[wordup] Essential Nature.

[Adam Shand]

Sorry for the recent spasm of messages you all received.  My mailing  
list software, which has been relatively well behaved for years, has  
apparently been infected by the evil email elves that live at Weta and  
decided that it wouldn't send out any mail for a week or so.

When I finally noticed you were of course deluged with the backlog.

Back to our regularly scheduled broadcasts ...

Adam.

From: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/10/14/essential_nature
More:  
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/weekend_sites/ 
week_in_review_100903___101003/content/ 
rush_limbaugh_statement_on_prescription_pain_medication_stories.guest.ht 
ml

Essential nature »

So I mentioned Rush Limbaugh yesterday, and that immediately brought  
out the hecklers.  Which is not surprising; he’s a divisive guy, he’s  
made his living being divisive and creating division in others.  He has  
been called many things along the way: a monster, a bully, a hypocrite,  
a big fat idiot, a lying Nazi whore, and many more.  He has defined  
himself by his politics and his polemics and his personality.

I have never agreed with his worldview or the way he promotes it, but I  
can say for certain that today, here and now, Rush Limbaugh is not a  
monster, not a bully, not a hypocrite or an idiot or a lying Nazi whore.

He’s just an addict.

Responses to the effect of “well, that sucks, but he’s still a  
right-wing nut” are a form of category error.  He is not a right-wing  
nut.  Yesterday?  Yes, perhaps yesterday he was a right-wing nut.   
Today he’s just an addict.

Addiction is many things to many people.  It wears many masks and comes  
in many forms.  But it always has one fundamental rule: it does not  
leave room for anything else.  It does not leave room for politics, or  
polemics, or personality.  It does not leave room for anything.  That  
is its essential nature.

Rush Limbaugh is an addict.  At this moment, he is not anything else.   
If he is very lucky, and works very hard for the rest of his life, he  
may get to be a recovering addict.  Which is a good thing to be,  
because recovering addicts can be other things too.  If you hold your  
addiction at bay long enough, you can make room for politics and  
polemics and personality to rise again.

To those who have never been either, this sounds like a bum deal.  But  
it’s not so bad when you consider the alternative.  Because there is  
not—and this is the really important point—there isn’t a third option.   
You can be an addict, or you can be a recovering addict.  There is no  
door #3.

This is the corollary to the fundamental rule, that addicts are forever  
defined by their addiction.  Either positively or negatively, but  
defined in either case.  You no longer get to choose how you define  
yourself; your drug of choice defines you, long after it’s gone.

So I pray.  I pray that he is serious about his rehabilitation.  I pray  
that he has the will and the strength and the support to get out of the  
hole he has dug for himself.  I pray that someday he can become a  
recovering addict who is as much a monster, a bully, a hypocrite, a big  
fat idiot, and a lying Nazi whore as he ever was.

It’s important to have goals like that.