Opiums

"...the true, creative overcoming of religious illumination certainly does not lie in narcotics. It resides in a profane illumination, a materialistic, anthropological inspiration to which hashish, opium, or whatever else can give a preliminary lesson."

-Walter Benjamin ("On Hasish")

διασκοπῶν οὖν τοῦτον--ὀνόματι γὰρ οὐδὲν δέομαι λέγειν, ἦν δέ τις τῶν πολιτικῶν πρὸς ὃν ἐγὼ σκοπῶν τοιοῦτόν τι ἔπαθον, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, καὶ διαλεγόμενος αὐτῷ--ἔδοξέ μοι οὗτος ὁ ἀνὴρ δοκεῖν μὲν εἶναι σοφὸς ἄλλοις τε πολλοῖς ἀνθρώποις καὶ μάλιστα ἑαυτῷ, εἶναι δ᾽ οὔ· κἄπειτα ἐπειρώμην αὐτῷ δεικνύναι ὅτι οἴοιτο μὲν εἶναι σοφός, εἴη δ᾽ οὔ. ἐντεῦθεν οὖν τούτῳ τε ἀπηχθόμην καὶ πολλοῖς τῶν παρόντων· πρὸς ἐμαυτὸν δ᾽ οὖν ἀπιὼν ἐλογιζόμην ὅτι τούτου μὲν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐγὼ σοφώτερός εἰμι· κινδυνεύει μὲν γὰρ ἡμῶν οὐδέτερος οὐδὲν καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι, ἀλλ᾽ οὗτος μὲν οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι οὐκ εἰδώς, ἐγὼ δέ, ὥσπερ οὖν οὐκ οἶδα, οὐδὲ οἴομαι· ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι. ἐντεῦθεν ἐπ᾽ ἄλλον ᾖα τῶν ἐκείνου δοκούντων σοφωτέρων εἶναι καί μοι ταὐτὰ ταῦτα ἔδοξε, καὶ ἐνταῦθα κἀκείνῳ καὶ ἄλλοις πολλοῖς ἀπηχθόμην."

-Σωκράτης,

("Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of
wisdom, and observed him--his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination--and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is, for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know.")

-Socrates (from Plato's "Apology", trans. Jowett)

T I M E is the opium of space. Space, the opium of movement through time of matter through the void. Void, the opium of thought. Thought, the opium of the intellect. Intellect, the opium of consciousness. Consciousness, the opium of the brain. The brain, is the opium of the will. Will, the opium of the animal drive for survival. Survival, the opium of the free. Freedom, the opium of the not-free. The not-free, the opium of everything. Everything, the opium of the nothing. Nothing, the opium of religion. Religion, the opium of the extinguishable (as in transient). The extinguished, the opium of the Earth. The Earth, the opium of the living beings on the Earth. The living beings of the Earth, the opium of the powerful. Power, the opium of ideology (political, ethnic, nationalistic, religious, etc). Ideology, the opium of the inhumane. Inhumanity (O! the inhumanity!) the opium of the religious. The religious, the opium of frightened/diseased intellects. The frightened/diseased intellect, the opium of the Fascist, Marxist ("the opium of the intellectuals"-edmund wilson), Libertarian, Anarchist, Democrat, Republican, Neo-Conservative, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Atheist, Feminist, Anti-Feminist, Nihilist, Post-Modernist, Modernist, Pre-Modernist etc.
All of these mentioned above, the opium of those with overflowing Gnosis, or Knowingness, or Knowledge of the Ideal, the Utopian, the Truth of History in Theories/Jargons/Systems. Gnosis, the opium of the ones (we) whom are eternally abandoned by the Gnosis, (thanks, absent, flawed demiurge, ya prick!). We, the people, the opium of civilization (in our case, Western). Civilization, the opium of that which exists in the workable, problem-solving orientations of various spinning wheels.
Problem-solving, the opium of the pragmatist. Pragmatism, the opium of the skeptic. Skepticism, the opium of the one who thinks there is more than what he sees/knows/hears/touches/tastes/feels (or less). More (or less), the opium of hope. Hope, the opium of optimism. Optimism, the opium of the humanist. Humanism, the opium of the Educated. The Educated, the opium of reasonable, the balanced, the open-mindful, the naturalist, the one without answers. The absence of answers, the opium of the infinite questions.
The infinite questions, the opium of Philosophy, Science (let us have these two finally meet each other with wet lips and beating kind hearts, like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in "Sleepless in Seattle").
Philosophy and Science, the opium of art. Art, the opium of Art.
The opium of opiums.