I think I was around 14 years old when one of my cousins got baptised. Of course, after the ceremony we went home, with some family friends to celebrate. As my cousin was more that 1-year-old, his parents also performed a weird ritual we have in our country, in which we present the kid with a tray filled with various things (from screw drivers, money, mirror, to almost anything that passes through your mind) so that he can chose what interests him. And of course, from this we jump to the conclusion that he will do X and Y when he’s all grown up. Anyway… so during this ritual, one of the acquaintances of the family added his wedding ring to the mix. He’s working on a ship (he’s a marine, I guess, but not the military type), like most of the man in our family. When my cousin picked up his wedding ring from the tray, he was deliriously happy because he concluded my cousin will follow the same career path.
All this to come to the point where during that evening, this acquaintance was very … how should I put it?… communicative about his emotions. He expressed them all with enthusiasm (even crying at some point, if I recall correctly) and it was weird (even to me at that age), because he’s a man, he’s about 2 meters high and quite solidly built and somehow we would not expect this from that kind of person. However, during other social occasions I also noticed that he’s more or less open to expressing his feelings – so that evening was not very special from this perspective, probably.
What I recall was that I actually liked this guy and was talking to my mother and aunt about that evening, telling them that I thought he is more honest than the majority of the people I knew. My aunt seemed to have some doubts about that and I didn’t really understand why, but now (more than 15 years later…) I wonder if his nature was not a bit exaggerated that evening by the fact that he’s been drinking. I am pretty sure he was not actually drunk, but maybe the couple of drinks he had were softening him a bit more than he usually was?
So this is my question: is the alcohol something that makes us behave more like what/who we really are or is it something that makes us become something we’re not?
(yeah, I know, long story for such a stupid question… I like telling stories, what can I do?)
Without going in a debate about what it means “what we really are”, it is still difficult for me to choose between these two opinions. I am sure that the alcohol helps loosen a few inhibitions – thus showing more about our “inner” self that we would like to in day-to-day life. Also, I think that it might trigger some behaviors that one would not normally adopt – even because those things never crossed his mind before being drunk. So I have no idea what the answer is – probably the scientists already have this figured out. What do you think?
PS: my cousin has not yet chosen what he’s going to do in life, but the marine option seems like a valid one…
No comments:
Post a Comment