ESSAY ON RECOVERY & HUMAN POTENTIAL
Overcoming Addictions | Unleashing the Potential for Human Flourishing, Malthusian Theories, and The World Problématique
Addictions are complex; no singular approach toward healing is sufficient for uprooting the disease, yet liberation from it is possible.
Mark Zuleger-Thyss
People with an addiction come to a fork in the road if they are serious about overcoming the affliction. The simple choice to stay still is a refusal to engage in destructive activities.
We Are the World | We Are the Children
Thomas Robert Malthus was an 18th-Century English economist, cleric, and scholar influential in political economy and demography.
Malthus criticized the Poor Laws for leading to inflation rather than improving the well-being of people experiencing poverty. His views became influential and controversial in economic, political, social, and scientific thought. However, some Pioneers of evolutionary biology, notably Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, criticized Malthus's failure to predict the Industrial Revolution.
In the 1798 publication, "An Essay on the Principle of Population," Malthus claimed, "inescapable limits on human flourishing." Malthus continued this line of thought in the thesis "The Limits to Growth."
Of course, these publications are exclusively about economic and population growth and their detrimental effects on the planet's health and humanity. Malthus laid the "...theoretical foundation of the conventional wisdom that has dominated the debate, both scientifically and ideologically, on global hunger and famines for almost two centuries." Malthus remains a much-debated writer.
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Theories on Exponential Growth
While the average citizen in the 21st Century might not be familiar with Thomas Robert Malthus or his theories, it's crucial to consider his warnings. The issues of exponential growth and expansion are more significant now than they were in the 1790s, and today, these concepts permeate every aspect of our lives, making Malthus's theories more relevant than ever.
With increasing wealth, the array of things to desire, crave, and covet also expands. Passions and indulgences are constantly tempting us, especially with the pervasive influence of advertising. However, it's crucial to understand that excessive indulgence can lead to problems, such as addiction, which can have detrimental consequences for human health. Understanding and managing our desires allows us to maintain control and lead healthier lives.
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When are Limits to Growth a Good Strategy?
When we question the existence of limits to growth in human health, psychology, and individual potential, we open the door to a world of possibilities. This contemplation prompts us to consider the true extent of human flourishing and joy, and the potential for personal growth and success.
Per Malthusian theory, unchecked growth can lead to detrimental consequences, whether in personal desires or societal structures, so asking this question is worth pondering. But to be sure, when it comes to health and happiness, we all deserve to experience as much joy and love as possible.
At a certain point, a person with addiction faces the threat of a continued decline down a black hole or letting go of the addiction to grow higher and reach for more healthy diversions, such as hobbies, social activities, or personal development.
It's crucial to acknowledge that when it comes to addictions, there is significant groundwork to be done. However, this acknowledgment is the first step towards personal success and the realization of all the joy that life has to offer. It's a journey, but one that puts you in control of your own happiness.
Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough
The Zen Way of Recovery
An Illuminated Path
Out of the Darkness of Addiction
In her book, The Zen Way of Recovery, author Laura Burges explains that Zen practice alone is not enough to cure an addiction. To unravel her struggle with alcoholism, Burgess chose the additional support of recovery programs.
Burges’s book is a compassionate guide to Buddhist principles and practices offering tools which, together with the help of recovery programs, can offer a road to sobriety—written by an experienced lay teacher with long-term recovery. Burges’s message is resonant for people with any type of addictive behavior—and for people who aren’t necessarily familiar with Buddhism.
The Zen Way of Recovery shows us that to know the "alchemy of recovery," what is required is repeatedly recommitting to the path of rehabilitation. In this way, any person with an addiction can finally find the magic of recovery watching it build with contagious enthusiasm.
Remaining utterly open while not overtaken by hope or fear - that is everything.
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Meditation can be helpful in recovery. Meditation is a practice wherein you learn to be in a space and just 'be.'
By becoming friendly with all our painful emotions and welcoming feelings as natural states, we can allow these unpleasant sensations to move through us. We must learn to let these painful feelings and memories arise, move through us, and pass. Actual growth comes from understanding that there is no need to identify with these painful emotions, thinking that 'they' are us.
Sitting still and allowing negative feelings to bubble up – all the restlessness, the worry, the agitation – is what a person with an addiction fears the most. To enable painful emotions to move through your body is required – these feelings must travel wherever they need to go and blocking them gets you nowhere but stuck. What is required is to experience the feeling and not believe it. Just let them be.
Like the significant transitions of great animals, such as the shedding of fur or the sloughing of an entire snakeskin, it makes the point that you can reach a place where addiction is no longer helpful. Moreover, this shedding, the emergence of the same creature, made new, is like casting off an addiction.
Only in creating separation and otherness do people with an addiction have a 'purpose' for the disease.
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You Rock My World
In meditation, one learns to sit still in silence and look within. By remaining still and keeping with the spirit of the moment, one can expand into space and leave 'form' behind, thereby shifting into the more profound cosmic truth of emptiness and oneness.
True success can occur once an addiction is left in the past. The only kind of success that matters most is the success of transforming ourselves. This power will benefit us and others without causing damage or harm. From there, contemplating the health of the planet in terms of population overload and the effects of pollution on humanity can begin.
The fundamental understanding here is you must first start by healing yourself. This is not just a personal journey, but a crucial step towards a healthier, more balanced world.
The World Problématique
What might Addictions and Mass Extinction have to Do with Each Other?
As global citizens, we would do well to understand the interrelated nature of the crises we face and simultaneously address issues for people and the planet. The World Problématique is a concept coined by the Club of Rome. It seeks to encapsulate the gravity of humanity's complex set of crucial problems (political, social, economic, technological, environmental, psychological, and cultural).
While the comparison of addictions and mass extinction may seem exaggerated, our planet is facing many alarming concerns that demand immediate attention. These include world hunger, extreme poverty, disease, population growth, air and water pollution, and the emission of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the environment.
Climate change is one way of looking at how we unsustainably consume resources and produce waste locally and globally. Each of these complex and evolving challenges mirrors the pathology of our interlinked times. However, when viewed as part of an interconnected disease, it becomes clear that a collective approach is needed to address this World Problématique. The COVID-19 pandemic, though, as laboratory research gone rogue mysteriously escaping a lab in China, is an extraordinary example of activities that are illogical, inhuman, perverse, and without a measure of environmental regulation.
The work of pioneers like Thomas Robert Malthus has now been gaining recognition, even as the global economy has already exceeded the earth's carrying capacity by many measures.
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There is indeed a beacon of hope, as the world has made significant strides in reducing poverty over the past few decades. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that extreme poverty persists for nearly one in ten people globally.
From 1990 to 2014, the world witnessed a remarkable collective effort to reduce extreme poverty, with over one billion people transcending this condition. This inspiring achievement is a testament to the power of unity and gives us hope for the future.
Education is a key factor in poverty reduction, as it equips individuals with the skills and knowledge to improve their living conditions. There are poor people in every country who live in inadequate housing and struggle to afford essential goods and services like heating, transportation, and healthy food for themselves and their families.
Ending poverty in all its forms is the first of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In the 2030 Agenda, Goal 1 underscores that eradicating poverty in all its forms is the most significant global challenge we face today. It can only be overcome through our collective responsibility and united global cooperation, a prerequisite for sustainable development. This should motivate us to act.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an increase in the number of people living in extreme poverty for the first time in a generation. This sobering reality should ignite our empathy and concern, as progress in essential areas, such as childhood vaccination and income equality between countries, has been reversed.
Heal the World
Make it a better place
For you and for me and the entire human race
There are people dying
If you care enough for the living
Make a better place for you and for me
~ From Michael Jackson’s Anthem, “Heal The World”
By reducing poverty worldwide, improvements in the overall quality of health of every person living on this planet can be achieved. Many of the diseases and illnesses that people experience when living in poverty are preventable and treatable if given the chance.
Achieving these positive gains took a lot of healthy minds, bodies, and energy. This shows the progress that people can make working together to solve our collective problems.
Again, the key is understanding that you must start by healing yourself, by taking care of your own well-being and then extending that care to others in need.
We suffer, though, from a kind of mass addiction, a consciousness desiring more of everything no matter what the cost.
In the last 50 years, the global economy has grown twenty-six times bigger. During this same period, the population of the United States alone has increased by 60 percent.
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Under the weight of this economic and population growth, we find ourselves suffocating in its fumes. In the last 50 years, our planet has heaved out a colossal 1.5 trillion tons of carbon dioxide. Charged with the potential of a smoldering fire, how long can we ignore the signs before our planet erupts in a spontaneous combustion event?
Our mass consumer consciousness is driving this growth, and as with cravings, too much of anything can become toxic to the organism.
We have become habituated to demanding whatever we believe we need. Our insatiable desires, fueled by consumerism, are leading us down a perilous path. The First World, often seen as a drug pusher, is enticing the Third World with a banquet of 'goodies,' some of which are not good at all. This is a direct threat to our human flourishing.
This role of the First World in promoting consumerism underscores the responsibility of developed nations in perpetuating global inequalities.
Like a person with obsessions eventually descending a black hole, are we headed for collective mass addiction, putting us on a path to extinction slyly beginning masked as one poisoned mind poisoning the next one? Perhaps not.
Heal the World | For You and for Me and The Entire Human Race
Chop Wood, Carry Water & Taking out the Garbage
An old Zen saying says, "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." This adage illustrates that no matter how much you know, you still must take out the garbage. The difference is that you take it out with more consciousness.
What is evident is how quickly minds and bodies, once renewed with good health, can devise solutions to problems as large as extreme poverty, hunger, disease, and overpopulation.
So, this is where we ought to begin: with the healing of the individual, ensuring each one gets the help they need to achieve, stay healthy, and flourish. Only in this way can we begin to solve The World Problématique, and each of us has a role to play in this interconnected web of well-being.
Follow Nature...
wherever She may lead You!
