Subtly Addicted

I’m addicted to a lot of things. You probably are too. I’m not unique, so you might even be addicted to the same things as me. This piece might resonate if that’s the case.

I recently uncovered two addictions that have subtly taken over my life. Some addictions are visible, such as when you see someone shove a needle into their ass cheek while walking back to your car from Bill Graham at 2 in the morning. Others, such as my addictions to intensity and struggling seem more… random. Made up, even. They sound more like the result of an unhealthy amount of introspection than actual addictions, yet they were destroying me until I became aware of them.

I Just Wanna Feel Something

Life would feel dull. I didn’t like that so I’d blast some heavy music or reach for the nearest stimulant. My 4/10 intensity would be turned up to a 6/10. Then life would decide to bring me back down to a 4 so I’d resist and claw back to a 6.

The pendulum would steadily swing back and forth all day, and over time I became incapable of turning up the intensity in moments where I actually needed it.

Even outside of my day to day, getting past an 8 was almost impossible unless I was at a massive music festival like EDC; smaller raves and shows wouldn’t get me to that point without the help of a lot of substances. It’s not that I built tolerance to the substances - they still hit the same as ever - it’s that I built tolerance to intensity itself because I was microdosing it all day, every day. I needed brighter lights, louder speakers, and more stimulation just to feel anything at all. Life was in greyscale otherwise.

It wasn’t until a shroom trip in September where I realized that if I actually wanted to feel intensity in a more controlled way, I had to be content with being at a 2/10 energy at times. Relaxing was a totally foreign concept to me and the mere thought of intentionally keeping my energy low was unsettling, but I knew that the contrast was what I needed. Every instance of forcing myself to a 6 would cost me future intensity that could bring me up to an 8, so I had to change my relationship with energy. Blasting dubstep while driving was no longer viable.

Of course, the best way to turn your intensity down is through meditation. I got really into somatic meditation which definitely helps. But I can’t meditate 24/7, and convincing myself to turn the volume dial on life down intentionally is a monumental task. It’s painful. Social media addiction is another monster to fight - it gives you just enough stimulation to keep you wired, but doesn’t actually energize you and definitely doesn’t help you recover. It keeps your energy at a constant 5, which is the worst case scenario when you either want to be a 2 or an 8.

Creating Hard

I’d open up Ableton, pull up the unfinished song that I said I’d finally make progress on, and play different parts of it hoping that I’d magically come up with something Illenium-eque on the spot. Then I’d make minor, unnoticeable tweaks for 20 minutes and then give up. At least I got to check the box and say I tried right?

I told myself it was going to be hard so I made it hard. I would think all day about how little skill I have, how high of a mountain I had to climb to produce something worth listening to, how much work it would take to get there. This manifested into a continuous attitude of “I don’t know what to do, maybe I should go on Twitter instead.” Self-sabotage was my favorite game to play.

But I was lying. I knew what to do. I knew that a good next move could be to replace my snare sample with something better, or add some movement to my bass, or get the volume levels for all of my individual tracks fixed. I just wouldn’t do them.

I was sold the idea that struggle had to be a part of creating greatness. They couldn’t be decoupled and had a direct correlation. If I wanted to create more greatness, I simply had to create more struggle. Straightforward, right? So that’s what I did. I thought it had to be hard, so I created hard.

This was implanted into me during childhood and I never had any reason to doubt it: I was always told by my dad that nothing that was worth doing would be easy and I idolized Kobe who would always point to his willingness to deal with pain and suffering as the key to his success.

This is a tough one to unpack because there’s so much truth to it. Many of the things I value the most were the things I struggled for the most - my favorite deal I ever closed was one where my main champion told me there was no way a deal was getting closed in January. The chances of it closing at all were minimal and I had to walk to my next 1:1 with my manager with my tail between my legs. 2 weeks later, on the last day of the fiscal year, they signed for $50k. I executed as well as any salesperson could have and brought it home despite the grueling process. It wouldn’t have been worth celebrating if it was an easy deal, even if it was twice the size. The struggle made it worth it.

The same applies to my DJ mixes - the more I agonized over making my transitions flawless and perfecting my song selection, the more I now appreciate the work I put in. I look back more fondly my older mixes that were objectively worse than my new ones because of how hard they were to put together.

There’s beauty in struggle and it’s not to say that we should run away from it, but that doesn’t mean we should inject it into our lives where it doesn’t need to exist. There’s no need to create difficulty and make things harder than they actually needed to be, which is exactly what I'd subconsciously do. I thought working hard meant making it hard.

This showed up in dating as well: I had zero interest in the girls who were super into me because it felt like it was too easy. A relationship wasn’t worth it unless I had to fight an almost unwinnable battle first.

I even began to act like I had some type of suffering quota to hit. It was as if the more I suffered now, the less I’d suffer later, and since delaying gratification is virtuous, why not front load it? That’ll make my future better right?

Lol. There isn’t a threshold of suffering you need to exceed before life unfolds as you want it to. Yous explains it better than I can:

My coach Townsend shattered the way I look at life when I raised this as a problem. He asked “what would it look like if it was easy?”

I started asking myself this ridiculously simple question when I felt myself trying to create a struggle. “What if I could make this easy? What if I knew exactly what to do and how to do it?”

If it was easy I’d go find a new snare sample. Or add movement to the bass. Or get the volume levels right. So that’s what I did. I decided not to intentionally create an obstacle, so there wasn’t one. It became easy.

This is where the paradox lies: life will hand you things that you have to push through, which is where growth will be found. But intentionally creating struggle where it doesn’t need to exist will only slow you down. Obviously doing hard things is a good thing because they make you stronger, but turning every minor challenge into a major undertaking isn’t necessary.

Detox

There’s a beautiful harmony to be found in balancing intensity with relaxation. Turning the volume dial on life down doesn’t mean I have to make everything boring; it means that I can accept the moment for what it is instead of forcing it to be something it’s not. I can enjoy 2/10 intensity as much as 8/10 intensity.

I don’t have to shit on and devalue my easy wins. It doesn’t matter whether you win the NBA championship in the second overtime of game 7 or sweep your opponent. A win is a win.

I don’t know how long ago I should have gone to rehab for intensity and struggling, but simply knowing these addictions exist in my life has been transformative. I’m creating who I want to be at every moment and no longer want to be addicted to either of them.

And it’ll be easy.