblivion?”
I asked. “Would you say you were
oblivious as to what happened next?”
He looked at me a bit ‘sideways’ and
then nodded.
“So, when you are
obliviously rat-arsed, where is control? Who has control?” I asked.
He shrugged his
shoulders as his eyes fell from looking at me.
“And does THAT experience spook you? And when you’re like that – who is
in charge of You? Who is running the show then?”
Considerant
Addicts, and Hibbits, it is not a progressive path. There is also a need to
consider the matter of the chosen vehicle of delivery.
My young friend’s chosen vehicle is alcohol; Mr Creosote
(from the Monty Python film The Meaning of Life) had food as his
vehicle of choice; Lord Byron’s was opium, and so on.
we are all addicted to something, we all tend to have no moderation around that
thing. Of the four, Hibbits are the most natural, and it is a disposition, a
way of being in the world, that permits authentic expression. Those of us
blessed with or who gain natural hibition – not one brought about by a chosen
vehicle of delivery – are able to live a less complicated life.
clearer perspective of pleasures and moderation. They can ration their modes
well, build a wide-ranging menu of pleasures and vehicles of delivery, they are
comfortable with their inner and outer words and worlds. Because of their
wide-ranging menu of pleasures, Hibbits are less prone to being addicted to harmful
and pernicious things.
In theory, we would get the most out of life by being a
Hibbit, not an Addict, an Immoderant or an Obliviate.
or all of this! We could continue to be oblivious to such notions, theories or
arguments. And as the sands of our consciousness become blown into dunes and
shapes, we might never wonder why we seem to live our lives governed by those
dunes and shapes instead of knowing that WE control what makes them the dunes
and shapes they really are, or – at least – seem to be.
Audio version available!