More recently, another professor, up in Canada, noticed that the rats had nothing better to do than do drugs, not entirely unlike many unemployed people in poor areas, particularly rural areas. So he built a “rat park”, with lots of rats, lots of stuff to do, good food to eat. Heaven for rats, as Hari puts it.
None of them became addicted, and most never used the cocaine water at all.
So it is not hard to make the connection that addiction is a functional adaptation to a dysfunctional environment. It is a sign people are disconnected from other people, and the capacity for authentic, spontaneous play.
Now, and here is my point, take that idea, consider that food is a drug like any other–or can be–and go look at all the people at Walmart or the shopping mall.
America is, in important respects, a very, very poor nation. And we are exporting what we call our culture around the world.
Now, I want to be clear. I am emphatically a fan of the ideas underlying our Republic, and the people who proposed them. We just need to understand that violent sadists have been disrupting everything that works, to the best of their ability, for a half century or more. We can’t undo this damage, in my opinion. We have to create something new. This remains my focus.
They say “Healer, heal thyself”. This, to be more specific, is my current focus. I got drunk last night. But what is interesting is that I do my Heartmath EmWave2 every day. I did it this morning. And I have noticed a very consistent pattern that, although my heart rate is always elevated the next day, my overall coherence is much higher. Drinking soothes me. It is a functional adaption. My challenge, my logical next step, is to figure out how to build for myself a rat heaven of some sort.
Squeak, squeak.