Life on the Edge
Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness.
– Richard Carlson
Few of us would argue that the pace of life has accelerated more than a little over the past generation, concurrent with the rise of the digital era and the ascent of the Great Age of Mediation. Worse yet, we seem forever perched on the precipice nowadays, just a step or two removed from financial or personal ruin at all times.
The late 20th-century dreams of retiring in prosperity to a hammock on the beach or to a rocking chair on a country porch seem more and more distant, replaced in the early 21st century by relentless waves of fear, uncertainty and doubt. We have devolved in the Great Age of Addiction & Loss into a society of frightened souls living life on the edge, a lifestyle wholly consistent with and driven by addictive behavior.
I quote now from something I wrote many years ago…
I remember childhood trips with my father to the Fun House at Playland-at-the-Beach in San Francisco some forty-five years ago. I remember the carnival lights, sounds, smells, and flavors like they happened yesterday – still vivid and visceral. I remember the salt air, sharp and sweet, and how little scrap piles of kelp sometimes washed up on shore and glistened in the midday summer sun like an amber necklace along Ocean Beach. I remember the damp and piercing chill of the late afternoon fog as it rolled through, and the distant roar of the Pacific just across the asphalt ribbons of the Great Highway. I remember Laughing Sal, a female mechanical clown whose grotesque visage and cackling laugh presided over the entrance to the Fun House for decades. I remember how my father’s eyes widened when he saw her, and how his face brightened, the slumbering child inside him suddenly reawakened and ready to play.
And I remember one Fun House ride in particular: the human centrifuge, a huge wooden turntable that hovered just an inch or two above a worn padded floor. I remember how we all scrambled aboard and plastered ourselves to the great polished disk like animated frescoes, chattering in anxious anticipation. I remember the hum as the motor came alive beneath us and the wheel started to turn, slowly at first, then accelerating, faster and faster until those still clinging to it in extremis suddenly flew off in all directions – screaming in delight. And of course, no one got hurt…
Now, 35 years later, it occurs to me that life in the early 21st-century is very much like the Human Centrifuge ride of my childhood, very much like the spinning wheel in the Fun House at Playland-at-the-Beach in San Francisco. The adult version, however, runs 24/7, day after day, month after month, year after year. It never stops. It never even slows down. In fact, it seems to accelerate with each revolution. And there’s no padding at all to break your fall if you get tossed off; everyone who gets tossed off gets hurt.
The centrifugal force we experience while riding the Human Centrifuge is comprised of the many relentless worries, pressures and stresses we encounter on a daily basis in 21st-century American life. Together they push us – sometimes inch-by-inch, sometimes all at once – outwards from the center towards the edge, and sometimes even off the wheel entirely, off into oblivion.
This forced exodus happens to all of us on occasion, usually as a consequence or confluence of extreme circumstance, sometimes anticipated but often not. Illness, divorce, natural disaster, bankruptcy, unemployment, personal loss…addiction. Bad things just happen. How and why we get tossed off the Human Centrifuge don’t matter as much as the fact that we have little choice but to lick our wounds, climb back on if possible and try again. On a larger scale, entire factory towns, inner city neighborhoods, nations and empires have been flung from the Human Centrifuge, many of them not to return for generations, if ever.
Working with the Human Centrifuge as Metaphor
To properly invoke the Human Centrifuge as a metaphor for modern life in the 21st century, however, we need to consider two constant characteristics: Acceleration and Inertia.
Acceleration
The Human Centrifuge of the 21st century always accelerates, and never slows — except for brief periods following cataclysmic events in our lives, when we are compelled for whatever reason to turn the spotlight inward. Our job is to withstand the centrifugal force and remain on the wheel at all costs. And if we get tossed off, as sometimes happens, we must climb back on again, irrespective of any injuries or scars we may sustain in the process.
In the absence of countervailing forces or actions, we will always be compelled by centrifugal force towards the wheel’s outer edge. The centrifugal force generated by the Human Centrifuge is inexorable, and will always act to nudge and push us outward. It therefore doesn’t matter which way the wheel turns: clockwise, counterclockwise, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic or atheist. The physics that govern the wheel are ordained, constant and inviolate – for all of us.
Where we are on the spinning wheel at any given point in time will determine the quality of our lives at that moment, and where we spend most of our time on the wheel will determine the general quality of our lives. Albert Einstein once observed that the outer edge of a phonograph record actually rotates faster than the hub in the center. Accordingly, the centrifugal force is greater towards the outer edge, and more relaxed towards the center.
The attributes associated above with life on the edge are the same basic attributes associated with life as an addict. Life is simply better, calmer, more manageable and less reactive towards the center of the wheel where there is less centrifugal force to battle, and worse towards the outer edge, where the centrifugal force is greatest and where our addictive behaviors are most prevalent. So not only is it important for us to stay on the wheel, but also to position ourselves as close to the center as possible.
Inertia
The centrifugal force exerted by the acceleration of the spinning wheel pushes us outward from the center and pins us against the rim along the outer edge, thus creating the second constant in the Human Centrifuge as a metaphor for modern life in the 21st century: massive personal and institutional inertia — exactly what we experience as addicts when the strength of the addiction at any given moment exceeds our ability to bust it.
The centrifugal force generated by the acceleration of the Human Centrifuge pushes us outward to the edge then stacks us like cord wood against the outer rim of the wheel…
The same centrifugal force outward inhibits our movement inward towards the center where the quality of life is better and less stressful. And of course no one wants to get tossed outward off the edge into oblivion. So we cling to our increasingly cluttered inertia instead, and live life on the edge in reactive fear and insecurity.
Not only does the inertia of life on the edge of the Human Centrifuge inhibit our movement in either direction, but it also prohibits the penetration of our individual and institutional worlds by anything outside them. Our inertia acts as an impenetrable force field to isolate us almost entirely from each other and the outside world – both in spite of and because of our spectacular communications tools.
The wonderful, intangible things that more typically and inexplicably find their way to us from the outside are now all but sealed off from us while we remain on the Human Centrifuge. Things like wonderment and inspiration, innovation and perspective can only find us in exile once we we are tossed off the Human Centrifuge entirely — exactly what happens to us on occasion as late-stage addicts when we hit rock bottom and suddenly find the inspiration and will to change. Tragically, protracted life on the edge of the Human Centrifuge means prospects for meaningful change in the absence of cataclysm dim as inertia mounts.
Constant acceleration and massive, paralyzing inertia are not only the two primary characteristics of life on the edge of the Human Centrifuge, they are also the two primary characteristics of life in in the Great Age of Addiction & Loss, the two primary characteristics of life as an addict, and the two primary threats to the quality of our lives.
Now that you understand the basic problem, it’s time to move on. If you haven’t already done so, please check out my Guide to a Good Life.
And if you find yourself living life too often on the edge, if you’re struggling with addiction yourself, or know someone who is, you’ll definitely want to check out An Uncommon-Sense Guide to Addiction Recovery, a 21st-century approach to addiction recovery, and the perfect supplement to any addiction program for any addiction problem.
