There is evidence for the production of alcohol which dates back more than 11,000 years.
Humans invented booze before they invented metal, agriculture, or the wheel.
This speaks to a fact that has been true from antiquity right up until the present: life is hard. So much so, that we have ever had a desperate need for something to take the edge off.
Rather than fleeing from this truth, denying it, then fulfilling it with guilt, we ought to wholeheartedly embrace it. We ought to, in fact, seek to live as much of life drunk as possible.
Not on alcohol, as incessant inebriation breeds numerous problems that need not be detailed.
But on the many other things in life that create a stimulating, emotion-heightening, inhibition-reducing, confidence-inspiring buzz, and yet leave us healthier, happier, and better able to shoulder the existential pressures of the age.
Intoxicating is the experience of an engrossing, laughter-filled conversation; of romantic love both new and well-seasoned; of music that is transportive and transcendent. Powerful is the high of awakening one’s body from its sedentary slumber and putting it through the heart-pounding, lung-filling paces. Enlivening is the feeling of having a purpose, of knowing exactly who you are and where you’re going.
Humans’ millennia-long history of seeking, tweaking, using, and abusing every mind-altering substance under the sun, tells us that the question is not whether people can deal with the oppressively heavy yet achingly empty weight of unmediated reality, but what they will choose for their sanity-preserving buffer; not whether you should get drunk, but what from.
So daily drink up from the truly good stuff; get thoroughly sotted on friendship and love, art and beauty, exercise and action; for he who is able to endure life’s most difficult burdens, is he who gets thoroughly intoxicated on its most dizzying joys.
