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June 17, 2020 - Davis Aurini
16:38
How to Stop Loving the Poison

Originally uploaded October, 2016.

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Time Text
How to stop loving the poison.
This is a requested video, and it comes from Nick.
Thank you for your support, brother.
Now, the battle between corn syrup and cane sugar, between what's good for us and what only pretends to be good for us.
This is something we deal with every day, isn't it?
You know, every single day, there are people trying to sell us on things that only seem to be good.
You've got corn syrup, which really doesn't taste that good, and they've put it into just about everything to the point where you don't even notice it.
You get the McDonald's burger, and you don't realize that there's a ton of corn syrup in the bun itself, but you're addicted to it.
Whereas something like cane sugar, cane sugar might not be healthy for you in large doses, but you don't need it in large doses.
You don't want it in large doses.
It's honest about what it is.
You finish off a meal with a bit of ice cream or a chocolate, but the meal itself is wholesome.
And the problem we have in the modern day is that there are so many snares.
There is so much corn syrup.
There is so much stuff we don't even realize it's bad for us.
And it's very, very addictive.
So what are we supposed to do about this?
Well, this is what we talk about all the time on this channel.
And philosophy gets us part of the way there.
Philosophy, it allows us to determine what's fair and what's foul.
For instance, philosophy can help us figure out when we need to be brave, when we need to be courageous and violent, and when we should be discreet, when we should restrain our anger, even though our temper is being tried.
Philosophy can tell us when to do these things, but simply knowing when is not enough, is it?
You need practice.
You need to practice virtue to become better at it.
Down below, there's an excellent, excellent article by John C. Wright.
It's a very long one, so, you know, pour yourself a cup of coffee before you sit down to read it, all about when and how the sexual instinct ought to be used.
And it's very inspiring.
I think it's very reasonable.
It will help us, help you, help me see what's supposed to be done.
But then practicing that, that's a whole other question, isn't it?
That requires, you know, effort.
You need to develop virtue.
You need to know what virtue is in the first place, and then you need to practice it.
But, you know, this video, this video specifically isn't about merely practicing what we intellectually understand to be virtuous.
And that's hard enough.
This video is about something worse.
This video is about the tanatos urge, the will to self-destruction.
And that's in all of us.
If you haven't found it yet in yourself, you're probably going to find it soon.
It's one thing, and to some extent, we're all a little bit addicted to something that's bad for us.
Okay, we're addicted to McDonald's burgers, or we're addicted to Facebook, the cheap ego gratification of Facebook.
We're addicted to a teacher giving us an A-plus and telling us that we're intelligent.
We're addicted to whatever.
These cheap corn syrup substitutes of what we should be consuming.
But that's not the topic of this video.
This video is about addiction.
This video is where you understand that something's bad for you already.
You know that it's bad for you, that it's killing you, that it's destroying your prosperity.
It's destroying your future.
And you still want it.
You partly even want it because it's destroying yourself.
How do we stop it?
How do we stop loving the poison?
How do we stop loving our own self-destruction?
And I'm going to do the best I can with this video, folks, but this is something I still struggle with.
Anybody that says they're not struggling with it, it's because they're fully in the grips of it.
They've managed to mitigate it so nobody else can tell that they're committing slow suicide.
But don't for one second doubt that they are.
We've all got this thing in us.
And so I'm going to lay out the four steps, four steps that you can follow to try and kick this poison, whatever it might be, to kick this poison out of your life.
First, develop the eyes to see.
This is something I pray for regularly.
I pray for the eyes to see things as they actually are.
And don't underestimate this.
Actually, being able to see things, to know a thing for what it is, it's very rare.
So pray for the eyes to see.
So regardless of what your addiction is, let's say it's pornography.
When you click the screen on, what do you have there?
You've got a beautiful young lady in all her glory.
Is that what you have?
Look deeper.
Look at it four-dimensionally.
Look at it along time.
Look outside of the camera angle.
Look beyond what the camera is focused on.
Look around the set with the boom mics, the people filming it.
Look at all of that.
Look at her past.
Look at her future.
You know, read between the lines.
Look at it.
What is going on?
And you've got a young lady barely out of high school.
Maybe she had some abuse in her background.
Maybe she's addicted to some sort of, she's addicted to the easy money.
She's addicted to whatever it is.
And she is destroying her future, videotaping all of this for a few minutes of your vicarious enjoyment.
She has cheapened her life so you can have a bit of corn syrup, which isn't even good for you.
Maybe it's not pornography.
Maybe it's the desire to be wealthy, to have money.
You know, maybe you see people driving down the street in a brand new car and you say, I want that.
I want to drive the new car.
Or maybe you are driving the new car and you're buying new clothing all the time.
You're spending money on this apartment, you know, on this condo.
Again, eyes to see.
Look at it.
Look at what you're doing to achieve all of this.
Are you doing good work?
Are you doing fulfilling work?
Are you using credit card debt to pay for all of this?
When you see that guy driving by in the brand new car, don't look at merely the surface.
Have the eyes to see what's actually going on there.
See the bigger picture.
See the credit card debt.
See what he is sacrificing for that lifestyle.
See, is this lifestyle, is it rooted in the past?
Is it rooted in the future?
Does it come from anywhere?
Is it going anywhere?
Or is this just dust on the wind?
If it's the more traditional form of addiction, drug addiction.
You know, and you see that you want those drugs.
You want that feeling.
You want to party.
You want to hang out all night.
Look at that.
Look at that through sober eyes.
Think about all those people in the nightclub.
You know, all those people there.
They're high on booze.
They're high on cocaine.
They're high on heroin.
They're high on whatever.
And look at how much fun they're having that night.
I just want to be there.
Don't you?
Don't you want to be partying right now?
Look at them the next morning.
Look at them five years down the road when they've been doing this every single night, just wasting their life.
And look at the night itself.
What are they doing?
What are they celebrating?
Are they celebrating a wedding?
Are they celebrating a business deal, an expansion of the business?
Is it a home, a housewarming party?
You know, that a married couple, they're building their lives.
What are they celebrating?
And what are they saying to one another?
See it for all the ugliness that it actually is.
See not just the event itself, but see what led up to it and where it's going.
So that's step one.
Develop eyes to see.
Anytime, whatever it is that you're addicted to, whatever poison it is that you love so much, don't just look at the high.
Don't just look at the pleasure.
Every time it crops up, look at the ugly.
Not just intellectually.
Don't just recognize that, yes, this goes to an ugly place, but see the ugliness of where it's going.
Step number two is develop new habits.
Part of the problem with addiction is that you've developed habits.
You are locked into this cycle, into this repetitive cycle where you always go back and do the same thing, even though you know it's bad for you.
And whenever you do, you reaffirm those pathways in your mind.
What you need is new habits.
If you're having trouble, if you drink, like if you drink too much, or if you're addicted to some other substance, look at how and when you do those things.
When are you most tempted?
Maybe it's a group of people that you need to stop hanging out with.
You know, if it's something else, maybe there's something you're doing that leads up to it.
Figure out the context where all of this happens.
It could be something as simple as negative self-talk.
You know, it could be something as simple as you beating yourself up all the time and hating yourself and creating an excuse for failure in your life.
Figure out where and when this happens and figure out where and when it doesn't and find new things to replace this.
You know, if you are destroying your life once a week on Friday night, you know, spending money you don't have, risking getting an STD by sleeping with women you don't know, whatever, find something else to do.
If you're staying up all night playing World of Warcraft, find something else to do.
Start reading a book.
Go for a jog.
Tire yourself out.
Figure out where and when the addiction occurs and avoid those circumstances as much as possible.
So first, get the eyes to see what it actually is.
And two, avoid it.
New habits.
Step three, because right now, right now you're like step one and step two.
You know, you're an Alcoholics Anonymous.
You know, you're not getting drunk anymore.
You're not ruining everything, but you still want to get drunk, even though you know it's bad.
And the only reason you're not getting drunk is because you're at a meeting with a bunch of other guys that all want to be getting drunk as well.
Step number three is lift up your sight.
You've been looking at, you've looked at this addiction and you've seen it for what it is.
Now that you've done that, look up.
Look around you.
Look at the life you are living.
The life where this addiction is so tempting.
This isn't the life you want.
So what is the life you want?
What is it that you hope for?
What is it that you want to achieve?
What?
What should you be doing right now?
Look up, look around, and look for that solution.
The addiction is always the anti-solution.
The addiction is, here I am today, and I'm not happy with my life.
I'm not happy because I'm living in the wrong place.
I'm not happy because I don't like the people I associate with.
I don't like the work I'm doing, et cetera, et cetera.
You don't like where you are.
And you're using the addiction to kill that pain through self-destruction.
It's no different than cutting.
Okay, I think just about every Trent Reznor song was about this.
You don't like where you are, and so you hurt yourself to distract yourself from the fact that you hate your environment.
So, where do you want to be?
What sort of lifestyle do you want to live?
What work do you want to be doing?
Who do you want to be spending your time with?
Look up, look around, look at the world, look at the possibilities, and figure out which one of those possibilities you actually want.
You know, a guy will look at pornography because he's lonely instead of actually going out and finding a woman that he can have a healthy and fulfilling relationship with.
Look up, look for that.
And then finally, once you've done that, once you've seen it for what it is, you've started breaking in new habits to change your life.
And then, third, you've looked up and seen the life that you want to be living.
And once you start moving in that direction, find the right place for this addiction in your life.
Not the addiction, but the good that comes out of it.
Figure out how it fits in appropriately.
You shouldn't be eating things that have nothing but corn syrup in them every day, all day, all the time.
But there is nothing wrong with having a sweet tooth and enjoying a piece of good quality chocolate or a bowl of ice cream after a meal.
If you're addicted to sex, find a wife and have the best sex on the planet with her.
If you're addicted to the partying, to the high, go do something worthy of celebration and find people worth celebrating with.
If you're addicted to that material wealth, go actually start building something worthwhile.
The core to all of this is hope.
Okay, addictions are what happen when you have no hope in your life, when you're not hoping for what you should be.
You don't want to admit the way things could be.
It's easier to be a loser because then you don't have to risk anything.
You never have to risk potentially being happy.
Hope is really at the core of all of this.
If you're going to kick addiction, you need to start hoping.
And one final kind of observation on what I've been saying all of this time.
I was using the visual metaphor.
You know, look and see, have eyes to see.
Raise your eyes up and look at the world.
And that's no accident.
Because the faculty of sight, the faculty of sight, it is the least personal of our senses.
Scent and taste are very internal things.
Even hearing.
You know, we don't close our ears at night, do we?
You know, we only actually hear what is related to us.
Where is when you open your eyes, when you just look at the world around you, and try that right now, listen to this video.
Stop just listening to my words and just for a second look around you and be aware of that environment.
Sight is the universe imposing itself upon you.
It is truth imposing itself upon you.
You don't get to choose what you see.
Sight always assaults you with the truth.
And see, when it comes to addiction, addictions, when you get down to it, they're very obsessive.
They're you looking inside yourself, you pursuing yourself for yourself's own sake, and ignoring the truth, the reality out there, ignoring the hope of the life you could be living, and instead obsessing and navel-gazing.
Having a rich internal life is good.
The unexamined life is not worth living after all.
But that doesn't mean that you should allow yourself to become internally obsessed and to never, never branch out, never engage.
So open your eyes to the universe, the harsh and brutal truth of the universe, but also the infinite possibilities that are out there if you'll just let go of that thing, that poison, that when you get right down to it, you don't even really want.
Thanks for listening, folks.
If you've got a requested video, there's a link down below.
Just fill out the form, send me a message.
I charge you a few Benjamins, but not that many.
And as well, if you want to support me on Patreon, if you like the work I'm doing but don't have a question, links down there.
Please like, comment, and subscribe, all that great stuff.
Take care of yourselves.
Always keep moving forward.
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