Example research essay topic: Consumption Of Alcohol Second Shot - 1,862 words

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The world in which we live is certainly not perfect. For some people, this cruel fact becomes an insurmountable obstacle to any further pursuits in life, with the only acceptable option to quit it all together. Personally, I believe that suicide is rather stupid thing to do. Despite of various misfortunes and inconveniences that we might go through, life is still good and the only thing that one has to be aware of is that any conflict that emerges in ones life should not be regarded as something that cannot be resolved. Our perception of things is purely subjective since our mind always behaves irrationally jumping from one thing to another and missing many important points that might lead to an enlightening. From this we can make the following conclusion: if our perception is subjective then the world in which we live is subjective as well, since for our mind the fact of the materiality of the world is not that important.

One thing that is important is how we feel about it. Many oriental philosophies such as Buddhism or Hinduism offer a very useful approach of dealing with this internal conflict by means of meditation which allows for our mind to stop jumping around in a chaotic fashion and settle down upon the very essence of our self and things that surround us. Thats a very efficient way of handling our troublesome mental self and back in the days I used to practice it every once in a while. However, such approach is rather time consuming and requires a lot of patience and a great deal of concentration.

That is why I prefer to utilize another approach of curbing my troubled conscience-by means of consumption of alcohol. Now, to some it might sound rather trivial and tasteless, however such judgment might be quite premature since my drinking has got nothing to do with having one shot after another like some animal whose ultimate goal is to fall down at the end into the puddle of its own puke. In fact, I strongly detest that kind of self-destructive approach that is often practiced by mentally immature college students at fraternity houses. My drinking is like a whole philosophy that is solidly based on the concrete life experiences. Consumption of alcohol virtually creates another world for me which is quite different from the real world that is full of mistrust and human indifference.

I would say that these two world are not external-rather they are internal ones and both of them reside and are firmly engrained in conscience. Both of them have some distinct features that make these worlds unique, at least in my own perception. One may ask- Which one them is more important for me? I believe that this type of question is not reasonable. We have to look into the very essence of the notion of the universal duality to see why. The concept of duality certainly is not new.

It has always been with us and although some might not completely agree with that, yet all the existing religions and philosophies around the world are based on the principle of duality. In Christianity, for example, the most obvious dual pairs are Good and Evil, God and Satan. Millions of believers that dedicate the whole lives to Christ fail to recognize and accept a simple fact-that God could have possible existed without Satan, and vice versa. The inherent balance of the Universe is predetermined by its duality: in fact, when we go back to Christianity, one simple observation can be made, all the Christian virtues cannot be viewed as such without being offset by their counterparts-such as seven deadly sins, for example. The ultimate point of understanding duality boils down to this: good is not good as we came to think of it, and same with bad-it is might not be as bad as it seems simply because it is tightly interrelated with good, moreover, the very notion of good would not be possible and could not possibly emerge without the simultaneous emergence of bad. To put it bluntly, the duality is present in everything that surrounds us, since whenever there is right there must be left, whenever there is top there must be bottom, whenever there is wealth there must be poverty, etc.

Now that I made my point clear on the matter of duality let us switch back to what I have said earlier about drinking. The reality into which I submerge after I have several shots of vodka or couple of beers although is diametrically opposite in its essence to a normal world yet should not be viewed as being its alternative negative substitute. I believe it to be the gravest mistake in judgment that one can possibly make. Our perception is dual as well and we cannot endlessly proceed by the path of life while evaluating it from a traditional, sober (no pun intended) perspective. Such mistaken approach is akin to hopping on one foot without using the other one-it wont get you that far. In order to preserve a sober judgment in the broad meaning of this word-I have to periodically get myself high (or should I say higher) off booze in order to have the opportunity to look at the problem from an alternative perspective and to see what are the key areas of misconception that I was not able handle and why I was not able to handle them.

I made an intentional reference to the word higher to illustrate the very concept related to drinking. It leads you to a higher level of comprehension, the kind of comprehension that is free of biases and prejudices and which allows for rethinking the old ways of behaving within a brand new conceptual framework. I would like to give a couple of examples to show how that happens. Let us suppose I had a lousy day because I thought I was mistreated by a person. This happens to everyone of us quite often, does it not?

My initial reaction (a type of reaction that is instantly generated by our selfish ego) is to instantly rebel against being mistreated and to fight back in a similar manner. Such approach although is the most simple, yet in most of the times does not get me anywhere. The reason to this is even more simple: you cannot obtain any visible result with anybody when you act they way they do-in the offensive manner without trying to understand the reasoning and the motivations of the person that offended. My irritation and rage overwhelms me and yet does not do any good.

However, I come home and pour myself a shot of vodka, just to start the process of mental recovery. For me, there are always several stages that I have to go through in order to reach the goal of shaking all of the negative feelings off me. In the described situation the first shot serves as an instant amplifier of all the accumulated dissatisfaction with the situation. I simply let this feeling rise inside of me and then watch how it gradually recedes as I put on my favorite music and light a cigarette.

The second shot follows the first one in about five minutes. Such small time interval is important for maintaining the continuity of the ritual and allowing the flow of thoughts to scatter around. The second shot gets my mind going at a more stable rate and my ability to reason rationally starts to come back to me. I then start to reevaluate the whole situation and look at it in a very relaxed manner trying to see positive things that I have initially overlooked. Mentally stepping into the persons shoes with whom I had a fight helps to see that my actions were dictated by my blurred conscience which happened because of the destructive influence of my ego. I try to picture how the whole thing would turn if I approached that person as a friend and how we could have resolved the conflict if we had a couple of beers together.

Somewhere at this point my subjective mind tends to play a trick on me, and although I know this game from the beginning to the end yet oftentimes I let myself be lured into this trap. Im talking about the second much more intensive wave of aggression that is being generated by my ego towards the opponent. It might take as much as fifteen minutes for it to fade away and after than happens I start to feel more or less relaxed and proceed to a third shot. The third causes a comfortable warmness not only on the physical level but on the spiritual as well. These unforgettable moments of enlightenment are marked by a well pronounced feeling of acceptance of the situation and forgiveness of those who offended me. Oftentimes I start to see the reason why people were acting the way they did and what was my mistake that led to a conflict.

Quite satisfied with myself, I nevertheless do not forget that such exalted state of body and soul after the third shot tends to transform into a reverse effect and throwing into yet even deeper depression. Indeed that may happen if you are not careful enough with what you think at the moment. Your conscience should not be focused on the fact that you are high and thats the reason for your joyous mood. It would be even better to temporarily dismiss the fact of your being high and start thinking about reinforcing your internal condition by means of external socializing (once again I should emphasize the importance of sequential replacing of the two worlds that influence your thinking, one must remember that relying on the principle of duality is an essential condition for success), such as going out to a club with two of my best friends and exposing ourselves to the settings of the normal world, which would allow me to make the necessary comparisons and identify my perception in the momentary transition from one world to another. Were hanging out for a couple of hours simply talking about things, trading jokes, etc. After that it is just the time to have a drink or two since the surroundings of the normal world start to push us over the edge of boredom.

We order ourselves three shots of hard liquor and this ritual is repeated three times during the first ten minutes. This brings us unto the threshold of exuberance which makes us fully identify ourselves with the world of those that surround us, jolly people whose troubles are not with them anymore, people that are united with the spirit of brotherhood. So these are the two worlds that coexist inside of me and which I manage to equally appreciate and combine whenever I feel like it. Sometimes I have to face a slight social disapproval and an occasional frown at my drinking alone, but feeling of internal harmony is much more important to me than the opinion of some strangers who do not know me, but feel that they have a right to judge me.

Research essay sample on Consumption Of Alcohol Second Shot