Anyone else aware of how our modern life affords us many comforts, conveniences, and a great deal of support at the click of a button?
But at the same time, we often feel alone and left to fend for ourselves.
Well, on one side of the coin, I don’t think we appreciate just how much this culture supports us.
Education, health, infrastructure, cleanliness, access to mental health support, youth support, energy, food, people on call for everything we don’t see, large-scale plumbing, farming, truck drivers… the list goes on.
Of course, we can criticise every aspect of it, but that’s beside the point.
The point is that our basic needs and safety are essentially covered. Could they be ‘better’, of course?
But that’s not the purpose of this article.
The purpose here is to uncover an often, unspoken about, cost of cultural evolution.
It’s a subtle cost that shows up inside individuals.
Our modern life, with all its gifts, has also massively exacerbated our tendency to addict and attach to extreme levels.
Our modern life and the development of resources at the click of a button, have led us to become addicted and attached more than ever.
Why?
Because our modern life does not promote deep connection, to anything.
Work is about productivity.
Family is about obligation.
Religion seems silly.
Service needs a payback.
Business is still mostly about accumulation.
Our social life is all caught up in tech and even the reemergence of spirituality is being sucked into the new age and highly profited form, as people become more desperate for anything that appears ‘real’.
We are the smartest, most efficient, most addicted, and most attached people there have been.
As we drift further away from our true nature, the intensity and force to which we addict and attach intensify.
The more we find comfort in anything other than ourselves, we become more and more addicted and attached to keeping it that way.
And when attachments break, we are thrown into months, sometimes even years of recovery.
When we are thrust from the jaws of deep addiction, the whole body-mind system and all of its internal self-structures get turned into scrambled eggs.
A complete self-collapse is the painful result of withdrawal.
Whether it’s coming out of addiction to drugs & alcohol, or feeling the gut-wrench and heartbreak of a relationship breakdown. We don’t have many collapses in us before we throw it in for good.
Attachment and addiction are the survival drive in the face of a rampant modern culture that cannot see the need for connection.
Our view on attachment and addiction is immature, misunderstood and leaves people in the emptiest place we can experience as people.
As individuals, we are left in a lonely experience of feeling something but thinking it’s not the way it should be.
We misunderstand attachment & addiction and therefore we misunderstand ourselves.
We are left with confusing experiences like:
“I shouldn’t be attached” but I am
“I should be self-reliant” but I’m not
“It’s just a break up get on with it” but I don’t even have the energy to eat
“I should be able to stop” but I can’t
“I don’t want to rely on people, I feel like I’m a burden” but I can’t do this alone
“I shouldn’t be suffering for this long” everyone is telling me to get over it
It is these experiences that leave us feeling empty, as we all assume it’s not the way it’s meant to be.
We assume there is something wrong with us.
Rather than understanding that this is a deep part of life as we endeavor to feel connected within a disconnected world.
It’s not until we start sharing the fundamental truth of attachment and addiction, which is – We as people attach and addict! It’s what we do!
Attachment & addiction isn’t a part of life. It is life.
Go easy on yourself legends & here’s to understanding a little more about attachment and therefore understanding a little more about ourselves!