IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT that you are in a dream. In this dream, you find yourself at a huge party with thousands of people, where you are the only sober person and everyone else is drunk. The other partygoers are in varying states of intoxication. A few people have had just one or two drinks and are only tipsy; most fall into the realm of general drunkenness; and a handful are so drunk that they are making spectacles of themselves in all sorts of colorful ways. They may even have blacked out, as their actions seem completely out of their control.
Some of the people at this party are your friends and family, some are acquaintances, but most you don’t know. Your try to talk to a few people, but you quickly realize that their intoxication level has altered their ability to communicate clearly; it has clouded their viewpoint. You also notice that each person is experiencing the party differently, depending on his or her degree of drunkenness, and your interactions change with every drink they consume.
The partygoers range from loud, outgoing, and merry, to shy, quiet, and sullen. As the party rages on, you watch everyone alternate between the two ends of the spectrum: from happy to sad, excited to apathetic. They fight and make up, argue, embrace, and argue again, and you watch as this type of odd behavior repeats itself endlessly in cycles throughout the night. You realize that even though they are drunk, it’s not the booze they crave more of, but rather the drama of the party.
As the night continues, your interaction with the partygoers vary from person to person. While some are enjoyable, others have the potential to quickly turn volatile. Since their perception is clouded, the other partygoers react emotionally to situations that you can see are pure fantasy. For some of them, the dream has become a nightmare.
Most important of all, it’s clear that no one at this party knows this is all just a dream.
Then it occurs to you that this is not a new party, but one you’ve attended before. At on point you were just like them. You went through all the varying degrees of drunkenness, behaving exactly as those around you are now. You conversed through the fog of booze, joined the folly of the party, and let the intoxication guide your actions.
Finally, it’s clear that no one there realizes you are now sober. They think you are still drunk, just like them. They do not see your path, only their own. They view you only as a distortion, projected by their alcohol-addled minds, not as you actually are. They are also completely unaware of the true effect the liquor is having on them. Each is lost in his or her own dream of the party. They do not see how their interactions are no longer under their control. As a result, they continually try to entice you to join the drama of the party, to join the folly that their distorted perception has created.
What will you do?
An excerpt from the book The Mastery of Self by Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
Savory House 