In this great video from Yan Dan Wong, he explores through animation and narrative our perceptions of addiction. The addict, in the traditional sense, addicted to drugs or alcohol as being separate from us, an outlier of society, off stage. Letting us off the hook, not having to address their problems. Yet the parallels between the perceived addict and the addict that exists in all of us are strong.
Driven by similar fears, anxiety, turmoil of the mind the symptoms reveal themselves in different forms. The desire to avoid encountering the contents of our own minds. Emotions that we don’t want to feel, desires we try to suppress. Perhaps we work to much to avoid our true internal work of dealing with the turmoil in our mind, or push are selfs to unhealthy limits with sports and physical activities, both addictions yet we would deny the label.
If we look inside and explore our own minds, loose the fear of our own minds, we may be able to reach out to those who suffer from debilitating addiction and offer compassion.
From Yan Dan Wong.
Why We Are All Addicts from Yan Dan Wong on Vimeo.