Musing on Human Nature (and human ears)
While waiting for my ear appointment today … wait a second, I’ll digress for a minute. Dr. Wilson has been treating my ears since I was two years old. He has, over the years, pulled my tonsils, adenoids, put in ear tubes (none of which I remember), fixed the hole that would’t heal from the ear tubes, and monitored my ears since that hole opened back up. I hear the phrase “could you write down a 1-2% TPM perforation” at regular sixth month intervals. There has always been hope of this healing, and right now it looks like my left ear, holy for all this time, just may be on the mend. Fantastic news for someone (me) who has always wanted to pursue things like water skiing and diving, but has always been hindered by the requisite ear protection. Maybe I’m just making excuses for myself. Regardless. While I was waiting for this appointment, I read the Newsweek cover story on anorexia from the December 5th issue. The article itself was nothing earth-shattering: a lot of personal stories and a point to a paradigm shift in the diagnosis; parents are no longer being blamed as “causing” the illness.
The article itself was not particularly intriguing. Sometimes I forget that the requirements for a Newsweek cover, while steep, are also quite specific: appeal to a lot of people, sell the magazine. Therefore, an article like this can’t be all to everyone, it can only open a window to further research, dialogue, or perspective on the topic. It certainly did this for me, but got me veering off in a direction that I tend to head in, as I have been developing my theory about people for some time now. My theory is neither all-encompassing, researched, nor particularly polished, so bear with me as I push it from my head through my hands to the screen for the first time.
In the present day, humans do not need to worry about surviving because food and shelter of extremely good quality are the de facto standard. We are very close to our “roots” in that we are still endowed with tremendous energy that used to have an outlet: survival. Conditions of life and death were present in my Minnesota area as recently as the late 1800s, described by Black Elk of the Lakota Indian tribe (I read that book for theology, not psychology, but bear with me). So … where am I going with this? I am attempting to paint a picture of a pampered humankind. So recently stripped of the worry of our basic needs, we are left with a tremendous surplus of energy to put towards … almost anything. It is what we choose to do with this restlessness that defines who we are. When this energy goes unchecked, directed into nothing, serious problems arise. Let’s loop back around to anorexia. It is a clinical disorder, it is a serious, life-threatening problem - I don’t deny this … but put an anorexic out in the brutal winters of the Lakota indians, and the person either quickly overcomes their problem or is undoubtedly suicidal. Logically, if they were suicidal, they would figure out a quicker way to end their life than starvation. This leaves normalization. A person confronted with problems threatening their very existence on earth quickly “normalizes” because “normal” becomes a very narrow term: either find the food and the shelter or die.
Guaranteeing a person’s survival opens them up to an extremely rich life … lived on the knifepoint of mental stability. When you think about workaholics, alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, bad drivers, consider that there is some driving force behind that person, some restless energy. Not the illuminating view of humans that I really wanted to share … but it’s a start.