The Road to Pure Craving

It sounds like a triviality to say that a thing is defined by its boundaries, but this is another of those fractal concepts that is worth deeper consideration. Just as a simple shape is defined by the line that separates in from out, so a culture is defined by the boundaries of etiquette, taboos, and laws. In the same way, a family, a relationship, and a self are all equally defined by what sorts of words and actions are not acceptable.

Routine boundary-crossing threatens dissolution of the thing the boundary is there to protect. This is why boundaries are reinforced by consequences – they are put in place to stabilize the status quo. So, getting arrested by local law enforcement is the same type of thing as, say, not getting invited back to a social gathering after making a rude comment, or getting hit after insulting someone. In each case, the consequence enforces a boundary to preserve the stability of the social entity.

As we become mature, adult selves, we learn to create boundaries with which to define ourselves over time. Some we learn the hard way, through experiencing the consequences of our own foolishness. Other boundaries are proactively self-imposed, such as a dietary or workout regimen. The point of all these boundaries is to sustain a stable self, capable of navigating the challenges and stresses of life. Routinely ignoring these boundaries for the sake of short-term desire or whim leads to a breakdown of the self – either a deterioration of physical health, a withering of relationships, or dissolving into the instability of anxiety or depression.

Those of us who have made habits of ignoring healthy boundaries of the self are familiar with the abyss that awaits us on the other side. “Erosion” is the right visual – land that is otherwise stable and productive gradually shrinks and deforms until it is useless and hopeless. The deterioration of felt boundaries results in the complete inability to ward off the tyranny of short-term pleasure or comfort-seeking. Our attention endlessly diverts away from meaningful challenges (i.e. our work) toward immediate gratifications. We erode into infantilized adults in a terrifying world, orphaned by the death of the mature selves we ought to be.

The danger of lost boundaries highlights the threat of the boundaryless space of the internet, where we engage with infinite content immediately conformable to our wishes. In real life, there is an obstinate outer world that offers some resistance to our desires, and we are forced to adjust our actions to conform with the contours of the real world – anything from the weather to my neighbor’s stubborn refusal to agree with my political opinions.

Online, however, there is no such resistance. We interact anonymously with an endless stream of strangers. Fear of social rejection no longer regulates our behavior, because there is no true society online to be rejected from. There are no ongoing relationships, no give and take required. Game theorists would tell us that, without iterative interactions, the success strategy for anyone changes fundamentally. Why not always act in the most immediately self-gratifying way possible? What are the long-term rewards of self-restraint in an online environment? It’s not as if you can develop an honorable reputation on Tinder. In these virtual spaces, nobody depends on you, and you don’t need anybody, so the faces, bodies, and words of any other become commodities, valued solely in terms of what they immediately offer to me. If you won’t give me my satisfaction, I’ll just move on to the next object, the next victim of my bitter impositions. There is an infinite supply of these – what’s stopping me?

Of course, the immediate takeaway of this dynamic is that these environments are fatally unreal. Those who show up expecting the social norms of the real world to apply online are shocked to discover that, within minutes, they easily become the subjects of the lust, rage, or contempt of strangers. Of course we should treat others with respect, but that is a social adaptation created in genuine community, because in that context it is necessary. An infinite series of one-time anonymous interactions renders respect and restraint meaningless. So instead of community, anonymous spaces become a sort of sneak preview of Hell.

They’re worth avoiding for that reason alone, but there is a more direct and ruinous effect of spending time in virtual, boundaryless spaces. In short, you could say that, if you spend time in Hell, you become more like a demon. The point could also be made by a simple syllogism: The mature, stable self requires boundaries. Anonymous online spaces cannot naturally impose boundaries in the same way that genuine community can. So, increased investment in these boundaryless spaces results in a dissolution, an erosion of the self.

Especially to the adolescent mind, the internet generally presents itself like a gingerbread house in the woods. The witch within, that devouring mother, is always ready to present to us our most immediate desire lest we face suffering of any kind. We become consciously enmeshed in an environment of immediate gratification, where long-term strategies of sacrifice make no sense. This is equally true of surfing anonymous chatrooms as it is surfing the infinite cascade of political commentators and influencers online. In either case, our conscious experience is customizable to our precise desires. (Even if we watch content from sources we disagree with, it’s still our decision to do so: Hate-watching is a consumer choice like any other).

So accustomed are we to a frictionless existence online that any abrupt encounter with real-world boundaries confronts us as a terror rising from an abyss. In contrast with the gingerbread house of customized consumer experience, the sheer otherness of the real world and its attendant conflict – social rejection, career failures, political strife – is an anxiety-inducing chaos that we are unfit to cross. We are all too happy to flee to the infantile safety and gratification of our virtual worlds.

Most of us are familiar with the sub-human state of compulsive scrolling through infinite content. We are no longer mature adults making healthy, forward-looking decisions about our relationships or our work. We are reduced to a state of pure craving, focused not on the hope of potential around us but rooted in our present emptiness. Healthy boundaries dissolve and we open ourselves to anything that scratches the itch of our inner dysfunctions, however mindless, hateful, or degrading it is.

So, while the internet can be a powerful means of accomplishing great good for ourselves and others, it very often has an opposite effect: addiction, infantilism, anxiety, and misery. Again, the deciding factor in whether we go down one road or the other is boundaries. When we opt out of the real world and its inherent challenges and calls for sacrifice, we are not in fact opting for an easier life, but rather certain death. When we fail to erect boundaries against short-term desires, they become a tyrant against whom we are powerless.

This is the great blessing of the thorn-strewn ground of flesh-and-blood reality. There is no need to self-impose boundaries through sheer force of will. If we neglect our work, poverty comes alongside to teach us our error. If we presume to treat others as mere instruments of our gratification, we find ourselves justly insulted or injured in turn. Real-world consequences reinforce boundaries that help to fend off the tyranny of short-term desires, which sets us on the path toward well-adjusted, stable adulthood.

The relationship between boundaries and stable selfhood can be extrapolated beyond the natural, default consequences of the real world, and into fuller expression through higher, self-imposed boundaries. Setting and honoring our own boundaries is good for its own sake – even those boundaries that seem to otherwise have no practical benefit. Fasting, for instance, has a remarkable ability to stabilize our world. Deciding to wake up early – to forego the luxury of sleeping in – is helpful, regardless of whether we rise early to read, work, or work out. It is a strange paradox that we become most ourselves through self-denial. It is asceticism that puts our house in order, re-erects our crumbling walls.

The loss of boundaries, the erosion of the self, the helplessness against the tyranny of our own desires – these are all ways of describing addiction. The solution to this ubiquitous problem is to conscientiously engage in boundary-building. At the most basic level, this requires staying rooted in humane community, avoiding isolation in gingerbread-house indulgence. And it must be admitted, however benign we may claim our internet use to be, it poses a constant threat of reducing us to a child-like state of dependence by doting on our pleasure-seeking. This is true even if our “pleasure-seeking” is nothing more than anxiety relief by way of mere distraction. However much we use the internet, it is vital that we reject the fierce embrace of our devouring virtual mother. The boundaries of our self – the boundaries that keep addiction out – must continually be shored up by a commitment to asceticism.