I am in Salento, a small town in the heart of the coffee growing region to the south of Medellin, in Colombia. As the world’s best coffee comes from hereabouts, I felt obliged to drink an espresso. Now, I don’t often drink coffee these days, so when I do, it gives me a real buzz. I feel excited. My fingers dance over the keyboard twice as fast as normal. My heart beats faster than it needs to.
Experiencing all this I realise that we often, consciously or unconsciously, reach out for a substitute when something is felt as lacking in our life. When there is no authentic and meaningful face-to-face connection with another person, we turn to social media as a substitute. When there is no sexual intimacy, we turn to pornography, fantasy and masturbation. When we are not at peace within ourself, we turn to alcohol or other drugs. And when we have become so habituated to the world around us that it no longer stimulates us, we drink coffee.
There is a cost to all this substitution. Firstly, we tend to become addicted to our chosen substitutes. We become dependent on them. Then, if they are unavailable for whatever reason, we suffer greatly. Secondly, although these substitutes invoke similar feelings to the real thing, they are never quite as satisfactory. There is always something rather superficial, hollow and ultimately unsatisfactory in the sensations and emotions that they invoke. Thirdly, there is almost always a negative rebound after these artificially induced pleasures – a hangover follows.
However, there is something even worse about our tendency towards substitution. The substitutes themselves, and our dependence upon them, make it much less likely that we experience the real thing. We are so busy with social media that we forget to talk to the person sitting next to us. The fantasy sex makes us less sensitive to the delicacy of real intimate connection. The alcohol and drugs leave our mind dull and heavy and less in tune with our own, inner, delicacy. And that coffee, stimulating though it might be, in the end makes us less likely to see the world with the simple wonder of a child’s eyes.
