thrill seekers of the world, unite! i was reading this article in the new york times about people who "seek sensation and novelty" by doing reckless things or by changing direction a lot. high-sensation seekers show augmented brain responses to increasing visual or acoustic stimuli, whereas low sensation seekers have diminished brain responses. "this suggests that high sensation seekers experience a lower base line level of brain arousal." i was talking to donna about it on the phone-- we agreed that we are both high-sensation seekers. but she noticed that we are usually much more sensitive than other people, which doesn't match up to the article. although maybe we are only more sensitive to some things... my reactions to misfortune are usually way more subdued than other people's. maybe i'm only really sensitive to good things. anyway, it says that thrill seekers self-medicate with recreational drugs.
(i hate the term self-medicate. i'm not a lab rat. grown-ups keep telling me i was self-medicating with heroin because i get so nervous in social situations. which makes no sense, because i was never ever high around other people, besides my close friends, and they don't make me nervous. if i were self-medicating i would have done it before school instead of after school. maybe, instead, it gave me a valid reason to NOT be around people. an excuse to feel justified in avoiding all activities involving other people.)
the strange thing is, this article says that thrill seekers are typically bored most of the time, and they have to do crazy things to escape boredom. on the contrary, i'm never bored, and i'm satisfied with very little-- activities, money, things, friends, etc. but still, given the chance, i'll always choose "high-sensation" things that "normal" people avoid because of danger, fear, or common sense.
when i'm off in my little dream in portland, i've constructed a world where "normal" is my life and what my friends and i do... and when i'm outside that world, it amazes me how shocked people are at things i tell them, even people my age. heroin shocked my parents, but so many other things shock them more.. not just reckless things i did, but parts of my daily life that i never thought twice about. and i spare them the "worst" details of the way we live, especially the things we did when we were the poorest... but to me, none of it is bad at all... it's my life, and i love it.
the thing is, i know there's a problem with those things i do that fall in the high-sensation category. not just drugs, but anything that gives me that feeling. there are a lot of them, and i love them more than anything, but that feeling is a dead end. as much as i love it, it doesn't connect with anything even if it never touches the limit.
there have been times in my life when more productive things gave me almost as much pleasure. like this last school year; i was so in love with anthropology i almost couldn't stand it. but then they made me leave school early, and now i feel apathetic, i don't know if i have the momentum to go back in the fall. i need to get that good, productive feeling back or i'm going to keep falling into dead-ends. i've been paying attention to different things i do and what kind of pleasure they give me. i was thinking i could give up drugs and instead spend my time learning to cook. cooking and that kind of wholesome fun are all very nice, but i don't know if it could replace...
anyway, i'm going home to portland today, in a few hours. i haven't started packing yet and i'm still in my pajamas drinking coffee. until today i was sure of what i was going to do when i got back, but this morning i had a change of heart. sometimes i wonder if all the crazyness is just an unconscious excuse to avoid what's really important... i keep fucking up my life and going on detours but at least i avoid being judged on the scale of normality and success. i'm on some other scale where all the rules are upside down. people don't pressure heroin addicts to do anything, they're just glad they're alive... but when i think of myself actually staying clean and doing what i'm supposed to be doing, it gives me vertigo.
it's like my whole life is a large thrill-seeking venture.. i have months where i'm completely on track and engrossed in my schoolwork, and then something in my brain switches and says 'i'm not going to be responsible anymore, fuck this, i'm going to do something beautiful that could ruin my life.' it's happened about 4 times since i started college. so i could wonder what i'm going to be doing tonight, but even though the feeling isn't as strong today, it's a reflex, like reaching blindly for something you might be missing.