How much of it is not wanting to miss a good time, and how much of it is wanting to be someone that has a good time? Which could be having crazy stories to tell, or getting other people to identify you as fun/wild/crazy? The more I think about meaning, the more I’m afraid of missing out on the larger opportunities. Do I want to spend my evenings drinking and fucking about with friends, achieving short term pleasures, or prepare for something greater, more long term. I’m tempted to compare this to relationships. I want a meaningful long-term relationship. I joke about how much I’ve been dating this year, but quantity wasn’t what I wanted. I’m on my way to doing more with my time, and it’s better this way. There’s some social turbulence, but so it goes.
This is something I’ve worried over and wavered on for years- the short term pleasures vs the long term goals/responsibilities. There has to be a happy compromise somewhere in there. I want to spend my time in more productive ways (i.e., less nights filled with not much more than drinking) but productive doesn’t/ shouldn’t have to mean “dull” or adventure-free. Thinking about the constructive activities that make me happy, it seems like those are activities that would make a lot of friends happy too- so we should do them together, and strengthen the bonds that grow outside of the bars. And people who drop away as the whiskey wells stop flowing are probably people who would have ended up dropping away anyhow. I dont want the fun-filled drunko shenanigans to completely stop either!- I just don’t want them occupying quite so much of my time. Making those nights more rare usually ends with making them more fun, or more special, or more significant, I’ve found- and it makes you a cheaper drunk, as the tolerance drops away, haha! Like when James and Alicia and I start a kareokee night once a week- well, thats a good night filled with a fun social activity that drinking could be a part of- and when Ginger and I start a craft night, thats a good night filled with a fun and constructive social activity that booze doesn’t need to be a part of. I guess I just want to strike a balance somewhere, while also spending more “quality” (sober) time with the people in our lives who want the same.