Saturday, February 27, 2016

Wasteland Of Drugs

The other day Anastasia brought up the idea of a drug addict's wasteland. This reminded me of that book I previously blogged about called A Million Little Pieces. James Frey (the author) said that his life between ages of about 16-23 he was entirely blacked out. That is definitely a sense of a wasteland in itself. By continuously abusing these substances, he lived in his own sort of wasteland. However, this wasteland is very different from the typical dump we described.

2 comments:

Jac said...

Okay this is my 3rd breaking bad reference on this poor blog in 2 days so y'all might kill me....but! I agree with the idea of drug addicts being in a wasteland. In BB, there is an old motel that only meth heads and other drug addicts live in. They live in a sad, cramped room that is dimly lit. They are consumed with where their next fix is going to come from, and can think of nothing else. Their mind, in that sense, is a wasteland. Their actual dwelling place is a wasteland because it is deserted, poorly maintained, and they are rotting away, dependant on their drug addiction.

Unknown said...

This is definitely an interesting idea. I think y'all are right to say that a drug addict's mind, and even life, turns into some sort of waste land. When someone is addicted to drugs, it appears that they push everyone away that was ever close to them. As a result, they end up sad and alone, living in their own waste land. Eliot brings up that whole story from the Hindu Upanishads at the end of the poem. I think that he's suggesting that people follow those three values (self restraint, compassion, and giving) in order to hopefully draw ourselves out of the waste land. The value of self restraint is really relevant for the drug addict, or any kind of addict. Addicts must practice exceptional self restraint in order to fix the waste land they have dug themselves into.