It’s surreal to reflect on how a thing, a substance, sometimes so small, sometimes invisible to the human eye can, utterly destroy a life. Sometimes, these things appear to be beautiful in their rawest form. A swaying cocoa plant or a vibrant poppy add beauty to the fields they inhabit. It’s astonishing and at the same time unfathomable to accept the reality that these beautiful ornaments of nature, once they are separated from their original form and ingested, have the capacity to enslave and obliterate a person on every conceivable level.

I think of these beautiful intricacies of nature in their true essence…I think of the addicted person in his determined but faulty quest to achieve the infinite and become whole again. I think of the lives that were born whole and later became separated from themselves and the world because of addiction. This helps me understand that there is an objective and guiding principle pervading all living things: Nature and people thrive in their wholeness and this should never be tampered with…