our acceptable addictions

So you're happy in the knowledge you're not addicted to drugs.

All those dirty people from the bad neighbourhoods who can't control themselves & waste their lives. Or maybe it's those rich people who have nothing to do so they shoot up.

You will never become a prostitute so you can get your next fix. You won't cut a hole in your arm because you saw a snake slithering under your skin. You won't sleep nights under bridges, on park benches, up alleyways.

All because they are so pathetic their addictions control their lives.

But what about you, middle class Australian? With your self righteousness, looking down on
those below you & your denied envy of those above you.

You have no drugs! Of course not! YOU are in control.

But let's see you go without your TV for a month. Or your phone. Or Facebook.

Or try spending one night by yourself. Not with an author, or a TV producer, or a game designer.

Just one night.

By yourself. With just you, your thoughts, & some oxygen.

And you can't just go to sleep.

You don't have to hide your drugs from your friends. The police aren't on the lookout for
the neighbourhood plasma TV dealer. Indeed, when you feed your addictions, you flaunt it to
your friends. You put up photos & status updates showing the world your latest high.

Your drugs may be socially acceptable, but that doesn't mean they're not drugs. You use
them the same way others use heroin - to lose yourself, to keep the world from being quiet,
to keep the silence at bay. To keep yourself from feeling that nagging sense that you're
wasting your life one minute at a time.

You spend all day at work, just waiting till you can go home to sit in front of your screen of choice.

You noise-aholic. You silence-ophobe.

George Orwell got it around the wrong way - Big Brother isn't watching you. He's singing &
dancing. He's busy holding your attention every moment you're awake, making sure you're
always distracted. At arms length from yourself.

He's keeping you from ever having your own thoughts.

Until your imagination withers, and you find yourself living from high to high.

But you are not alone.

I am one of you.

Looking for my next high.

And tomorrow I will be woken by an alarm, & fall asleep minutes after turning a screen off.