It’s 7 AM, on a Saturday, and I’m back at La Guardia International.
I don’t like crowds, I don’t like mornings, and I hate flying. But I always, without much exception, try to book the early flight. Nobody’s around. It’s relatively quiet. The TSA agents are too sleepy to harass you (or your bags.) And for the most part, I avoid my least favorite aspect of any airport: waiting in line.
I see one line, in particular, and a chill runs down my spine. It’s long – snaking up, up, and away, around the corner. You can’t see where it ends… but I know. I know those gaunt faces. The hunched backs. Dead eyes – not a single one looking up. I’ve seen better-looking lines at the methadone clinic down the street than the one outside an airport Starbucks.
No judgment implied, of course. I’m a junkie, too. I’d already had a cup at home, and the Yeti mug in my hand was the only thing keeping me tied to the mast. But at home, when I wake up: there’s no line – nothing standing between the edge of my bed and my 12-cup Cuisinart. I hit my alarm clock, hobble to the counter, and grind the beans. And until that sweet, black gold is in my cup – it’s the only thing on my mind.
Caffeine is, undoubtedly, a drug. From year to year, some 90% of the human species regularly ingest it – making it the most widespread, frequently-used psychoactive substance in the world. It’s the only one corporations provide to their employees at no cost. It’s the only one that we give to children. Caffeine culture is so pervasive: we turn blind eyes to the fact that caffeination – an altered state – has mostly replaced baseline, sober consciousness in humans since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. It just happens to be an altered state that most of us share, rendering its effects invisible.
A significant consequence of its ubiquity it that we nearly never talk about caffeine. We rarely question its cultural status – the dogma of perpetual stimulation – and blithely ignore the cycle of dependence in which we’re caught. But then again, if you’re addicted to something relatively cheap, ubiquitously available, and scientifically proven to have net health benefits… is it really an issue?
That’s the question I plan to explore in this short series on caffeine, the human body, and culture. I love coffee. I’m ambivalent about tea. And I’d rather eat batteries than suffer through the taste of a 5-Hour Energy… But I need caffeine, regardless of the vehicle. After all: I’m a writer – a creative with a job to do. Naturally prone to distraction and disinclined towards the sort of focused, linear, efficient cognitive processing demanded by the working world at large. Demanded by my former occupation as an accountant for four exhausting years.
Look at me, already rambling—time for another cup.
I’m in a new line of work now, which has me re-thinking my relationship with the chemical that I need in order to get things done. In the next few posts of my series on caffeine; I’ll explain how the molecule actually functions inside the body, expose how it helped Capitalism conquer the night, explore the unique phenomenon of being addicted to a good and plentiful thing, and share my thoughts on the potential consequences of an always-on humanity.
Drink up, folks.
