My Ugly Little Secret Exposed By an Ad in an Outdated Magazine!

I drew this guy a number of years ago. Turns out
he is a personal archetype since his expression
fits a number of different emotions and I have
used him repeatedly in various artworks. He's taught
me a lot about myself and the human condition over
 the years. The original was a charcoal drawing
which I used in a mixed media collage.

I was at my eye doctor appointment. The assistant had just put those numbing eye drops in my eyes and I had 10 minutes to do something with, so I grabbed a three year old magazine to look through to occupy my waiting time. As I was thumbing through the pages I ran across an ad for what looked to be a reading app for e-readers. I don't remember the exact lead line except that it had to do with binge reading becoming the new thing. It made me laugh. And then, the light bulb flashed on in my mind!

I recognized that I am a binge reader and have been for many years. In fact, I am currently on a reading binge—just finished re-reading Clan of the Cave Bear and am halfway through The Valley of Horses, both by Jean M. Auel. I have known that I often read as a form of escapism, but when did it become bingeing?

Looking back over the years I recognized that I have had these reading binges scattered throughout my life. Escapism is something we all do from time to time and has some very positive connotations, however, when it becomes something that is difficult to control and interferes with taking care of normal everyday functions that we all need to carry out, then something is out of balance. On some level I had already recognized this imbalance that was exacerbated by depression from a long winter, but had not put the pieces of the puzzle together. Putting the label of 'bingeing' on my out-of-control reading habits suddenly catapulted me into a whole different perspective. I discovered that over the years I have taken occasional escapist reading and turned it into binge reading that feeds the procrastination I frequently fall into. Ouch!

The truth be told, I have been bingeing in different areas all through my life, not recognizing that bingeing applies to so much more than just food. I binge when doing art or writing, sometimes when consuming alcohol or smoking cigarettes, when dieting or exercising, and even when cleaning or rearranging the house. OMG! Who knew?! Where does escapism or even passion and enthusiam for something turn into bingeing? Yikes!

Is spring cleaning a form of bingeing? Is gardening? Or lawn manicuring? Or any other hobby? Can you binge on religion, family, work, pleasure? And what about thinking? Is it possible to binge think? Is that what "overthinking" is? Can abstinence also become a binge thing? When and how did all of this bingeing take over my life? How did I get so out of control? And just as important, what do I now do with this unwanted information?

I like reading and art and writing and spring cleaning. I study everything from anthropology to applied psychology and neuro-psychology to cell biology (thanks to my tenth grade biology teacher, Mr. Wilson, by the way) to quantum physics. I'm interested in emotional intelligence, culture and sociology, suffering, and the cyclic nature of life along with all that escapist reading I do. That's only a partial interest list. I have a real 'liberal arts' mentality when it comes to learning, which is my true life's passion. I am so glad that anything and everything falls into the purview of the school of life. Curiosity and creativity are divine gifts no matter what area we apply them to.

Maybe the answer to all of this, if there is one, is finding and pursuing balance in all things, which I find is often easier said than done. It helps to remember that life is highly complex and, despite all our advanced knowledge, it is still a mystery, and don't we all love a good mystery? Life really is a journey made up of a plethora of processes, where balance is a fluid thing by nature and necessity, and there is a time and season for everything under the sun. It also helps to realize that life isn't all about the answers. As often as not, life is about the questions. Did you know that doing a search on questions at Amazon brings up 101 pages of books on the subject of questions? That's a lot of books! How in the world will I ever find the time?

Pendulums swing widely at first on their journey to balance, affected by outside influences, many over which we have little to no control. We are the pendulum in our lives always coming back to a state of equilibrium, at least that's my understanding of physics at its most basic level. Everything is energy which is neither created nor destroyed, merely changing form like water going from solid to liquid to gaseous depending upon outside circumstances.

In writing this article, I hope I have caused you to be aware of and spend some of your precious time exploring the mystery of bingeing, of how it does or doesn't apply to you. Maybe, having experienced it myself and sharing my current understanding with you, I can justify all that bingeing I've been doing over the years, putting a more positive spin on it, turning my negative into a positive. I believe that is called making the best of something, but it could just be rationalizing....

 Either way, it is all going to be okay in the end. I truly believe that.

Phew!! I really needed to hear that. Maybe you did, too.

Feel free to comment below.