This article departs from the relationship between thinking and non-thinking, and particularly from Hannah Arendt's metaphor of “thinking without a banister” to discuss the significance of encounters with the other, and being open to the affect of these encounters. If the other slides down from the universe of the self, the self becomes a black hole that devours everything with no differentiation, and becomes addicted to not only the ideologies but also the substances that this world offers. The article explores this question with reference to Hannah Arendt's thoughts and some current examples. In this framework, what is described as addiction to non-thinking could provide some light for thinking on addiction in general.