Catching 40 winks, just like a World War II aviator: the art of relaxing. So you can take a nap. Even in a combat zone.

Hello again dear reader.

Today's conversation is going to be somewhat unique as it sort of fits into the categories of "mentally EDC system." As well as mental and physical health; the topic of today's conversation is going to be centered on the art of taking a nap anywhere anytime. The idea for this conversation came about, because they recently I was extremely tired. However, I was unable to relax enough to fall asleep as I just couldn't get my mind to stop spinning and by the time I started to feel relaxed enough to fall asleep. My break was over, and I had to get up again and be ready for action still exhausted.

After this experience, I began to wonder if there was a way to get my body and brain to relax. So I could nap when necessary, regardless of what was going on in any given environment. And then I remembered seeing the photos (and watching movies and television shows). How easily aviators and Marines, especially during World War II could fall asleep on an airplane or boat, practically as soon as they sat down. I began to wonder if these old-time warriors no secret that I didn't. So I did some research, and lo and behold, I was able to discover the secrets to catching 40 winks anywhere, anytime, regardless of the environment with a little bit of practice, dear reader you to will be able to fall asleep. Even in a combat zone as easy as a World War II airman or Marine...





Have you ever unexpectedly found yourself with a snatch of time in which to steal a nap? You tried to settle into the chair or nook in which you found yourself, closed your eyes, and then . . . you just sat there, drowsy but awake. Despite feeling quite tired, you couldn’t fall asleep, and soon the time was up before you had gotten in so much as a wink. Talk about frustrating! Not only did you not get to nap, you didn’t do anything else either; if you weren’t going to fall asleep, you could have done something productive instead!
It’s quite a knack to be able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, regardless of where you are and what’s going on around you. To steal some shuteye at airports and on flights, on break times and car rides, in public places and private spaces — in all the interstices of life. Not to mention how grand it is to be able to go out like a light as soon as your head hits the pillow each night.
It probably seems, however, that this is simply a knack that some folks have and others don’t, with the latter group being much larger than the former.
Yet the ability to fall asleep in two minutes or less, anywhere, anytime, is actually a skill like any other, and one anyone can learn. The technique for how to do so was in fact developed for Naval aviators during World War II, and today we’ll share it with you.

How to Fall Asleep in 2 Minutes or Less

A couple years into WWII, the U.S. military realized it had a problem on its hands. Due to the enormous pressures of aerial combat, many of its pilots were accumulating levels of stress so debilitating that they were cracking under it. The tension caused them to lock up in flight and make fatal mistakes — accidentally shooting down friendly planes, or becoming an avoidable casualty themselves.
In an effort to stem the loss of pilots and planes, the military brought in Naval Ensign Bud Winter to research, develop, and test a scientific method for teaching relaxation. Before the war, Winter had been a successful college football and track coach, who had also worked with a professor of psychology on techniques to help athletes relax and perform better under the stress of competition. Stationed at the Del Monte Naval Pre-Flight School in California, his mission now was to coordinate with other coaches and professors to create a course that would similarly instruct cadets on how to stay calm and loose under the pressures of combat.
The end goal of the program was to teach the Naval aviators how to relax, so that they could learn more quickly, speed up their reaction time, sharpen their focus, and diminish their fear. The course also aimed to teach “combat aviators to be able to go to sleep in two minutes any time, day or night, under any and all conditions”; instruction in this skill was included to ensure that pilots got adequate sleep, and could sneak in extra shuteye whenever possible.
To accomplish the first goal, Winter taught the men how to physically relax. To accomplish the second, he taught them how to mentally relax. In fact, he essentially defined sleep as the state of being both physically and mentally relaxed.
To fall asleep at the drop of a hat, first you work on the former, and then the latter.

How to Physically Relax

In Relax and Win, the book Winter wrote about the program he developed for combat aviators and then used with athletes after the war, he lays out the exact instructions he gave to cadets to teach them how to relax their bodies; here we give them slightly condensed:

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“Sit back in your chairs and put your feet flat on the deck. Knees apart, your hands limp on the inside of your lap. Now, close your eyes and drop your chin until it rests on your chest.
Let’s breathe slowly, deeply, and regularly. Take all the wrinkles out of your forehead. Relax your scalp. Just let go. Now let your jaw sag-g-g. Let it drop open. Now relax the rest of your face muscles. Get the brook trout look on your face. Even relax your tongue and lips. Just let them go loose. Breathe slowly.
Now, let’s go after the eight muscles that control your eyes. Let them go limp in their sockets. No focus, just let them go limp. Breathe slowly.
Now drop your shoulders as low as they will go. You think that they are low, but let them go more.  Did you feel the muscles in the back of your neck go limp? When you think you are really relaxed, let them go even more.
Now, let’s relax your chest. Take a deep breath. Hold it. Exhale and blow out all your tensions. Just let your chest collapse. Let it sag-g-g. Imagine you are a big, heavy blob on the chair, a jellyfish. Breathe slowly. When you exhale, release more and more of your tensions.
Let’s go after your arms. Talk directly to your arm muscles. First, talk to your right bicep. Tell it to relax, go limp. Do the same to your right forearm. Now to the right hand and fingers. Your arm should feel like a dead weight on your leg. Repeat the relaxation process with your left arm. Breathe slowly.
Your entire upper body has been exposed to relaxation and a warm, pleasant feeling comes over you. You feel good. A sense of well-being invades your body.
Now for your lower body. Talk to your right thigh muscles. Let them go to a dead weight on the chair. Let the meat hang on the bones. Go through the same routine for the right calf muscles. Then all the muscles of your right ankle and foot. Tell yourself that your right leg has no bones in it. It is just a flabby, heavy weight on the deck. Repeat the process with your left thigh, calf, ankle, and foot.
At present you are all relaxed physically, or think you are. For a little insurance, let’s take three deep breaths and when you let them out, blow out all the remaining tensions, one . . . whoosh, two . . . whoosh, three . . . whoosh.”

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If you have trouble getting any of your body parts to feel sufficiently relaxed and jellyfish-like, try tensing them up first, and then letting them go loose.
By following the above protocol, you can achieve a nice general level of relaxation. Winter taught the cadets to cultivate this state in any pressure-filled situation, as it would loosen them up, dial down their nerves, enhance their concentration, and allow them to make better decisions.
From this physically calm condition, Winter then taught the cadets how to “slip over the threshold into a deep, relaxed sleep” by becoming completely mentally relaxed.

How to Mentally Relax

Winter argues that once you’re physically relaxed, if you get “your mind clear of any active thoughts for just ten seconds, you will be asleep.” The key to falling asleep quick is thus to stop the train of thoughts that is usually rumbling through your head. You have to stop ruminating on the regrets, worries, and problems of the day.
Winter particularly warns against having any thoughts in which you are in motion; studies done by placing electrodes on the cadets’ bodies showed that even when you simply think of performing an activity, the muscles involved in that activity actually contract. Modern studies have in fact confirmed this observation, showing that simply imagining yourself exercising activates the same parts of the brain that come online when you’re physically in motion, and actually strengthens the muscles you imagine yourself using. While there might be some benefit to using your mind to “sit and be fit,” thinking about being active while trying to go to sleep can create muscular tension and inhibit its onset.
So, when you’re looking to nod off, you just want to fill your head with the stillest, calmest of contemplations. Winter suggests three good ones to use, though you don’t have to use all three; just pick one, and if it doesn’t work, try another:

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“First, we want you to fantasize that it is a warm spring day and you are lying in the bottom of a canoe on a very serene lake. You are looking up at a blue sky with lazy, floating clouds. Do not allow any other thought to creep in. Just concentrate on this picture and keep foreign thoughts out, particularly thoughts with any movement or motion involved. Hold this picture and enjoy it for ten seconds.
In the second sleep-producing fantasy, imagine that you are in a big, black, velvet hammock and everywhere you look is black. You must also hold this picture for ten seconds.
The third trick is to say the words ‘don’t think . . . don’t think . . . don’t think,’ etc. Hold this, blanking out other thoughts for at least ten seconds.”

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The cadets at the pre-flight school had been broken into two groups: one which took the relaxation course, and the other a control group. The former outperformed the latter in every mentally-taxing class, discipline-requiring drill, and physically-intensive test. And after six weeks of practice, 96% of the aviators were able to fall asleep in 2 minutes or less — anywhere and anytime. Not only that, they could do it even when they drank coffee (though having caffeine in your system does make it harder), and even while the simulated noise of machine gunfire and cannon blasts played in the background!
After the war, Winter taught the track athletes he coached the same relaxation techniques, and became one of the greatest sprint coaches of all time, producing 102 All-Americans and 27 Olympians; at one time, his runners held all 10 world records for sprinting events.
Winter strongly believed that the wartime program for relaxation he helped develop to fight combat stress, and which athletes subsequently used to deal with the pressures of competition, was just as applicable to the tensions and fatigue civilians faced in their everyday lives.
You can use this general relaxation method to get physically relaxed whenever you’re feeling stressed out, and then tack on the mental relaxation exercise when you want to fall asleep fast. It’s handy for when you find yourself with a short window of time for a snooze; Winter thought even a 5-minute nap was incredibly refreshing. You could also use it to take a “hypnagogic nap” — a micro nap that artists like Salvador Dali used, in which you allow yourself to doze off for just a second in order to glean the creative insights that can arise on the threshold between sleep and wakefulness.
Or, of course, you can simply use this technique when you go to bed, to more quickly and contentedly enter your nightly block of sleep.
Keep in mind that being able to relax physically and mentally, and thus being able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, is a skill, and like all skills, you shouldn’t expect to get the hang of it and have it work the first few times you try. You have to practice over and over again, until you get better and better at loosening up and calming down. That doesn’t mean you should work hard at trying to relax; that will just backfire and create tension. But you do have to practice this routine consistently.

Bringing civility back to the art of debate: learning how to conduct a civilized debate without emotional warfare.

Hello again dear reader.

Today's conversation stems from noticing the fact that (at least to me). It seems that society has forgotten how to have a "civilized" debate concerning politics, morality, ethics or any other hot button issue. More often than not something that starts out as a conversation or debate will rapidly devolved into an emotionally charged contest as to who can swing the best insult. And this is not what a civilized debate is supposed to be, it is supposed to be a conversation and/or discussion in which all sides of an argument or heard discussed and debated on their merits and then a conclusion and compromise of mutual respect is reached between all parties concerned. So hopefully dear reader, by the end of today's conversation, you will have a new appreciation for what it means to conduct a "civilized" debate both online and off...





It’s hard not to notice that in interactions both online and off, people seem increasingly polarized when it comes to political, social justice, and moral and ethical issues of all kinds. Rather than engaging in a civil discussion, debates turn into emotionally-charged flame wars, marked by blame, shame, and the exchange of insults. Such interactions are acrimonious, seemingly interminable, and markedly shrill.
What accounts for the tenor of these melees on morality?
Some astute observers have posited that our political and social positions have become more fervent as society has become more secular. People seem to have an ingrained penchant for the “religious” — a proclivity to draw lines between us and them, the pure and the polluted, doctrine and heresy, the unconverted and the woke — and in the absence of traditional faith-based outlets for these energies, have channeled these “religious” impulses towards partisan politics.
There’s surely something to this theory. But the shrillness of our modern debates on morality has an even deeper underlying cause.

The 3 Elements of a Rational, Functional Moral Culture

In After Virtue, philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argues that Aristotelian virtue ethics offers the best model of a healthy and well-functioning moral system; its strength, he asserts, is the presence of three elements — all of which must be in place for any moral system to thrive:

1. Man-as-he-happens-to-be.

This is a human being in his raw, morally untutored state. This is man left to his own devices and allowed to follow his default impulses. Man on the path of least resistance.

2. A view of man-as-he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-telos. 

Telos is the Greek word for man’s ultimate aim. It represents his ultimate purpose and function — an essential nature that can only be realized by throwing off the inertia of default desires and actively striving after it.
For the ancient Greeks, a man’s telos was reaching a state of eudaimonia; a word that is hard to translate but means something akin to happiness, excellence — full human flourishing. For Aristotle specifically, eudaimonia meant not only possessing good character, but achieving excellence in action. Virtue was both the goal and the practice — the end man should strive for, and the active means of attaining that end.
For Aristotle, a “good man” was as functional and objective a concept as a “good watch” or a “good musician.” A good watch accurately tells time; a good musician plays his instrument well; and a good man fulfills his purpose as a man. Each statement, the philosopher would say, is equally objective and factual. 

3. An ethical code that allows a man to move from state #1 to state #2.

Man-as-he-happens-to-be and man-if-he-realized-his-telos are antagonistic states — one slides into the lowest and easiest, while the other aims for the noblest and highest.
To transition from the former to the latter — to access one’s full potential — you need to adopt certain behaviors and habits of action. What behaviors and actions to take are prescribed by a set of ethics that are specifically designed to move you from state #1 to state #2. The code lays out which virtues will take you towards your telos, and conversely, which vices will stymie your progress in reaching it. As MacIntyre explains:
“The precepts which enjoin the various virtues and prohibit the vices which are their counterparts instruct us how to move from potentiality to act, how to realize our true nature and to reach our true end. To defy them will be to be frustrated and incomplete, to fail to achieve that good of rational happiness which it is peculiarly ours as a species to pursue.”
Although we can describe this set of moral precepts as an ethical code, it should not be thought of, at least in the context of Aristotelianism, as primarily a set of rules. As MacIntyre observes, “the most obvious and astonishing absence from Aristotle’s thought for any modern reader” is that “there is relatively little mention of rules anywhere in the Ethics.” In the absence of strict, rote, universal rules, Aristotle instead argued for the cultivation of a kind of master virtue which would aid a man in acquiring all the rest: phronesis, or practical wisdom. As a virtue in one context can be a vice in another (e.g., being frugal vs. being cheap), a man needed phronesis to guide him in doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason.

Each of the three elements above “requires reference to the other two if its status and function are to be intelligible.” The combination of the three produces a moral culture that is not only functional, but rational.
Such a moral code is rational in the sense that there is a logical relationship between is and ought. That is, if your telos is X, we can objectively say that you ought to do Y, and you ought not to do Z, in order to reach it. To achieve this end, you must adopt these means.
While this threefold scheme can form the basis of a personal moral code, Aristotle specifically imagined his system of virtue ethics in the context of community (in his case, the Greek city-state). Individuals aim to fulfill their telos as men, while pointing that effort towards what MacIntyre calls a “shared project of achieving a common good” (for Aristotle, for example, reaching one’s telos was closely tied to being a good citizen and contributing to Athenian democracy). Within a community with a common telos, rules are erected that prohibit negative behaviors that would be destructive to the efforts and relationships necessary to achieving its shared project, while virtues — positive traits of character that move the community closer to that common good — are celebrated and encouraged. The rules cannot be understood apart from the virtues at which they aim; the former are not arbitrary, but designed to facilitate the greater flourishing of the latter.
The same 3-part moral framework also exists within the Abrahamic religions, only, as MacIntyre explains, shaded a bit differently:
“The precepts of ethics now have to be understood not only as teleological injunctions, but also as expressions of a divinely ordained law. The table of virtues and vices has to be amended and added to and a concept of sin is added to the Aristotelian concept of error. The law of God requires a new kind of respect and awe. The true end of man can no longer be completely achieved in this world, but only in another. Yet the threefold structure of untutored human-nature-as-it-happens-to-be, human-nature-as-it-could-be-if-it-realized-its-telos and the precepts of rational ethics as the means for the transition from one to the other remains central.”
For the religious adherent, one’s telos wasn’t eudaimonia (at least as Aristotle understood it), but salvation — being transformed into a creature divinely made perfect.

The Fate of a Moral Culture Without a Shared Telos 

Over several centuries, and for complex reasons, a teleologically-based moral system eroded in the West.
As MacIntyre succinctly summarizes, “the joint effect of the secular rejection of both Protestant and Catholic theology and the scientific and philosophical rejection of Aristotelianism was to eliminate any notion of man-as-he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-telos.”
The idea of having an ultimate aim survives on a personal level (though scarcely few people seem to think of themselves as having a telos, or know what theirs is). But on a broad, cultural level, Western societies no longer share a telos in common. The kind of moral system outlined above can really only function in a fairly homogeneous community of limited size; as a society grows increasingly large and diverse, people no longer share the same telos (or have a concept of telos at all), nor a project of common good that the telos supports. Thus in our own culture, many competing teloi exist, or are absent altogether.
Yet, we still retain the other two pieces of classical morality: man-as-he-happens-to-be and a set of ethics. Witness the effect this creates:
The moral code which was specifically created to move man-as-he-happens-to-be towards his telos, now hangs in space, detached from a larger purpose.
There is only man in his raw state, and a code of behavior he is to follow. But, in the absence of a telos, this code consists not in virtues, alongside attendant rules that help a man achieve them, but in the rules alone. As McIntyre observes, when a moral culture lacks a teleological element, “Rules become the primary concept of the moral life.”
In a moral system which lacks a telos, there exist only negative proscriptions for appropriate behavior — rules which are not designed to move man to fulfill his essential purpose, but simply to allow the basic functions of society to continue.
No. No. No. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
And so today we have an abundance of voices pointing out what a good man isn’t, but very few describing what a good man is. We lack a positive ideal. In this we’ve become a nation of something worse than school marms — for at least the disciplinarian teacher reprimanded her students with some end in mind.
At the same time that rules become more central to such a moral culture, they become less motivating. Still today we know that man in his untutored state is prone to bad behavior, and so establish rules in an attempt to educate that behavior. But in the absence of an accompanying telos, such rules lack a compelling why — a rationale for why a man should choose to undergo this education, and offer his compliance, rather than following the less challenging path of least resistance.
This is quite problematic, for as pointed out above, man-as-he-happens-to-be and man-if-he-realized-his-telos are antagonistic states. The latter is not how we act if left to our druthers. Achieving one’s telos involves mastering lower impulses to reach for the higher variety. It requires self-mastery, self-control, delayed gratification. It’s not a “natural” state, and as such, its pursuit requires strong motivation — motivation that can only be furnished by pointing to an overarching aim.
Given the lack of motivation inherent to a telos-free moral code, vice inevitably waxes and virtue wanes. This ethical lassitude is still a cause of consternation to a culture, that, even if it’s lost hope in producing citizens of sterling character, still needs them to act with a minimum of propriety and trust in interpersonal relationships in order to keep day-to-day life safe and copacetic. It is rightly felt that people can no longer be left to rely on their phronesis to make moral judgements (for without a telos, what would this judgement be based on?), and so more and more granular and restrictive rules are created as to what constitutes appropriate behavior — external, universal, one-size-fits-all guidelines that of course work much less well in some circumstances than others.
Naturally, there is much disagreement on just how far all these rules should extend beyond the enforcement of the bare minimum of propriety. Just how granular the rules should get is a matter of one’s perspective of what is “just” and “right” and these positions are based on conflicting telos, or on no defined telos at all.
Indeed, the disappearance of a shared telos from a culture’s moral code ultimately has a deteriorating effect on that culture’s moral discourse. When a culture loses its shared telos, is and ought are divorced. Without this connection, moral precepts lose any objectivity — a rational basis for why we should choose one position over another. Though we still voice our positions as if they had this kind of rational authority, our moral arguments in fact become “mere instrument of individual desire and will.” We assert our opinions as if they are objectively true, when they are in fact the arbitrary product of emotion and personal preference. One notices that there is very little philosophical discussion surrounding our moral debates at all; very little appeal to reason is issued beyond “This is the way it should be! . . . Because!” Moral debate becomes a series of reciprocal shouts. Flaming, blaming, shaming.
Or as MacIntyre puts it, “without a teleological framework the whole project of morality becomes unintelligible.”
As he observes, each person has become an autonomous moral agent, who “now [speaks] unconstrained by the externalities of divine law, natural teleology or hierarchical authority; but why should anyone else now listen to him?”

Living a Eudaimonic Life In an Irrational, Dysfunctional Moral Culture

MacIntyre truly offers an incisive explanation for why our moral debates are so shrill. Moral precepts — encouragements of virtue and prohibitions of vice — are rationally based when they lead to a clear telos. If your telos is this, you ought to do that. When a culture lacks a shared telos, and everyone is following their own ultimate aim (or lack such an aim at all), people with competing teloi simply talk past each other, while those without any teloi make moral arguments that sound objective but are really the irrational products of personal preference and emotion.
While MacIntyre’s insights are descriptive, and it’s enormously helpful to understand why things are the way they are, they’re less prescriptive; what should we do with this information? Three takeaways suggest themselves:
The importance of having a personal telos. Even though modern society no longer shares a common telos, you still should be clear on your own. What’s your ultimate aim? What’s your essential purpose and function? Throwing off your default desires is never easy. Knowing the end you’re aiming for will make you far more motivated in embracing the means — the habits of action attendant to living a strenuous life of virtue and excellence — that are necessary to get there.
The pointlessness of debate (with those who don’t share your telos). The West still celebrates the debate of political, social, and moral issues, and we do so because of the tradition we inherited from the ancient Greeks. But the framework that allowed their rigorous exchanges to function — the context of a defined city-state with a shared telos — no longer exists in our large, heterogeneous modern countries. We’re still trying to engage in an old model of rhetoric, despite inhabiting a very different cultural landscape. The result is our empty, interminable, emotion-driven shouting matches.
Now I’m not saying we should never debate important ideas. Such debates can be healthy and robust when in engaged in between people who share the same telos. And those who do not share the same telos can debate issues in a strictly pragmatic way — arguing for which solutions will be most effective or expedient. But when debates concern issues of “right” and “wrong,” if the parties do not share a common telos, the result will only be pointless, irrational pontificating.
The importance of belonging to a community. While it is impossible to share a telos with millions of other people, it is still quite possible, and desirable, to do so with a smaller community of like-minded folks. For Aristotle, achieving a life of eudaimonia could never be a solo affair; it required working on a shared project of common good with others. Comrades in a common purpose sharpen each other, and can create and achieve things they couldn’t by themselves. 
Just as importantly, communities of virtue act as repositories of moral excellence, emitting an influence and fragrance that strengthen and leaven the larger culture, and preserving virtues that might otherwise disappear. As MacIntyre ended After Virtue over three decades ago:
“It is always dangerous to draw too precise parallels between one historical period and another; and among the most misleading of such parallels are those which have been drawn between our own age in Europe and North America and the epoch in which the Roman empire declined into the Dark Ages. Nonetheless certain parallels there are. A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead—often not recognizing fully what they were doing—was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without grounds for hope. This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time.”

Becoming a philosophical drunk, getting intoxicated on the inventor of life: learning to find the pleasure and wonder in everyday life.

Hello again dear reader.

With St. Patrick's Day right around the corner. I had originally intended for us to have a conversation concerning the history of alcohol, such as its many uses throughout the world how it's made etc. But then I realized that times of conversations like that have already been conducted by many people more qualified to conduct them than myself. But as I already had conducted some planning research for a history of alcohol or conversation. I began to wonder exactly why people drink in the first place or why they think historically. And I of course came to the conclusion that it's because life is and was hard and being mildly intoxicated. Probably helped smooth out the rough bits, so I started doing research into reasons people should get drunk. And of course came across many poets and philosophers that basically suggested being drunk is a religion in its own right, if properly orchestrated. However, I did not think that this would be good for our long-term health. So I started to wonder if there were ways to get that, warm fuzzy intoxicated feeling without all the negative side effects such as a hangover and liver damage. The conversation that follows the reader is my best answer so far on how to become philosophically drunk on life and have that warm fuzzy intoxicated feeling. Anytime you want without negative side effects. (However, I have recently discovered that there is such a thing as a philosophical hangover, it comes from thinking too hard, about one particular subject). So hopefully dear reader after today's conversation, you will be inspired to become a philosophical drunk and stay that way...





At the Göbekli Tepe archaeological site in Turkey, large barrel-shaped stone vessels were found that may have been used to hold copious amounts of beer made from wild grasses.
These remnants indicate that the production of alcoholic beverages could date back at least 11,600 years — to the Stone Age.
They also signify a great and enduring truth: Life is hard. So hard, we’ve been trying to escape it since time immemorial.
These days, we’re apt to think of that truth in the past tense — life was hard, before we invented a mega-ton of cool technology, and cured a host of diseases, and lengthened mortality, and evolved from having to make a living from back-breaking labor, and threw off the rule of oppressive regimes, and solved the global proclivity for getting into massive wars. Now, life is good. We even have shirts and bumper stickers that say so.
Yet our behavior belies our words. We haven’t gotten any happier on average over the last half century, even as advancements in technology and culture have exploded, and people in fact seem to be craving a substance-driven escape more than ever. While addiction to painkillers has gotten much attention of late, the use and abuse of alcohol has also been on the rise. In a decade’s time, people who engage in “high-risk drinking” (defined for men as having five or more drinks at least one day a week) rose by 30%, while the rate of people with “alcohol use disorder” went up 50%. Not only are more people drinking, they’re drinking more than they used to.
Why? Well one can hypothesize all kinds of theories, but the truth is that life remains stubbornly hard. We have cured a thousand biological and societal ills, but death and disease persist, and we have yet to eradicate the kind of psychological pressures that thread themselves through everyday life — in fact, they have arguably increased many fold. Gone is the threat of lion attack; present is the anomie of living in a fragmented world, the loneliness of isolation, the restlessness of FOMO, the existential angst of walking through a grocery store, and being struck with the chest compressing sense of the possible meaninglessness of it all.
Part of what makes life feel especially hard for us moderns is that despite the persistent reality of life’s thorny nature, our expectations continue to run in the very opposite direction. In times past, people expected life to be hard — and their spiritual traditions reinforced this notion. The Judeo-Christian religion taught that we live in a fallen world, and that there’s no going back to Eden. Buddhism taught that “Life is suffering.” Joyous moments were then seen as exceptions to the rule — happy reprieves from the status quo. The feeling of being a stranger in a strange land was not utterly inexplicable, but completely predictable.  
Today, we worship at the altar of lifestyle design and personal development, a faith premised on the idea that our lives and habits can be infinitely improved and perfected. We believe that life’s disappointments, heartaches, annoyances, and friction points are not inevitable, and can be overcome through the optimal prescription of hacks and planners and maxims.
Certainly, much of what makes life hard can be avoided through right living and thinking, and no one should put up with unnecessary hardships and handicaps.
Far better it would be, however, if we recognized that no matter what we do, it’s not possible to dull all of life’s sharp edges — and to thus set more reasonable expectations for our journey. As it is, we drink, but aren’t sure why, and even feel guilty about it.
Far better it would be if we realized we should be getting drunk. Even drunker than we are now.

Get Drunk On This

As a cure for the difficulties of life, we’re often advised to become more present, more mindful, more aware. 
Yet the longer I live, the more I’ve come to feel that this is exactly wrong advice — at least in the sense of facing each moment in a state of unaltered rawness. Rather, we should strive to go through life in a semi-permanent state of intoxication.  
This is what the poet Charles Baudelaire advised:
“Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually.  
Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken.”   
Baudelaire was definitely on to something, sans the wine bit.  
While there’s nothing wrong with an occasional drink to take the edge off, being perennially drunk with alcohol can’t well be recommended. It damages one’s health, while doing nothing to address the underlying cause of said edge, and in fact, quite possibly making it worse.
But to be drunken continually with certain other things, this we should indeed seek to do.  
There are certain human pursuits that can rightly be called mind-altering, and yet do not numb the senses, nor merely distract from reality. Quite the opposite: they actually enhance one’s experiences, allowing you to engage life more fully. They provide the kind of stimulating, euphoric, emotion-heightening, inhibition-reducing, confidence-inspiring buzz that alcohol can, without the hangover in the morning. In fact, they leave you improved — healthier, happier, and better able to shoulder the existential pressures of the age.  
 Such states represent not an escape from life, but a vivid embrace of it; one is still present, but loses the morbid self-consciousness that often accompanies stark, inwardly-focused mindfulness.  
In the conversation that follows dear reader we discuss four of the very best of these states — four of the best ways of going through life perennially drunk:

Physical Exercise

Of all of life’s natural highs, physical exercise is certainly the most famous, and understandably so; the potent, buzz-creating physiological effect it produces has been well documented by scientific research.  
Exercise releases feel-good hormones like serotonin and dopamine, as well as natural, morphine-like opiates in the form of endorphins which reduce pain and anxiety, while producing feelings of euphoria and invincibility. Exercise may even spur the creation of natural endocannabinoids, similar to the high-producing substance found in marijuana. The natural buzz triggered by exercise arises most strongly from repetitive, rhythmic variety (think running, swimming, cycling), and is amplified both when the activity is engaged in with a partner, and when it is done outside; research has shown that exercise done in nature increases one’s feelings of vitality, enthusiasm pleasure, and self-esteem, while diminishing feelings of depression, tension, confusion, and anger.
Exercise induces these physiological effects because it produces stress (not all stress is bad!), which triggers our fight-or-flight response, preparing us to face a challenge/threat. Our bodies think we’re fleeing a saber-toothed tiger, even though we’re just out for a pleasure jog.  
This phenomenon arguably produces a psychological effect that’s just as important as the biological one.
While it might not seem like subconsciously feeling that you’re in danger would be a good thing, it’s something we moderns crave on a visceral basis. Though we don’t consciously recognize it, part of the pleasure of exercise is surely in the way it mentally elevates us to a plane where our strength and fitness and agility matter. Where the stakes are higher than whether or not the traffic will be bad on the way to work. It reconnects our bodies to something more primal, more essential. We thrill to the fact that this normally inert lump of flesh is moving through space, with a purpose.  
When you reacquaint yourself with the power of your body — when your muscles contract, air fills your lungs, blood surges through your veins, and sweat drips from your brow — you feel more alive than at any other time in your otherwise pedestrian, sedentary day. It’s a feeling that’s keenly intoxicating.  

Love

Ah, love. It’s oft been compared to a drug, and the analogy isn’t far from the mark.
Research has found that new romantic love affects the chemistry of the brain in a way that is similar to cocaine and heroin. And just as with exercise, the fight-or-flight system is engaged, creating that paradoxical combination of excitement and danger, pleasure and pain.
On the one hand, the uncertainty of new love (Do they like me as much as I like them? Will this last?) Releases higher doses of cortisol, increasing one’s stress; On the other hand, an explosion of hormones and neurotransmitters like dopamine and oxytocin create feelings of intense euphoria and contentment. The neural pathways responsible for negative emotions like fear and social judgement are deactivated, elevating one’s confidence and willingness to take risks. Energy, motivation, and self-esteem soar.  
“That’s wonderful,” you may be thinking, “but the heady intoxication of early passionate love doesn’t last.” It’s true that romantic love typically mellows into “companionate love,” in which passion is replaced with a more stable, comfortable sense of attachment. Which is a fine state, but not really “inebriating” in the way of drug or drink.
Happily, research shows that this leveling off process isn’t inevitable and that intense romantic love can in fact last for decades. The even better news is that this passionate long-term love not only maintains the confidence-boosting, pleasure-imparting benefits of new infatuation, but does so in the absence of the anxiety which accompanies a fledgling relationship. Instead of feeling stressed, long-term partners, secure in the future of their relationship, experience greater activity in the opiate-rich, pain-relieving parts of the brain, which protect against stress.
Love — whether early or aged — buoys you up and makes you feel ready to take on the world; it’s a pair of glasses that makes every responsibility seem easier, every burden feel lighter, every joy burn brighter. It’s no wonder men have done many a great thing for the sake of love. Or that the longest longitudinal study on the lives of men found that those who achieved the most happiness and success had the most love in their lives. Or that among male fruit flies (which are surprisingly good genetic models for humans), those that are sexually rejected drink four times more alcohol than their brethren. We all crave the buzz of mind-altering euphoria, and we’ll get it, one way or the other. Better to find it in the arms of one’s beloved than at the bottom of a bottle.

Conversation

“Conversation is an excitant,  and the  series of intoxications  it  creates is healthful.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson
I must concur with Emerson; a good, face-to-face conversation is surely one of the most intoxicating pleasures of life.  
The source of its pleasures can be compared to an orchestral performance, with its combination of competition, cooperation, and artful harmony.  
Now, I don’t mean competition in the traditional sense — a conversation in which people are trying to out-do, one-up, and talk over each other will be a very poor conversation indeed. But competition in the sense that each individual performer is trying to do their best — to introduce an interesting topic or insight, to make a genuinely funny remark. Like a musical or sporting performance, there is in conversation the opportunity of risk and reward for each participant — the risk of saying something dumb; the reward of contributing something valuable. Each participant in a concert, or a conversation, wants to shine.  
Yet at the same time, there is the paramount need for cooperation. Each participant must understand the rhythm of the discussion. They must keep up with the beat, and make their contribution at the right time, and with the right tone. They can only add to what’s already been noised, if they’ve been intently listening to it.  
When these elements come together well in either a concert or a conversation, something musical, and even magical results. In terms of the latter, insights emerge, laughter swells, new, even life-changing perspectives are gained. In terms of both, each participant creates something bigger, richer, and more fascinatingly complex than they could have on their own.
The comparison between conversation and orchestral music is quite apt, but we need yet another analogy to further unpack its pleasures.
So let us now make what may seem an improbable comparison: engaging in conversation is also something like riding a motorcycle. You have to very much stay in the moment, and you cannot predict the twists, turns, and potholes you may encounter along the way. It’s a continuous sequence of action and reaction. In a conversation, you must listen to the tone and watch the facial expressions of those you’re speaking with, and adjust what you’re saying accordingly, and instantaneously. You have to think on the fly and improvise responses to unforeseen comments or questions. At least for a good conversation, the need for focus is total.  
The hormones released during conversation fortunately act as aids in this. When we talk with others, cortisol goes down, and oxytocin goes up, which makes social cues seem more salient and paying attention to social information feel more rewarding. Emotions heighten. The clarity of our mental signals sharpens, as distracting background neural activity dials down. We feel connected to the people we are with, while the rest of the world fades out.
Music and motorcycles.  
It’s no wonder we leave a great conversation feeling totally buzzed.

Virtue

Of Baudelaire’s proposed sources for drunkenness, perhaps the most intriguing is virtue. How can someone get wonderfully sloshed on virtue?
It is perhaps not so much the virtues themselves that beget a kind of healthful inebriation, but the framework in which they exist. As Alasdair MacIntyre writes in After Virtue, “to adopt a stance on the virtues will be to adopt a stance on the narrative character of human life.”  
When one decides to live virtuously, it is typically because he sees life as structured in the form of a certain kind of story. There is an ideal end — what the Greeks would call a telos — that he is questing towards; the virtues are those qualities which assist him in attaining it, while the vices are those qualities which stymie his progress. To embrace virtue is to embrace life as a journey, in which there is a right direction in which to travel, and in which obstacles must be overcome to stay on course. Such a view of life, in which there are real goods and real evils, inherently has a heroic cast to it. A genuine purpose.
The exact nature of that purpose, and thus what you specifically consider to be virtues and vices, varies according to your perspective, but regardless, you end up with the view of oneself as being a protagonist in an epic story, in which the choices you make have real import and meaning. You end up thinking of your faith or philosophy along the lines of how C.S. Lewis describes his:
“Enemy-occupied territory — that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”
Having a mission, operating as an agent for Good, being willing to confront opposing forces, with the risk attendant to pursuing such a commitment, this is indeed an adventurous, exciting way to live.  
Intoxicating even.

Conclusion

It’s good to acknowledge that life is hard. It’s good to realize that despite what toothpaste commercials and social media feeds tell you, life is not all shiny effervescence. It’s good to recognize that while life has the potential for an amazing amount of beauty and fun and joy, much of it is a confusing, uncertain, anxiety-ridden, boring, frustrating, empty-feeling grind — punctuated by occasional outright tragedy.
Once you countenance this fact, it’s natural to want to get rip-roaring drunk. And you should.
Not with alcohol though.
Get drunk on those things that inspire a genuine, long-lasting loss of inhibition and sense of confidence.
Get drunk on those things that leave you with greater health, richer relationships, and a more meaningful purpose.
Get drunk on those things that allow you to get outside yourself, and transcend the narrow confines of self-consciousness.
Get drunk on those things that offer the perception of danger and the element of risk (and reward), and magnify all of life’s emotional summits.
Get drunk on those things that aren’t escape hatches from life, but passages to a more vivid embrace of it.
Drink up, drink deeply, and party on. Because life’s too short, and difficult, to go through it stone cold sober.