Adidam has a very rich and varied spiritual culture, in February each year devotees may write a “confession of narcissus” and throw it into a ceremonial fire to be burnt and forgotten, this post is along those lines.
The 3 Choices of Modern Man
If asked what I am most fundamentally (and honestly) I would answer “addict” without hesitation. This, more than any other possibility is my true shape, my true form, no bullshit in this case, it’s simply true.
This I know with complete certainty – I am an addict, a “fiend”. It’s a remarkable fact that more than anything else this certainty has proved itself to be the case in countless ways, daily. Nor is it that I am more an addict than anyone else, everyone with very few exceptions is by nature and action addict. I have met very few people who I would say are other than this, or beyond this state.
There are of course more gross and bodily destructive addictions and there are also and equally more refined and more positive and healthful addictions but addiction remains the fundamental pattern. It’s just as possible to be addicted to raw food as junk food, just opposing swings of the pendulum, many will also deny this to be the case, it doesn’t matter because when we hit the pillow at night, in the humility of the ordinary life, we all know the truth of what we would want to deny–:”addict I am”
So it is a great blessing a great insight to recognize this about yourself, because it is utterly true. There are many people even claiming to be enlightened, who are right now just addicts, compulsive and driven characters. It’s a homely truth, it has the seed for change in it, but just like the man or women at the local A.A. meeting, it has to be confessed in public, to your fellow men and women. “I am an addict.”
It puts you back where you are, feel the common humanity of it, it’s all our ordinary natures. Knowing this our compassion for others is real, it’s genuine, unmistakable.
