Prozac Anyone? /August 2, 2013
I must admit, it has been a pretty tough week.
On Monday morning I found myself in a Cafe Nero with just the Times to read. As I read each article it began to dawn on me how divorced my reality had become to that presented by the mainstream Media. Were this my only source of information it would be easy to be overjoyed at the birth of another Royal Baby, I could celebrate the return to profit of Lloyds Bank and be outraged at the savagery of the Assad regime and cheer on the great work of 'our' brave boys in Afghanistan. Satisfied that we have everything under control I could ponder whether Gareth Bale (a footballer) is really worth £100 million and snigger at the ineptitude of Australian cricketers.
Returning to my 'alternative' media sources, I could see baby George as the biggest recipient of social benefit this year, understand the true cost to each of us behind Lloyds return to 'profitability', look beyond the simplistic propaganda which justifies the 'civilised' world being involved in a perpetual state of war. Gareth Bale is probably worth £100 m in the mad world of professional football. The only coincident truth in the different world view is the poor state of Australian cricket.
The point of all this is, that this week I seemed to reach a point of exhaustion with it all. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe my view of the world has become so distorted that all those in the real world 'getting on with life', cheering the queen and refusing to take the red pill are the smart ones.
Once you lose touch with a different possibility and question your instincts it can get a little isolated and frankly depressing. If I were to lose faith in the 'shift' and wish to get back to sleep and touch base with that old reality, what should I do?
Well, the answer came from an unlikely source. The Daily Mail ran an article on-line which stated that the number of prescriptions for the various medicines on offer had been over one billion in the past year. 1,000,000,000 is a lot of prescriptions for sixty odd million people. That is 2.7 million prescriptions a day or 19 prescriptions for various drugs per person per year. 62 million pain killers, 50 million anti-depressants and 15 million sleeping tablets.
It appears one pill isn't enough to endure the existing paradigm and it brought to mind a quote i seem to be returning to quite often:
To be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society is no measure of health at all.
I don't know whether my perceptual reality bears close examination or not, but it would appear the existing one for most requires an awful lot of medication. I would rather take a daily dose of wishful thinking and endure the isolation and occasional discomfort of entertaining the possibility of a different paradigm than add to Britain's growing anti-depressant bill.
So, if like me this week, you lose touch with that sense of possibility, stand firm and stay awake. You have probably taken the red pill and looking back is no longer an option anyway, and the alternative is an awful lot of less palatable medication. As some bloke called Plato once said:
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed by the masses.
Off to take my medication. A nice ice cold one!
Bill