Sobriety Blues

[curiouscliche]

So I’m rapidly approaching the second longest stretch of time without being high (and the longest as well). While I’m definitely not enjoying it, my fears about losing my inclination towards hyper-ridiculous speculation have been unfounded (irony!). So yeah, I came up with this little waste of thought, and immediately started to wonder if my

Comments

[slackwards]

My thought is that we've managed to simplify it to primary colors already, because that's what people understand. Labels are meant to simplify. But they don't really serve any purpose. People's views can vary without fitting into a larger group, and I don't need to assign a numerical value to (or otherwise quantitatively define) my opinions to know I have them. Also when you realize how much people subscribe to moral relativism, I don't think there's a real way to determine, based on a four-dimensional scale, how a person will view any given situation or problem.

Also, judging by the success the Republican Party has had over the past decade, I can't see how classifying individuals' differences will help any progress.

[curiouscliche]

I agree with everything you're saying, but unfortunately political power is wielded by a small number of people in this country. However, by more precisely quantifying politicians one can more easily hold them accountable and observe them. In effect this plottery is a rationalization system, but used against the instruments(tools) of power, rather than in their service.

[fucking_shut_up]

this still leaves the problem of graphing people.

[curiouscliche]

If you're saying that this creates a technical problem for attempts to graph people (which I doubt you're saying), you could always just graph the people on any axis at a given point in time.

If you're saying that this is still reductive BS, you're quite right, but unfortunately reductive BS heuristics are often pragmatic neccesseties because they're the only way for our feeble human brains to grok the infinite beauty of the universe.

[fucking_shut_up]

also, i'll tell ya who wasn't sober in any capacity this weekend. ME.

did we call you? I remember connie writing a note on her hand when we were sober suggesting to drunk us that we drunk-dial you. Did we? I, unsurprisingly, can't remember

[sonearperfect]

yeah, we drunk dialed vince/you (though vince remembers, probably) and got to talk to him for a bit. we also called 1 of the other 2 people on my hand to call (abby) but did not call the third suggestion (brian's parents).

[fucking_shut_up]

although, the parents did call me, but i was only kinda buzzed at that point.

[curiouscliche]

I <3 Drunk-dialers

[johnwesley73]

Welcome to sobriety. I'm of two minds about it. I practice it intermittently as a way to save money (public binge drinking can be very expensive in a big city--maybe not so much in a college town.) I try to categorize my addictions according to which ones are 1) damned expensive and prolly harmful to my health, and 2) cheap but, may actually distance me from ppl. Alcohol does all sorts of things to the body and brain, but, it _can_ be a social prompter if done in moderation. OTOH, pot is prolly my drug of choice, just in terms of the way it makes me feel, and is relatively inexpensive (though, I'm not factoring in costs like aiding and abetting violent criminal activity), but, too easily done in isolation. Of the two, pot was the more difficult to give up.

How about a double helix representing political affiliations? Every combination of left-right "proteins" would be unique; also leaves room room for evolutionary change.

[curiouscliche]

Yeah, up until Friday night, all three of my abstentions were pretty much intact. Then my boss had a party and I had six shots of very excellent whiskey. Oh well.

Why stop at two types of protein? DNA has 4, and why not more?

[johnwesley73]

One of the things my friend Dave, my longest living bar buddy and a card-carrying member of AA (10 years w/o a drop of alcohol--knock on wood) marvels at is my ability to repeatedly "slip" and then climb back on the wagon--something he can't ever risk without "bottoming" first. It's tricky.

Yea, this where the ability to visualize comes in handy; I can't quite visualize a six or ten proteined double-helix. You're saying, you can?

[johnwesley73]

I just realized the word "bottoming" has a sexual meaning. In the AA context it means bringing your life to a brand new level of humiliation, embarassment and degradation.