20d (edited) • General discussion
The Unfixed Equation
Chapter 3 — The Pit: Fractals of Addiction and Independence
Addiction is not an object.
Not a bottle.
Not a pill.
Not a line.
Not the iron clank of the gym.
Not the silent war of spreadsheets.
It is rhythm. A pulse. A loop.
Flash memory: Face held to a bar heater until skin bubbled.
Biological note: Cortisol spikes → survival engraves itself into the nervous system.
Scripture marginalia: “Out of the heart flow the issues of life.” The heart is vessel. The heart is wound.
I move because stillness burns.
I work because silence echoes.
I fuck, I lift, I gamble, I sweat — not because they are the end, but because the alternative is void.
The pit waits in the quiet.
Observer’s voice (third-person): He catalogues the compulsions like specimens. Each repetition a liturgy. Each excess a prayer. He knows this isn’t morality. It is circuitry.
Lao Tzu annotation: “Water does not resist. It flows. Soft overcomes hard.”
Yet he does not flow. He hammers. He floods. He drowns.
Flash memory: Naked at the dinner table, sisters staring, humiliation served as main course.
Biological note: Serotonin collapse → social rejection carved into body’s lexicon.
Addiction = teacher.
Independence = fortress.
Both born of the same parent: terror.
I learned young: dependence is danger. Trust is a trap. Vulnerability = punishment.
So I built walls.
But every wall shrinks. Every locked door suffocates and every window is barred.
Scripture marginalia: “It is not good that man should be alone.”
The verse mocks me. Alone was safety. Alone was survival.
Flash memory: Head flushed in toilet, lungs burning. Discipline on naked skin.
Biological note: Amygdala hypersensitivity → stillness = threat.
Addiction rewards movement. Brain doesn’t care if it’s salvation or destruction.
Independence became my idol. My drug. My disguise.
Work.
Sport.
Sex.
Women.
The barbell.
The bet.
The grind.
Each altar promised transcendence. Each altar left me hungry.
Philosophy note: The fortress is cage. Autonomy becomes exile.
Observer’s voice: He doesn’t want connection. He craves it. Both truths coexist.
I write because I cannot sit still.
I write because the words witness what I cannot say.
I write to stand over the pit without falling in.
Despair teaches. Despair clarifies. Despair is curriculum.
From despair I learn:
– That survival is not the same as living.
– That wiring is not destiny.
– That the child in me still grips the table edge, naked, humiliated, silent.
Lao Tzu annotation: “He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.”
What if conquering is not war, but surrender?
Scripture marginalia: “My grace is sufficient for you; my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Weakness = terror. Weakness = truth. Weakness = teacher.
First-person whisper: I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to need anyone. Both truths strangle me.
Addiction is recursion.
The pit is recursion.
Every loop folds into another loop.
Child carves adult.
Adult observes child.
Observer writes both.
Fractal self.
And so:
I sweat.
I drink.
I gamble.
I fuck.
I lift.
I bet.
I collapse.
I rise.
I write.
Writing is negotiation. Witness without shame. Memory without collapse. Biology without excuse.
The pit remains.
But the pen is a rope.
©️T.Broughton
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The Unfixed Equation
