It worries me to see so many talented young people ‘letting themselves go’ at parties, under the influence of alcohol, smoke and stimulants previously reserved for spiritual experiences.

Swept along by an incessant flow of information, judgements and stressful activities, they seek to compensate for their suffering with ever more excitement, to the point of unconsciousness, in order to stop feeling.

Are these the signs of a civilisation in decline, or is it simply a natural human mechanism?

An interesting answer can be found in this poem by Baudelaire, to which I have taken the liberty of adding a few words in capital letters.

‘You must always be drunk. That's the only question. 

If you don't want to feel the horrible burden of Time breaking your shoulders and bending you down to earth, you have to keep getting drunk. 

But of what? 

Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But get drunk. 

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the dreary solitude of your room, you wake up, your intoxication already diminished or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that flees, everything that moans, everything that rolls, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask what time it is ; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer you: ‘It's time to get drunk! If you don't want to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk all the time! Wine, poetry, LOVE, GRATITUDE or FORGIVENESS, as you wish.

Charles Baudelaire