Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Phylisophical thinking

as i was weeding the garden, i was doing some philisophical thinking. rachel has been comming home from school singing the safety kids songs. one she's been comming home singing recently is all about natural highs, and to "reach for a natural high, high, high, high,/when you are feeling down low" all about encouraging kids to not use drugs to get high and all that. go for a run, climb a mountian, things like that, when your feeling sad, dont use drugs to make yourself feel better. the thought then came "well there are people out there who hurt themselves to make themselves feel better (cutting, breaking bones, ect.). could it, in some sense of the word, be a natural high?" if yes, when why are those types of thigns called "abuse". and if no, then why coulent it be some sort of a natural high? its not using drugs to make you feel better.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just for reference, as long as you don't abuse drugs they are a good way to get high as well. The problem with self medicating yourself when you are down low is that you will create a habit and an addiction to it. They start to abuse those drugs to the point of destruction of their body which is contradictory to the desire to get high. If you are feeling low, usually something is going wrong in your life. By adding a drug addiction to that life will only bring you lower. The same in truth goes with those that climb mountains or go for runs. If that person is doing it in excess (where it interferes with a job or a healthy family relationship or with that person's health) then that too is a form of abuse. People who go to the gym 6 days a week and tear cartlidge or run 6 days a week and get stress fractures on their legs...they too are abusing the natural high to overcome the lows and are abusing themselves.

Now to your specific question - I can't in any way possibly see how breaking a bone or cutting one's self is natural. My very basic definition of natural is "Would a bear do it willingly?" Bears reproduce, so it's natural to want to have sex. Bears eat. Therefore it is natural to eat. Bears create bonds with other bear, therefore it is natural to want to love and bond with other people.

Do bears purposely go out and hurt themselves? Do they run into trees with the attempt to break a bone? No. So it's not natural to want to hurt oneself. Summarily, then, it's not a natural high to be hurt. The desire to be hurt is a response to deeper pain that is occasionally and temporarily covered up by a superficial pain. Much like drugs or running in excess can cover of feelings of being low, but only temporarily and with not very good long term results.

Now if only bears had good psychotherapy like wealthy squirrels. (-: