Anaesthetic and the loss of feeling alive

I’ve never read Brave New World, but I have heard the song Iris, and it has me won­der­ing how alive most of us feel. Deal­ing hon­estly with myself, there are times where I don’t feel very alive. There’s almost no need for me to go out­side, and so I’m dis­con­nected from nature. Most pain is an option, I’ve been asleep for every surgery I’ve been though. Media offers an escape for any­thing and every­thing, only because I refuse alco­hol, drugs and women. I live in a safe city, I’ve never been through or fought in a war. Death isn’t a real­ity I usu­ally deal with, and when I do it’s a very ster­il­ized “encounter”. Dis­ease, famine and plague are words in a dic­tio­nary, or entries in his­tory books. The things that most peo­ple had to — and still have to — deal with are things that have never affected me, at least in a per­sonal way (as far as I’m aware). I can’t help but won­der if this is why so many peo­ple live in fear, because they’ve for­got­ten what it’s like to live.

I do know that in Brave New World there is a drug called soma, which induces a dream like state as a means of escape–“a gramme is bet­ter than a damn”, or so I’m told. And we may not be liv­ing in Huxley’s Brave New World, but it seems to me as if this thing called “soma” exists, though in many forms, rather than just one. The result is that one line in Iris, “yeah you bleed just to know you’re alive”. Even though this is a line in a song, I know it’s true for many–I’ve met them. I think this is some­thing which I began view­ing as a fairly mod­ern phe­nom­e­non, but I’m really not all that sure any­more. The mod­ern aspect may only be the extent to which we’re dulled. Unfor­tu­nately I’ve raised more ques­tions than answers. Absurd­ness is the first thought that comes to mind. We escape from real­ity in our own ways (all of us, in some way) and we respond by “remind­ing” our­selves that we’re alive; is the ulti­mate exam­ple of this the adren­a­line junkie? Actu­ally, that reminds me of another lyric by a band called Bride, “get high to remem­ber take a drink to for­get / it’s all pro­fan­ity”. What’s the answer to the biggest ques­tion, why? I don’t even think the biggest “prob­lem” is that we don’t feel alive. The biggest prob­lem is the impli­ca­tions this has on the rest of our lives, espe­cially con­cern­ing love.

Is it any mys­tery why sui­cide is the answer to the anti-utopian soci­eties of fic­tion, and why it’s a real problem?

But, I sus­pect this is noth­ing new.

Related posts:

1. Hap­pi­ness is not just a feeling
2. Barry Schwartz on Our Loss of Wisdom