Something To Drink To

While moseying down particular grocery or convenient store aisles refraining from thousands of chocolate-dipped Fatty McFatterfingers, one may potentially experience a de-mystifying, Copernican-like revolution after eying the ever-growing selection of energy drinks.

Either a large portion of Americans are perpetually exhausted, or the same group is just that “Extreme,” which is defined by Webster’s New World College Dictionary as “designating or of sports that involve speeds.”

Just the names of the drinks exemplify their extreme nature: Mad Croc, Wired, Monster, Rock Star, Zoom, XS Citrus Blast, Red Bull, etc.

The aforementioned drinks, the spawned, vicious creatures of Mountain Dew’s excessively overblown, sky-diving, snow-boarding, skate-boarding extremity, are everywhere.

In fact, chances are that if you make the slightest attempt to evade consumption of an energy drink, said energy drink will hunt you down, slap you, call your children ugly, make love to your wife and then giggle as it steals your TV remote.

They’re that extreme.

It’s apparent these nuclear drinks comprise a huge marketplace in American consumer society, but why? Why must we overindulge so? Why must we get all jacked up on taurine, ginseng and eight to 32 ounces of other unpronounceable ingredients, which, probably, maybe, sort of, kind of, most likely are really bad for us?

The first and most glaringly obvious assertion is many Americans are inherently predestined to a disposition of astounding extremeness.

The earliest pop cultural exemplar of such bizarre extremity would be none other than “Rad,” the 1986 Golden-Globe-winning motion picture for best acting. In this small, independent film of unspeakable depth and creativity, Cru Jones not only struggles to discover his niche as a BMX-racer by qualifying for the big-time race at “Hell Track,” but also grapples with his own heart against a chaotic 1980s backdrop of bad hair, acid-washed clothing and a pre-“Full House” Lori Laughlin.

Truly raw, emotional and breathtaking.

However, one must also realize this example occurred 19 years ago and needs extremity inflation adjustment. Once one injects inflation into the equation, encountering “Rad” is now equivalent to slurping down only one half ounce of the “Dew,” which is so not extreme.

“Rad” must therefore be disregarded.

The second and more accurate thesis is that a staggeringly high number of Americans are forever insatiable and obsessed with making up for their innate human inadequacies – and then these folks may become utterly depressed by the menacing fact that to enhance one’s own humanness is either impossible or only temporarily possible, and could come with dire consequences.

Farfetched? Yes. Inconceivable? Absolutely not.

To illustrate my counter-intuitive argument, we must first understand the basics.

Why would a person drink an energy drink? To increase energy, mental awareness, metabolism and the chances of rocking hard. However, in order to necessitate an energy drink, one must first experience sleepiness, grogginess and lethargy, which constitute the body’s natural communicative signifiers that one needs rest. Thus, by ignoring one’s own body’s signs of fatigue, isn’t it the same as denying a facet of what it means to be human, because humans absolutely need sleep?

Fo’ sho’.

This argument is not groundbreaking, except for the contemporary application. Some Nietzsche bloke argued in a quite different fashion on a completely different topic about denying one’s own humanness a while back. However, Nietzsche was also born in Prussia, an unbelievably un-extreme society by today’s standards.

Nietzsche will be stricken from the record, and we’ll back-step.

So, if one is, in fact, denying an aspect of his/her humanness by consuming an energy drink, then this extreme example is analogous to many larger cultural phenomena plaguing American culture – except the consequences of energy drink consumption may be less serious than other endeavors.

For instance, the most recent example of individuals attempting to enhance their body’s natural capabilities is steroid use in Major League Baseball.

Although it’s a blatant example, and I’m one to frown upon trite subject matter, steroid abuse is in no way negligible.

Because many players’ physical abilities in baseball have peaked and plateaued, a few have turned to a substance alien to their body with hopes of improving their performance on the diamond.

At the most fundamental, theoretical level, illegal steroid use doesn’t differ from sipping an energy drink when you’re tired, except steroid abuse is scientifically proven to have highly detrimental side effects.

Because an athlete can naturally become only so good through exercise, practice and other physical preparations, to use steroids is to deny to the utmost extremity that humans have limitations. Many American professional athletes, the most physically competitive individuals in the world, are unable to accept their bodies’ signals that their physical abilities have maxed out.

And if the users do, in fact, understand the dangerous consequences of steroid use – I find it hard to believe they don’t – then the users express a willingness to gamble their health to be the best, if only temporarily. This, in itself, is highly risky.

So what makes us, as a society, so willing to put our wellbeing on the line just to surpass our intrinsic maximum potential?

Are the examples of energy drinks and steroids more representative of a greater stigma affecting American society? The insatiable force that one can and must always be better and the best at whatever cost?

Quite possibly, yes.

But is this quality a debilitating disease hindering Americans from moderation and the ability to truly enjoy the small, zestful moments in family life because we assume we need to improve ourselves? Or is it a beneficial characteristic encouraging Americans to be the most highly productive, hard-working, forward-thinking, extreme society in the world?

There’s no correct, black-and-white answer; and even when answered, the answer only matters to the person asking the question.

In other words, the goodness or badness of Americans’ obsessive-compulsive quest for bettering themselves is wholly relative. Improving oneself to the Nth degree may make one person feel more complete, another utterly empty.

For a hippy working in a head shop, no future goals may exist. To an investment banker at an internationally prestigious firm, nothing exists but the future.

And this is why I drink to the vicious cycle of American work-aholism. We work hard to improve ourselves, which requires endless dedication, which makes us weary, which sometimes makes us turn to substances, which allow us to work even more, which makes us even more tired, and so on – thus, forever halting our ability to truly be happily fulfilled before the big sleep.