Copyright 2006 Alicia Power

Ever wondered how coffee drives your brain into action – and where we’d be without it? There’s no doubt that when it’s time to think fast – we humans regularly reach for “steroids”. Our instinct is to SHAKE AWAKE the neuro peptides in our cerebral cortex – and get them dancing in a polka frenzy.

Imagine a billion steroidal peptides (neuro-chemicals) madly hopping and skipping, doing cartwheels and running at top sprint, zooming up and down the lane ways and highways of the nervous system, never pausing for breath – until sadly, exhaustion kicks in.

That’s when you hear the z’s - dozing…. after that coffee high. The peptides snoring by the side of the synapses and the adrenals flapping nervously in the breeze after an overdose of adrenalin.

Coffee is good for a fast laugh – if you need to get high for a short burst without being illegal, it does the trick. Thinking in a straight line becomes as easy as a tight rope walker suddenly having to do it back on the ground. No longer are there vague meanderings of mysticism or attempts at profundity – conclusions are an open and shut case – simple, concise and unchallengeable.

It still seems an intriguing mystery exactly why people use coffee so intensely, so compulsively. It is well known to be addictive – yet is there a darker, more sinister reason why we tragically need coffee? Could it be because we have lost (without coffee) the ability to reason concisely? Scary thought I venture to say.

Without the “snap” in the morning – afternoon and night, (let’s get real here), where would we be? Would our artistic communities of writers, musicians and visual artists still perform at their edgy best? Would the world be a different place without the kick-a…s bean that lodges itself in our cranium conveniently so that the wheels of industry keep turning, the sweat of the labour class keeps pumping - and the rest of us offer profoundly sharp observations to entertain ourselves?

Coffee is, of course, a psychoactive drug. It may not be openly admitted but it has a similar addictive quality to opium – the seed of the opulent poppy. How paradoxical that in order to think clearly we dope ourselves on caffeine.

Paradoxes abound, of course – when it comes to addiction – but that, dear readers, is another tale full of sound and, of course, fury. The question has been raised - is endemic anger the outcome of long years of grinding and ingesting coffee? Clinical studies have shown that doses of 300 milligrams or more in some people increase tension, anxiety and even panic attacks. Without it we can’t string two thoughts together in the morning. Yet with it we can develop aggressive tendencies that can lead to long-term anxiety. Not a pretty story.

Used with propriety coffee can support the brain in adding acumen and even longevity – as it stimulates the central nervous system. Yet the cross-over point comes when the body simply CANNOT do without it. When exactly IS that? Is it when we’re yelling at our lover first thing in the morning – before the ritual drink? Or is it when finally we give in to the craving before we head off to bed… Some would think that perfectly normal. It is of course – but only if exhausted adrenals cannot offer even a weak signal to defend any further self annihilation.

Coffee has sprung into our society conveniently yet maliciously – vehemently bent on self-destructing humanity’s ability to think without it. Yet is it such a curse? Or is it just a shoulder to lean on for a while, while we gather our thoughts hoping someone comes up with as good an alternative.

And so the dance goes on – day in day out, all day every day. Coffee machines spill the beans and we drink in the aroma in a hurry. It only takes a moment to notice, however, that the dance is edging out of control, the eye pupils constrict, the heart races, the thoughts buzz anxiously and we talk – oh how we talk!

Talk, of course, is cheap. The more we talk the more we realize that talk of itself holds nothing except hot air. And that hot air floats above the cafes, the restaurants and the shops where coffee machines continue to spill the beans, anxiously awaiting more and more consumers, anxious to consume.

The coffee demon drives customers to those coffee shops where they, for that brief moment, lean back content - and relax. It is a significant moment of relaxation – to stop and read, or just watch the world walk by.

Stopping and watching is the fun part of drinking coffee. It feels sophisticated and the “right” thing to do - it feels like a haven and a community event. It is something to enjoy about our society – that we sit in small cafes and enjoy each other’s company – even if it is at a slight distance.

So coffee joins us! Is there anything it does not do?

Coffee is a bane and a blessing – where would the industrialized world be at this point without it? Would we have had the concentration to discover Nano-Land where computers will soon telepath with our thoughts? And what kind of thoughts will they then discover – zaned on the burnt bean, dedicated to crema, dedicated to the buzz.

Will coffee eventually rule the world as we once thought we ruled computers? Will our hyped thoughts transmit to the new computers that coffee is a good thing to start the morning with? And then what….

A new dawn awaits.

Alicia Power
http://www.espbusinesssolutions.com/id37.htm