I was writing about mental robustness, and I couldn’t help but think of several years ago when I was dealing with crippling health anxiety and was prescribed sertraline by my doctor.
I took sertraline for a few days but quit because it made me feel strange and nauseous.
I couldn’t help but think of the drug issued by the government in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World called soma.
Soma was the ultimate pleasure drug, and in the book, during times of civil unrest, instead of police using batons, they’d spray the drug in vapour form to make people docile.
Soma would seem to make your problems go away. And in higher doses would provide a mental escape from reality.
We aren’t given a specific pill by the government that makes us docile
But we are exposed to all sorts of pleasures that can tranquillise us against ever thinking for ourselves or doing anything worthwhile.
For example, growing up in my teen years, I spent a lot of my time browsing adult content, getting drunk, spending 10+ hours a day gaming, was addicted to social media, binge-watching TV, and binge-eating.
At the time, I didn’t realise, but I was burying my soul in soma-like pleasures.
It wasn’t until I became an avid reader in my early 20s that I realised how I was shooting myself in the foot with my degenerate behaviour.
I came across Stoic philosophy and read Benjamin Franklin’s biography. What’s common among the most erudite people is that they know there are objectively right and wrong ways to behave.
Acting with virtue is how we act appropriately, and acting with vice is how we act wrongly
When I learned from Stoic thinkers like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius about virtues and vices, I knew I’d been acting wrongly with my degenerate behaviour.
I knew this because I was so steeped in degeneracy that I was finding it impossible to do anything worthwhile apart from working a job in retail. As much as the job in retail paid my wages and I was grateful for having it, I didn’t see it as the ultimate worthwhile use of my time. Just like Jesus wouldn’t have lived the life God wanted him to if he didn’t sacrifice himself on the cross.
Take this quote from Matthew 6:24:
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
This passage says you can’t serve two masters. I think one master is the right master, for example, philosophy and religion, and the other master is wrong, which in this case is money. Still, it could be sex, addiction or whatever else that takes you away from living properly.
I believe we can’t live properly when we’re serving the wrong things, like vices. But if we are willing to serve the proper master, which means serving virtues, we’ll gain mastery of ourselves, and we can make the most of our lives.
But what do I know?
My experience of being steeped in degeneracy and vice made it feel impossible to do anything worthwhile with my life.
Now that I try my best to be virtuous, I’m not getting distracted by all this soma-like pleasure in the world.
The main virtues I try to practice are self-control, courage, justice and honesty, even though I falter at times.
The most important virtue is courage. Because if you don’t find the courage to behave virtuously, you won’t.
Take what you want from this essay. I’m only trying to get to the truth about how cheap modern-day pleasures and vices seem harmless, but in reality, they keep us in chains (well, at least they have for me).
The worst part is that when vices entice you, you’re barely aware of it. It takes real self-awareness and humility to stop yourself from going down the wrong path.
Credit to Wikimedia Commons for the painting: Hercules at a crossroads.
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