Eckhart Tolle explains why people chase sensory pleasures and drugs: they're trapped in a surface ego-identity that leaves them chronically unfulfilled. A good meal or a substance can briefly lift that sense of self, creating a fleeting feeling of transcendence, but these escapes never address the deeper longing underneath.
Most humans are only aware of the surface I, and that's a terrible deprivation that really is a non-fulfillment, permanent sense of non-fulfillment with brief interludes of deluded fulfillment. Like you can have a big sensory gratification through— you have a wonderful meal and then you feel, okay, I'm really fulfilled now. Well, okay, the body is full for a moment, or you can drink, you can take in some substances, and you have brief moments of, ah, a substance, whatever, can free you of yourself briefly too, but I don't recommend it, but I can see why people and millions all over the world are longing And many cannot live without some substance. There's an enormous pull, an enormous longing. What is it that they experience when they take this substance, whether it's alcohol or other things? They experience briefly— never lasts— a sense of self-transcendence.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
