Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/1161
61 WWW.HPLusmAGAzINe.COm now being normal isn't enough. We 21st century humans are expected to be super- functioning, highly productive, multi- tasking, and performance optimized. This expectation is placed upon us by modern media, culture, and economic pressures, but we are naturally inclined to sleep most of the day, have a big meal, fuck, and then go to bed. If modern life were easy, we wouldn't need to cheat, but it isn't easy. We stress to fi nd security, get depressed about insecurity, feel anxiety, worry about the future, watch our bank accounts, keep up with the news cycle, stay involved, and hope we don't get hit by a stray asteroid. Provigil, a drug that keeps you from getting tired, is quickly becoming the new dope for people too busy to waste life on sleep cycles. Think of this as a symptom of our age: we've embraced the anti-narcotic as an illicit post- recreational drug. stay awake and sober as long as you can! And why not? The undisputed truth is that doping improves performance. That's why they're called performance- enhancing drugs. In a society obsessed with performance, it's only natural we should exploit them, but it would be wrong to call this behavior anything but pathological. Performance, achievement, and winning are a form of dope, the main symptom of the performance pathology being that winners are never satisfi ed even when they're winning. If civilization is built upon the pathology of achievement, we must embrace the dope race for what it is, otherwise we are criticizing the worth of progress itself, and that totally jumps the paradigm. It's easier to backtrack and say, "Win at any cost, but don't get caught cheating…" than to step back and ask, "What is the inherent worth of winning, anyway?" Vexed by civilization I once trekked to a high mountain where a hermit lived and asked him, "What value is progress?" The old hermit lit a pipe and thought on it, then nodded and gave me an answer. "It keeps people busy," he said. "But to what end?" I asked. He thought on this some more, and then an answer came to him. "It makes them feel like they matter," he said. since the doping issue can be tricky I have come up with what I call the rules of doping. These are rules that can be applied to almost any situation. Doping is always okay in life and death situations. This is an unspoken truth. If you had to fi ght a bear, swim twenty miles from a shipwreck, or fl y eighteen hours to drop a cluster bomb on your enemy in a distant land, everyone would agree that a little bump of speed is fi ne, no worries there. using cocaine for job-related performance is okay as long as your company is making money, but when your stock price goes down you must switch to alcohol, coffee, and prescription opiates like everyone else. Doping is always okay if you are in a creative fi eld like music, performance, writing, art, or any part of the entertainment industry. In fact, doping is encouraged in this industry, and they have award shows to celebrate notorious dopers for their edgy genius. It's okay. Doping is sometimes okay to help with academic performance, and is perfectly fi ne for anyone with a career in academia as long as they keep their clothes on and don't stumble or slur in public. Doping is tacitly allowed for anyone in thankless performance- critical jobs who don't get enough sleep, like truckers, cooks, waiters, janitors, taxi drivers, and air-traffi c controllers. Doping is never allowed in sports or competition where other people's money is on the line, unless the people with the money tell you it's okay and then deny it when you fail your blood test… in which case it's okay until it isn't okay anymore, and that's all on you for being a chump. most of all, doping is usually accepted when your ass is on the line, and when other people's asses are on the line. If you have a good excuse, people fi nd it is easy to forgive. But if you're doing it just because you like to win? That's cheating. James Kent is the former publisher of Trip magazine and editor of http://www.DoseNation. com. Additional reporting by David Perlman. When your stock price goes down you must switch to alcohol, coffee, and prescription opiates like everyone else.