Stress
I recently saw an advert on Facebook where a middle-aged man claimed he had a cure for hangovers. He explained that alcohol (ethanol) converts into the very toxic acetaldehyde in the body, and as we age we find it harder to process the acetaldehyde and thus we experience longer and more debilitating hangovers. But thankfully this man had some sort of cure for this. Yay!! Call me old fashioned but I’m always a little bit sceptical when the process is to fuck something up and then to fix the fucked up thing. It’s not quite coming to me now, but I’m sure there’s an easier way.
Another example is the betting companies offering tools to help you manage your gambling addiction. Take a time out guys! How about the betting companies take a time out from riddling sports events with their advertisements.
I used to have a friend who had a young family, a nice, rented apartment and a simple job working in a supermarket. He didn’t drink alcohol or party on the weekends. He couldn’t understand why most other people were enduring stressful careers and then getting wasted on the weekends as a means to cope with that stress. At that time (I was young then), I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t understand. In my eyes the stress-heads were the ones that were really living, and he was sort of opting out of life.
Fast-forward a couple of decades and my life in England is characterised by being stressed and spending inordinate amounts of time, effort and money to counteract that stress. A lot of the stress feels like it’s built-in to life in the West. Impenetrable systems, careers, debt, politics, depressing media. I attempt to counteract the stress with meditation and alcohol and spa days and walks in nature, but in truth, at best, these things probably just about keep a lid on it. The stress never goes away. It feels like the stress is always winning. It’s like the gambler using the timeout tools to maintain some semblance of normal life. He’s still in debt. He’s still not present for his family. The gambling is still present in his mind the whole time.
As I get older, I’m choosing to truly step away from the stress. Let the others fight it out in the rate-race. Let the others pay a fortune for houses and car leases that seemingly never end. Let the others sit interminably on hold as they try to extricate themselves from some contract or other. ‘I’ll just pass you over to the retentions department’. ‘I beg you, please just let me leave’. Let the others have arguments with bots. Let the others get caught up in furore after furore.
I neither want nor need the stress. In truth I never really wanted it, I just allowed myself to get sucked into the game. I concede my friend was right. I’ll find me an island somewhere, the sun, the sea, no stress.