A junky runs on junk time. When the junk is cut off, the clock runs down and stops. All he can do is hang on and wait for non-junky time to start. A sick junky has no escape from external time, no place to go. He can only wait.
Interpretation
The quote explores the concept of addiction and the struggle against the passage of time in a state of dependence.
William S. Burroughs uses this vivid metaphor to describe how addiction alters one's perception of time and reality. A 'junky' becomes entrapped in a cyclical existence defined by their dependence on drugs, where moments feel fleeting and aimless when under the influence, and painfully stagnant when sober. The quote reflects on the intense suffering and helplessness experienced by those in the throes of addiction, emphasizing that they are unable to engage fully with the world or make productive choices until they can escape their addiction.
In practice
In a discussion about addiction and recovery at a mental health seminar.
God save the Queen and a fascist regime … a flabby toothless fascism, to be sure. Never go too far in any direction, is the basic law on which Limey-Land is built. The Queen stabilizes the whole sinking shithouse and keeps a small elite of wealth and privilege on top. The English have gone soft in the outhouse. England is like some stricken beast too stupid to know it is dead. Ingloriously foundering in its own waste products, the backlash and bad karma of empire
Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn't. Most people aren't cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness ... Elegance, grace, delicacy, beauty, and a lack of self-consciousness: a creature who knows he is cute soon isn't.
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered.
Language is a virus from outer space.
One very important aspect of art is that it makes people aware of what they know and don’t know they know... Once the breakthrough is made, there is a permanent expansion of awareness. But there is always a reaction of rage, of outrage, at the first breakthrough... So the artist, then, expands awareness. And once the breakthrough is made, this becomes part of the general awareness.
When you have strong views about how to approach thinking about the law, then that view is going to lead to certain results in certain situations. And so people seem to think this predictability is based on some kind of partisan political view. But it's not.
I have not seen much dignity in the process by which we die. The quest to achieve true dignity fails when our bodies fail.
Do not stand on a high pedestal and take 5 cents in your hand and say, here, my poor man, but be grateful that the poor man is there, so by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself.It is not the reciever that is blessed, but it is the giver.Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect.
We are slaves in the hands of nature - slaves to a bit of bread, slaves to praise, slaves to blame, slaves to wife, to husband, to child, slaves to everything.
And so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in none.
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
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