"I really really wanted to go see that movie, hey let's go skatebo...play cards cause hearts is a really awesome g..I want to learn how to play piano. what's that the teacher's saying? Oh who cares? It's not like this is going to be doing me any good in ten years. What am I going to be doing in ten years anyway? I'll be 19, and god I'll be cool. Hey, did the teacher just ask me a question? maybe I should perk up to act like I'm paying attention...."
Many of us have had thoughtlines like this before in our lives. And it's situations like these paired with those of rough-housing little boys or exceptionally chatty little girls that lead to a shcool believing that today's children are little troublemakers. Whenever a so-called "problem" arises in society, it is generally closely followed by the "cure". Is it not a tad bit interesting that hardly a month after the acclaimed discovery of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), now known as Attention Deficit and Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), a cure widely known as Ritalin pops up on the scene?
This interesting advent of disease and vaccine, of disorder and treatment, as well as certain controversial theories surrounding the two, has brought three serious questions to mind. First, do we as a society feel that anything that strikes us as the least bit detrimental must be described as a disease? Secondly, what leads us to believe that there is always some man-made, lab conjured, child-tested/mother-approved cure for it? And Third, do the arrivals/discoveries of a disease spring forth the creation of a treatment, or does the creation of a treatment spawn some societal-hypochondria that requires us to procure some disease to which this cure may be linked?
As for question number one, there are far too many places I could take this answer. First, I believe firmly that anything taken as being the least bit out of the ordinary has some psychological disorder named for it, and nothing is simply classified as "human behavior" anymore. It is impossible to act as a human, as there is no true definition of how a human should act anymore. Nowadays, it's simpler just to diagnose yourself with something and stick with that mental illness. Second, to oppose what I just said, it's obvious that we don't describe every annoyance and/or detriment as a disease, as we have not yet been able to find the cure for Politicitis - the infestation of politicians.
Now on to question number two. As far as I am concerned, there has never been any true man-made cure for anything, simply a vehicle for some scientist to make a few million. The two greatest cure-alls known to man are Penicillin, a discovery made by leaving the window open overnight and allowing NATURE to create a mold, and Aspirin, which is derived from a plant. The rest are merely a growing complexity of placebos and useless chemicals. From the stand point of the Average Joe, we have to believe that man can come up with a cure for everything, because the idea that we could die by something so small as a germ or virus is intimidating. We feel that we must have the power to cure everything if we've survived thus far. Me? I think we've just been really, really lucky.
Finally, question number three. I think that it is blindingly obvious that disease no longer calls for the creation of treatment, but that the cure calls for the creation of the disease. Man has come up with so many things that it can use to cure people, that it has had to create diseases for itself to supply it's cures to. That's all that can truly be said about that.
In closing, take a step back and look at all of the pills you take. First, throw out your vitamins and eat more healthily. Second, throw away your mental illness prescriptions, because your only mental illness is the inability to realize that your flaws are simply human ones, something which everyone experiences. Third, please realize that not everything is a disorder or a disease. Some things occur the way they do for no reason more than the fact that that's how they are intended to be. A nine year old child isn't ill for getting bored or distracted during class. Pre-teen girls aren't strange for being chatterboxes. And adolescents of either sex are not strange for picking fights. Such things are normal for children. So please, I beg of you, if you are going to insist on over-prescribing medication, over-prescribe it to our adults, because children already have a terrible lot in life without much to look forward to. It's pointless to shred what bit of life they truly have away from them simply because we want to rest as more comfortable adults.
