On Virtue and the Sober Mind

 

I have written before that one should embrace the possibility of the pub at any opportunity that presents itself: there will always be another chance to be bored and frustrated at home.  Penury, however, twists your thinking to the extent that even this self-evident truth is thrown into doubt.  I’ve got a little money spare, and am wondering if spunking it in the pub is the right thing to do.  Of course it is, but the longer you allow such doubts to linger, the more they prey upon your poor, alcohol-deficient mind.

The question you have to ask yourself is, what exactly do you want to save this money for?  The answer to that question is easy: to spend at the pub another time.  The corollary to that question is, therefore, is your burning desire to be in the pub now greater than your burning desire to be in the pub will be at some unspecified time in the future (probably tomorrow)?  The answer to this secondary question is obviously going to be predicated on pure speculation, but one can say with a degree of confidence that it is in the nature of burning desires that they burn now, and demand satisfaction immediately.  So the short answer to the corollary can only be yes, the burning desire to be in the pub now burns hotter than any other possible desire to be in the pub could ever burn.  Problem, if ever a problem it were, solved.

Or so it would seem.  A doubt is still lingering, and will have to be analysed before it goes away.  It will have to be analysed if only because a lingering doubt can severely curtail your enjoyment of an evening out.  From somewhere, a little voice masquerading as reason is insinuating that the money would be better left unspent.

There is  of course a degree of security in knowing you’ve a night out in your pocket, that you won’t find yourself stranded in sobriety without hope of escape.  But this is not what the voice is really telling you.  This observation fails to address the issue that sobriety is exactly where you are stranded right now.  What is actually happening here is that the devilish voice is telling you there is some virtue in holding onto money for its own sake.

A revelation like this goes far enough against your nature that it will shock you back into something resembling your right mind (insofar as a mind deprived of alcohol can ever be right).  Poverty is making a miser of you, and that cannot be healthy.  Money is a means to an end, and if a shortage of funds is beginning to transform your personality, is beginning to rob you of that aspect of yourself that helps you rise above circumstance and so keep you sane, then it becomes imperative that you get down the pub right now.  The consequences of not doing so are unthinkable: this is no longer about saving or not saving money, this is about saving your soul.

The spiritual shackles of poverty are thrown off, and a spring has returned to your step.  It is time to embrace the glorious insanity of it all.  I’m off now.  Cin-cin.