Narrative Addiction

Once, twice, thrice,…,

n-iceⁿ, dice, voice,…

up on o time drown un der time fur after time

eating, shitting, sleeping

seeing, seeking, seizing

hearing, saying, naying/no-ing

wanting, whinning, lösting

fearling, hopping, circeling

volving, hasting, draemaing

cuming, to-ing, re-ing

re membering, for getting, im againing

thinking, s/inking, kinking

The end

is the beginning of the end

the end of the middle riddle diddle

(the end of the end

is the burgeoning of the middle

ah-zen)

Narrative Addiction
Addicted to excitement.	Desiring anxiety, addicted to conflict.
Compulsive pattern of use Mood-altering effects Consumption leads to more consumption	σύμπτωμα Tolerance Physical dependence Withdrawal syndrome	Use despite harmful effects Relapse following abstinence Recurrent craving
“In a typical week our great-great-grandparents may have read or seen five or six hours of story—what many of us now consume per day.” —Robert McKee	Bedtime stories, deathbed fictions: cradle-to-grave craving.	Does anybody want a cure?

drop the story

Once upon a time: assimilating children into the narrative of desire.	What are we consuming when we consume stories? The voracious cycle of forms, feelings, perceptions, desires, consciousness—insatiable ouroboros, Möbius of passion.	Drawn to the flame of story.
Without story to drive us from desire to desire, how would we get through the day?	The terrors of time make us cling to beginning-middle-end.	The terror of boredom.
	A stirring story rouses the appetite for more.	And story lived hypnotically, hyperbolically ever after.

drop the story