Slow Havamal: 12

[kylec]

In the twelfth verse, we hear that though men claim there is value in alcohol for one’s well-being, it’s overblown. We lose wisdom the more we drink.

The exact words to describe those claims of alcohol’s benefits are “not as much good.” Note that it doesn’t say there is “no good” in alcohol. Havamal is short on Puritanical binaries. Often, it’s a balance that is promoted, rather than rigid adherence. We’re in the midst of a flurry of verses about drinking. What someone learns from an encounter differs sharply with the traveler passing through. In my case, I have little interest in weighing the pros and cons of alcohol consumption. I’ve chosen to take inebriation as a metaphor for indulging in one’s passions. By passions, I mean the visceral desires and emotions present in all of us, distanced from the reasoning mind.

Passions can be things we usually consider positive or negative, or anywhere between. I define it as a strong habitual emotional stimulus that carries some kind of reward for the “drinker” and pulls one away from the higher capacities. I can get lost in playing my guitar to the exclusion of all else, or passionately research a new hobby I just discovered. Anger is a near-universal passion. It can serve a valuable purpose, but it can also swamp us with clouded judgment and cause a good bit of harm. Indignation, or righteous frustration with some turn of events, is another favorite of mine. How on earth does this benefit me? I can just as easily get a high from negative emotions, and sometimes a greater one. To be angry and indignant affords a feeling of power (often in a situation where I have none), and places me on the side of being “right,” or among the good guys, for example. How dare they ruin the TV show with that ending!

We can extend this indefinitely, to things like self-praise, self-loathing, daydreams, hot topics, gossip and the vicarious indulgences, and low-input distractions like the aforementioned TV. Even longer cycles of events, described as “games” in the psychological school of Transactional Analysis. For example, the cycle of error, argument, and forgiveness that many people cultivate. A passion can be any pet habit that rewards us on a visceral level and helps us avoid taking a long hard look at ourselves and making difficult changes.

According to the High One, there is an inverse relationship between passion (alcohol) and knowledge, or wisdom. Recall that I define wisdom similarly to how Alfred Korzybski defines knowledge. It has no real content, it’s only structural. We build up a vast system of relationships between experiences that provide a map of a territory we otherwise can’t directly interact with.

Let’s say I want to cross the road. It’s not my first time. I’ve crossed a good many before, in a wide variety of contexts. The wisdom that helps a particular chicken get to the other side includes all of the experiences of the past—how fast I can move over what surfaces, expected behavior of traffic (following or ignoring rules), quick estimation of car speed and direction and how much time it gives me, the parental guidance to look both ways, and other things. The relationships of all of these factors are the system of wisdom I use to cross the road. The more experiences I have, the better I’ll be at it, which is why adults help children do this all the time.

Every crossing is different, even if it’s the street you cross every day at the same point, because you are different, the world is different, and neither has to behave just like yesterday. There is no single ultimate road crossing experience to serve as a fact for comparison. Each instance has to be taken in context, and is novel to some degree. Now imagine trying to cross a busy four-lane street drunk. Why is that harder? Our perceptions are dulled, we don’t process all data, nor as quickly. We have trouble recalling past experiences, and our motor patterns are hamfisted. We haven’t been robbed of those experiences, but for the moment, our access is incomplete.

What passion does is whittle away relationships in our structure of wisdom. Like our car keys, they’re around somewhere, we just can’t find them. Whereas a wise person takes in the whole picture and relates it to as many experiences as possible, the passion-drunk hones in on a narrow set. This set is unconsciously chosen, but it’s chosen with precision and purpose. Passion directs our attention to only those factors which give us the desired emotional arousal. Beer goggles are a fine literal example. A drunk at the bar wants to take someone home, so they drink until they can ignore those details which normally would have been a hard “no”. If I always get stirred up over the same political argument, I’m probably ignoring an array of other factors that would lead to more reasoned discourse. I’ll tend to oversimplify or dismiss what doesn’t fit the narrow narrative I’m trying to tell myself, because that narrative gives me the hit I’m after.

Wisdom doesn’t necessarily arouse or satisfy. It can, but often it has the opposite effect. It is sobering and painful at times. And at others, boring. Wisdom avoids drama. It tends to promote balance and homeostasis, and a slow, healthy maturation. Passion runs to extremes, but life prefers a steady rhythm of challenge and rest. The immediate reward (for example, an ice cream binge) is not as good for us as what restores our bodies (a moderate course of meat and vegetables).

Anything that would dampen the reward is forfeited under the sway of our passions. The good news is that bad choices can become sources of future wisdom, if we have the guts to take a hard look at our mistakes and learn from them. And a little jolt of passion at times makes us interesting, likable. It spares us that torpid pallor of a joyless ascetic. The key is to make a conscious choice about which passions to engage in, for how long, and to what degree. If we can’t choose whether or not to drink, we’d earn the label “alcoholic”. So how do we know when enough is enough? That’s why we work so hard to gain wisdom.