Notes From My Knapsack 10-5-17

Notes From My Knapsack 10-5-17

Jeff Gill

 

No, not me. You, maybe.

____

 

Every morning, I brew a pot of coffee. Since I was fifteen, I've drunk about six to ten cups of coffee a day, from dawn to dusk and often right on into the night.

 

I'm often told, and have been since in my twenties, that "son, one of these days soon you'll find you have to stop drinking that stuff by noon or you won't sleep a wink."

 

Just turned 56, still waiting for that fell day to fall. Hasn't yet. We'll see.

 

I could stop any time, of course. I just don't want to.

 

Lots of people come home at the end of the day, turn on the television. They don't have to, there's no paycheck or reward or any upside oftimes for doing so, it's just a habit. House is too quiet without it, they say. They could not click the TV when they walk in the house, even before they sit down, and might be happier for not having done so. They just don't want to.

 

Some of us, younger ones for the most part, put earbuds in at every reasonable opportunity and not a few unreasonable. Recorded music makes them feel better, and the soundtrack to their lives gives them a lift, and it blocks out things they don't want to hear. You or me, for instance. Gotta good beat, you could dance to it, keeps you going. They don't have to have music to live, but it helps life out.

 

Statistically, it's clear many of us take some pain pills in the morning. I've had my seasons. The sheer numbers sold over the counter indicate that either there are cellars all over America filled with the stuff, or quite a few take a handful first thing, and gobble a few more at intervals right on to bedtime.

 

Aching joints, throbbing head, general debility, and some ibuprofen or aspirin ease the day along. Could we get along without them? Sure, but it wouldn't be pleasant. Do we take more than we really need? Um, who's asking? Who decides? It doesn't hurt anything, much. Not really.

 

I am told by some friends and acquaintances that smoking a bit of weed is a useful end to a long day. Easier to get all the time, possibly even legal soon, so what's the harm. It's not addictive. It's not addictive. It's not addictive. (I heard you the first time, really.) Well, it can be habit forming, but not like alcohol, and that's legal, right? Let me have this habit, I'm not hurting anyone. Okay, I reply, I'm not saying it is. Except it is still illegal . . . cue lecture as to why it shouldn't be.

 

And I go to the grocery for salami and cheese and peanut butter, without which life would surely have no meaning worth speaking of, and traipse down a long aisle of alcohol. One gets the impression in Our Fayre Village that some of this gets drunk. Often. Much.

 

In our community controversy around schools and testing and expectations, one thing is clear to me. We live in an addictive society. I'm not even getting into the question of prescriptions and such. We are all addicts, and the cultural norm is to be addicted, to something or some things.

 

How we got here, and what that means, and how it is currently managed, by all of us: that's the question I'm compulsively tugging at.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he will freely admit to being a writing junkie, and can't get through a day let alone week without writing something. Tell him about your compulsions at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.