NOT the valid horseshoe theory of consumables!!

NOT the espresso martini!!

The valid horseshoe theory of consumables meme struck a chord just now while crashing on my friend’s Ridgewood floor mattress, amidst piles à la Tracey Emin’s bed, reminding myself that in this life we are either struggling or dying. It’s not as bad as it sounds - Artists and New Yorkers have been acutely aware of this idea since their conceptions.

When we struggle, we are in a state of movement, constantly searching to improve or create. Struggling is curiosity in this sense, which gives us reason for life, motivation to go look under the rock, to find love, to believe in unknowns. It’s passion and it’s energy. But it’s not contentment. Contentment, is ironically what we think we all want? End goals, steady relationship, stable job, permanent house. ((do we just want The end?))

With this, I’m thinking that many people find an easy sense of stability in buying the lettuce in a bag and almond milk from Sprouts and existing in a “happy medium” space where all is Ok and nothing hurt. It strays from the spiritually divine, strays from active search or struggle, strays from truth. It’s an illusion of contentment in mindlessly doing what should feel healthy. Activate sheep mode.

When we THINK we are content we tend to stop asking ourselves what we want, effectively putting the search to death. We cease moving and stop caring. Of course we need pause the way we need rest and reflection, but only in doses. It’s easy to overdose on contentment and then you wind up in a creative coma. Artists know all of this already.

Whenever I work too many long days in a row all I want is to spend a whole day watching films and smoking weed on the couch. But when I do that I can’t wait to work again. I always think in these moments that my other parallel life (work vs couch) is the thing I need to sustain me, and I fail to consider that the desire to change* might itself be the sustenance. A tiny ball rolling back and forth on the horse shoe. The motion itself creates the energy.

*A Desire to change shouldn’t be confused with feeling ungrateful, which is like the greatest sin of all. I read once that being grateful - ““,, counting your blessings ,,”” - is the Key to Happiness. I agree with this and count my blessings every day. And I can still hate myself, in a healthy way or sometimes not, and wanna be different. Gratitude is just a vitamin we must take everyday, and it should put us all in debt. Lewis Hyde wrote all about that ~ we owe a lot for all we have, many gifts have been given to us, and gifts have to stay in motion. Motion is life and gifts are life, gratitude is the vitamin and curiosity the symptom. Self hate has to happen, cigarettes and fasting and red bull and raccoon food have to happen to keep the pendulum swinging.

And so the meme… :: The horseshoe theory of consumables meme is all about the binge-purge lifestyle of microdosing life and death so as to avoid the stagnant coma that comes with the delusion of repeatedly believing you’re doing the Right thing, all the while straying further and further from your instincts and therefore your truth. To lean in either direction too hard could mean death.

The Recipe:

- espresso martini (vodka, coffee, sugar)

This shit makes you feel so bad. But the case in point here is that when I compare the drowsy midday sugar-hangover to the idea of walking the isles of Sprouts and getting bread and lettuce in a bag for the rest of my life, my current state feels so temporary and the latter feels more like existential dread which just evaporated after one espresso martini.

So get your rest (I personally sleep at least 10 hours every night), take your vitamin, and submit to the inevitable, chaotic, volatile struggling that keeps us moving on this absolutely nauseating ride; we have to feel great to feel bad. I’m not a doctor I’m just a food blogger.