Though I know certain friends find my struggles and complaints about caffeine annyoing, let me try and explain why it pains me so much when I make the choice to consume something like the Americano I just drank…
The backstory: I love the feeling of ‘aliveness’. I also highly value honesty, being real, feeling what needs to be felt, and following my passion (and hearing/supporting the passions of others). Conversely, I really don’t enjoy the opposites –feeling tired, sad, bored, unmotivated, lazy, aimless, etc.
What’s hard to admit, honestly, is that I find it a bit harder these days to feel ‘alive’ and ‘passionate’ and ‘motivated’ than I used to. What used to be considered the biggest sin by me, boredom or a lack of ‘wants’, is felt more frequently. (Though I still don’t really believe that’s what is going on at core…but maybe I’m just in denial.)
When I have caffeine, I get this quick boost of what feels like ‘aliveness’ and passion and energy (and I use it sparingly enough that the difference is acute, unlike many people I know who are now just dependent on it or ‘used to it’).
And when I’m caffeinated I seem to be able to bulldoze over many of my whiny blues, my tired demotivated stuckness, uber-introspection, boredness, etc.
But then, a few problems result from this choice:
1. I can crash hard physically/emotinally…feeling extra tired, depressed, upset sleep cycle, irritable, etc.
2. Perhaps more importantly, to me, I don’t TRUST the feelings/beliefs/actions that came from me during that time. Like a person who has a spiritual hallucinogenic trip from acid, I wonder ‘was it real’?
It frustrates me and tempts me to feel lame that so few other people seem to understand or want to talk about these problems, that so few people see what seems obvious to me –that our culture has a massively ‘acceptable’ drug addiction with cafe dealers only 1/2 block away everywhere -but here I am.
And I want the real thing. Aliveness. Passion. Motivation. Focus. Alertness.
Yet what I all too often find, like today, is that if getting the real thing takes more work (through who knows what -more exercise; better diet; more sleep; meditation & prayer; naps; etc.) I give into the fiend.
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