What price happiness? Okay, does taking a drug to relax you and make you euphoric qualify as inducing happiness? Most people would probably answer “no” out of a rote Puritanical response. However, as I read the left-hand column on page one of today’s Wall Street Journal (”Narcotic ‘Lollipop’ Becomes Big Seller Despite FDA Curbs”), I kept thinking back to the most influential book I read in college, Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception.
Huxley argued, among other things, that society needs a simple pill that can be consumed daily to enable people to let their beingness emerge (my phrase) and their hang-ups and insecurities disappear. I’ve pondered that possibility ever since. Now, I’m not sure the drug Actiq, the “lollipop” designed by Cephalon Inc. for intense cancer pain unrelievable by other narcotics, qualifies as this everyday catalyst, but the thought–and urge to find out–are certainly there.
I’ve always felt that mankind’s highest ambition (pun intended) is to get high and stay there. Witness gym addiction, caffeine addiction, sex addiction, alcohol addiction, BSing addiction, and worst of all, power addiction.
Would Enron be possible if everyone were high? Scamming the future no doubt would no longer figure into people’s equations. Today would be too fun, too fresh, too rewarding. Someone lead me to Huxley’s pill please.
You Might Also Like:
- Giving Up on Life
- Passing of a Generation
- The Big News of the Day
- To Wal*Mart or Not to Wal*Mart
- First in BS, First in Signing Cheaters
Posted in Almanack Musings |
Leave a Comment