Stop taking caffeine every day, idiot!
Daily caffeine consumption is an error.
I bet you’re skeptical, especially if you’re already an addict. You’re doing yourself a disservice! Stop taking caffeine every day.
I can see the stress in your eyes, and that your work is grating, and that you do not sleep as well as you could. I can hear the edge in your voice, and the shape of your rationalizations. I’m not convinced.
Are you one of those people that can drink 10 cups of coffee every morning and feel nothing? Congratulations, you have rare and interesting genetics and this post is not for you. But also, if you’ve been drinking so much, for as long as you can remember (which in practical human terms is a week or two), then how do you know any better? I’m not convinced.
I’m not saying we’re all the same. For me, withdrawing from even 30 mg of caffeine is an intense experience. I’m probably more sensitive than average... but I’m not convinced. And it doesn’t change my point: daily caffeine consumption is an error because daily consumption of any stimulant is an error.
I don’t care how much money you make or how successful you are. That’s not because of your daily habit, but in spite of it. Do you even remember what it’s like to be sober? Have you experienced any beauty, lately? Do you even want to?
Yes, caffeine is a drug, and you are dependent on it. Yes, it makes you “high”, as in different, even though it doesn’t feel amazing enough to be socially weird.
If I had to summarize caffeine in a word, it’d be running. So, what are you running from? Where are you running to? Got the runs? Slow the fuck down and stop voluntarily turning yourself into an emotionally blunted task-golem.
Stimulants work better after a break. If I don’t take caffeine for a week or two, it’s a fucking revelation. An absolute breath of cognition. When I take it every day, it’s like whipping a horse that’s already galloping. Do you think whipping makes you better at what you do?
“But MLL, I stopped drinking coffee for a month and then I had a coffee and it felt just the same”. I believe that’s the way you felt. But do you even know how to pay attention to the inside of your own mind? I’m not convinced.
Stop taking caffeine every day. Reduce it slowly if you have to. I know withdrawal is unpleasant. But the fact that you are experiencing withdrawal is evidence.
Be wiser.
Here, have this depressing poem I wrote when withdrawing from a mere 30 mg daily caffeine habit. It doesn’t reflect my normal thoughts and it doesn’t necessarily reflect anything you’ll feel when you’re in withdrawal.
went walking up the stairs last night and paused
before the door; behind it they were waiting
for me. no, not waiting, not for me,
singing to each other, souls agape
with alcohol, and my soul opened too
but not enough. i walked back down,
but turned again, back up, halfway
as though i’d changed a mind never made.
i think i might be a broken person,
a piece of literal animal garbage.
i’ve taken too long to grow up now.
why am I here? what... who will employ me?
nobody wants to see if I will
make it the rest of the way and slowly,
slowly, slowly, like death, like dying,
might was well die. have you heard me weep
with nothing left to prove? it’s finished,
it couldn’t matter how loved, how deep.
i do not want to be a jester.
i want to do more than entertain,
but it seems that’s what’s in it for me,
pianos and bread, trivial noise,
all useless shit installed in my brain.
now laugh, now snap your fingers, now still
and quiet, now steel and blood and sleep.
it doesn’t matter how loved, how deep.
i’ve done all these things I cannot prove,
and my life floats on by, a whispering cloud,
while something welling in me fails to be LOUD.