Another of our continuing responses to the NYT’s "Modern Love" column.

     This week, Kevin Cahillane, discusses his alcoholism and wonders whether, without it, he would ever have forged a relationship with the woman who became his wife.  In the very last line, he poses an intriguing idea :

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if the burdens we carry don’t end up carrying us.

      Addiction and irony: two things that Chuang Tzu knows well:

     First, addiction.  Chuang Tzu recognizes a deeply ingrained human tendency to go to extremes:

Drinking at ceremonies begins orderly enough, but it always ends up wild and chaotic.  And if things go far enough, it’s nothing but debauchery.  All our human affairs seem to work like this.  However sincerely they begin, they end in vile deceit.  And however simply they begin, they grow enormously complex before they’re over. (55)

     Complex vile deceit: that’s a fair summation of alcoholism. 

     Now, while this may reflect the average person’s attraction to "twisty paths," Chuang Tzu is certainly not telling us to just give ourselves over to our impulses and desires.  Quite the contrary, he makes these observations to warn us off our predilections for easy fun and cheap thrills.  He is, after all, a Taoist, and Taoists renounce desire, joyfully embrace inevitable fate, and stay off the juice.

     Second, irony.  Nobody does this better than Chuang Tzu.  The idea that something which appears to be a burden may actually be a blessing, is a central theme of his book. 

     In one of his stories, he brings up a man who committed a crime and, as punishment, had his foot chopped off.  Instead of the expected ignominy, the man becomes a widely respected teacher.  Chuang Tzu explains how he does it:

If  you seen the world in terms of difference…there are are liver and gall bladder… But seen in terms of sameness, the ten thousand things are all one.  If you understand this, you forget how eye and ear could love this and hate that.  Then the mind wanders the accord of Integrity.  And if you see the identity of things, you see there can be no loss. So it is that he saw nothing more in a lost foot than a clump of dirt tossed aside. (68)

So, the burden of staying away from booze is not a burden at all when seen in "terms of sameness."  At some level, Chuang Tzu suggests, it doesn’t really matter if Cahillane is an alcoholic or not.  Whatever he is, he will live out his life, eat, breath, laugh, cry, just like any other person.  This is not nihilistic.  Chuang Tzu would probably say: if it doesn’t matter whether you are a drunk or not, why not just avoid it, and avert the unnecessary pain and suffering. 

     And when Cahillane sees "the identity of things," then – and this is my favorite part – "there can be no loss."  He is not losing anything by staying dry.  It is not like there is some glamorous alcoholic life that is passing him by.  No, his past life as a lush is nothing more than "a clump of dirt tossed aside."  His "burden" of keeping off the drink, is his means to peace of mind.

     Instead of a twelve step recovery program, Chuang Tzu would have a no step plan.