The hangover has a physical dimension, no doubt about that. You’ve gone and poisoned yourself. But it’s something else as well. The hangover is mourning for the feeling of wholeness that you had the night before. You look back at a time when you attained—or stole—the experience Jean-Paul Sartre calls being in itself. (Though Sartre does not approve of this condition, not a bit. It’s fine for plants and animals, but not for humans.) You had made yourself fully present to life and fully at ease within it. You weren’t oppressed by the past and you weren’t worried about the future. But now that time’s gone and you feel the loss. There’s nothing to do, then, but make your way to the end of your grief, and return to the habitual self. Singing the blues may help a bit, like singing a rowing chantey as we pull and pull and the boat slowly makes its way back out to sea. Then we’re back into time and back into being for itself—when we’re awake to death and awake to limits—when we have again become anxious and partial beings, entering the state that Heidegger and Sartre think our most authentic.
And couldn't we say that drinking is also a creative pursuit, but in the context of socializing? — jamalrob
Does "creativity" result from being simply absorbed or is a cognitive element necessary I wonder? — Jake Tarragon
It might be instructive (though not creative) to list which aspects of cognition/reasoning are impaired/improved at full tipsy and score them for tendency to creativity. — Jake Tarragon
Make sure you're not on the roof when you feel like being authentically you! — Evol Sonic Goo
A couple of points in favour of drinking. Drinking can reveal what I'm capable of, at least in social interaction. — jamalrob
it provides them with a scapegoat or excuse to justify their own bad behaviour. There is an inherent weakness in this where people delude themselves into thinking that their choices are no longer theirs and thus they are morally safe; hey, it wasn't really 'them' just like how people blame others for their own misdeeds or even play social games to sneakily avoid responsibility for what is essentially their wrong decisions. — TimeLine
I don't like that. It lacks existential adventure because to me, I find it thrilling facing my fears and being brutally honest. The alcohol in the above-mentioned is not revealing anything but your cowardly escapism from the sensation of social anxiety that you may feel, but for me coming face-to-face with that feeling and defeating it is so exiting. You expose your vulnerability, your need to feel belonging by doing the same thing for the same reason that others are, a need for love and a fear for rejection. You are escaping from your reality rather than changing it and making it what you really want, which is just a shame really. — TimeLine
Do we act in bad faith when we get drunk? Is it inauthentic to escape our anxiety and live for a time as if nothing else matters and that we will never die? If so, is there anything wrong with that?
A couple of points in favour of drinking. Drinking can reveal what I'm capable of, at least in social interaction. My quick and surprising response to a question, my ability to avert boring conversations and situations, my responsiveness to people and the environment (clearly I'm thinking here of peak tipsiness rather than the common sequel of oblivion). That feeling of being what you feel you are supposed to be--the feeling, in fact, of being authentically you: — jamalrob
"Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now."
Not my thoughts at all. It's not contemptible that drinking puts you in such a state, but enlightening. I always wondered what the allure to drinking really was. I didn't fully appreciate it's effect on other people. I mostly just get tired, and if diligent enough, nauseous. I always felt my limited response was a strength, but, with what you say, I'm not entirely sure. I am sure that my condition is safer than yours.I expect the prigs of TPF to tell the rest of us how contemptible they find such indulgence, and how pathetic it is to need drink to achieve that feeling of at-home-ness, and so on. That's okay, but I'd like to see some nice sober discussion here more than trolling. — jamalrob
Do we act in bad faith when we get drunk? Is it inauthentic to escape our anxiety and live for a time as if nothing else matters and that we will never die? If so, is there anything wrong with that? — jamalrob
so the only drink that goes down without actually hurting me is red wine from Tuscany (chianti), I think because of the way that it is made. — TimeLine
Do we act in bad faith when we get drunk? Is it inauthentic to escape our anxiety and live for a time as if nothing else matters and that we will never die? If so, is there anything wrong with that? — jamalrob
Not my thoughts at all. It's not contemptible that drinking puts you in such a state, but enlightening. I always wondered what the allure to drinking really was. I didn't fully appreciate it's effect on other people. I mostly just get tired, and if diligent enough, nauseous. I always felt my limited response was a strength, but, with what you say, I'm not entirely sure. I am sure that my condition is safer than yours. — Hanover
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