Mirabile Dictu

Burroughs talks about the addiction of the dealer who does not use. It’s an interesting psychological phenomenon which he describes as a sort of corrosive codependent contact high. Dealers become addicted to soothing the pain of others, even if that pain stems from an addiction they helped create. Living within a community of customers, the dealer is slowly digested by them. This, he explains, is why dealers so often look, suffer and act like junkies, even when they don’t use. The phenomenon has disturbing implications if you consider other relationships which likely share it. It speaks to the yogurt-like vulnerability of the human mind. Interconnected, functioning humans can’t help but experience each other in an unseen cycle which seems to require a basic level of healthy reciprocity. We’re especially harmed by the dysfunctional few who appear to feel yet feel nothing and thus break the cycle. Like a great tendril stemming from the heart caught in a slamming car door, some are quietly mutilated by it. The sober dealer chemically renders feeling customers unfeeling. They therefore cannot complete even the most casual reciprocative cycles. Cumulatively this eventually kills even the most hardened dealers. It’s like an invisible occupational hazard.