Addiction and Guilt

Human nature is a weird thing. I drink an insipidly addictive combination of hot chocolate and coffee called a mocha. About three cups a day, which is three cups too many. I'm allergic to chocolate and coffee, and mocha just kills me, my stomach twists like a weasel on amphetamines, I get the shakes, and it makes me really drowsy. So this morning I get up with the thought: "Today I go without. I can do it." And I keep repeating this mantra to myself until I'm completely up and around. I go to the kitchen, thinking "drink tea, just drink tea, no big deal" and as soon as my mother asks if I would like something to drink, because she's in there already I say "sure, give me a mocha." It's like my mind suddenly shortcircuited. It was like a flash of mindlessness. I've had that before, many times. I'm out with a couple of buddies and we're drinking. I know I've had enough, but somebody, the waitress or a friend, asks me if I'd like another, and before I realize it, I've said yes. It's really weird, how our minds work, how little control we have despite thinking the opposite.

Dostoevsky's novels are full of characters pulled in two directions. Like Crime and Punishment which is full of guilt and a desire to confess to a murder, despite receiving a pleasure out of getting away with murder, and enjoying the guilt as well. The ambiguous pleasures of loving and hating at the same time and self-consciously knowing it and enjoying or despising that knowledge. The ambiguous discourse between love and hate is at the center of Dostoevsky's characters in "The Idiot" -- love, hate, and the nature of innocence.

Subconsciously, on some perverse level, I myself enjoy my weaknesses and enjoy feeling guilty about them, perhaps because they are like habits and something is better than nothing, and perhaps because I feel -- while knowing otherwise -- that my guilt absolves me. I'm hyperbolic again, but just ask me about writing guilt.

It's cold and raining today. I started a new novel a couple of days ago, so instead of my original plans to go downtown to an outside vintage car show, I'm staying inside reading, listening to music, and sporadically watching television (there's nothing on as usual). The novel I've begun is called The Four Wisemen by Michel Tournier. I've read a couple of his novels before: The Ogre and Friday, or the Other Island -- both excellent. Tournier's novels often depict historical novels (Robinson Crusoe), historical events (World War II), or historical people (Joan d'Arc) in a slightly altered light, often with humor and irony. "The Four Wisemen" is about the three wisemen who travel to see the birth of Jesus Christ, except in Tournier's version they all have alternate motives for being on the road and there's a fourth. I'm about halfway, and it's enjoyable.

For tomorrow I planned a football pool barbecue, but about half of the people I called and invited cannot come. No big deal. I'm going to serve smoked salmon with cream cheese on crackers, chips, and lots of beer. Depending on how many people come, I may serve steaks and green salad with this wicked wine vinegar and garlic dressing. It's kind of too late to start a pool, as the season has already started, but who cares, it's a good excuse to get together.