There is so much in our consciousness at this point about medication and medicating. Arguments and politics about healthcare, mis and dis information about home remedies, traditional medicines, ancient medical practices, pharmaceuticals, trade marks, rights, profits, generics, insurance and just plain common sense which is no longer common.
Medicating what is wrong, fixing it, seeing it as negative as ‘other’ as aggression and as attack has become the norm. Anything that keeps us from being productive needs to be covered up, shored up, smoothed out, and fixed by pills and shots and best practices. Same can be said for problems in our head. If we aren’t behaving correctly, fix it. If we don’t think correctly, fix it. Depression, give it a pill. ADHD – pill. Aggressive behavior – pill and if the pills don’t work, put them under or put them in jail where we don’t care about behavior and pills.
But what are we truly medicating? What are we so afraid of? What are ‘they’ so afraid of? Pain is one of the most motivational forces that can act upon us. Pain teaches us boundaries in a heart beat, but also gets us thinking about how we can get around them. Pain gets our asses moving so that it doesn’t happen again. Pain sears our hearts like fire, destroying us or tempering us into finely honed steel. The thing they don’t tell us is that pain is not forever. Like fire, it lasts only as long as there is something to burn or air to breath. And when it’s done its work, it changes, becomes something else. We become something else. What it leaves behind may feel like destruction, but ashes are useful in all kinds of crafts, so is charcoal. They are limited only by our imaginations.