Comfortably Numb

This week at the lunch table, I told my friends that I might have ADD. No surprise there, I have memory issues, am distracted by the most negligable of details, stare into space often, and fiddle with my hands constantly. But Anna snapped to attention and said with a tinge of alarm, "Don't get medicine." She's been reading a book called Comfortably Numb, about how wildly over-medicated America is. Of course, you don't have to read a book on it to know that's probably true; just turn on the tv or open a magazine, and someone'll be there, trying to sell you a disease... I mean, a drug. Still, Anna didn't need to worry about me. The last time I took asprin, I had a headache so bad I tossed my cookies. And I latched onto the line on the official ADD website that said the disorder can be treated successfully without medicine. While other Americans are scrambling for drugs, there are plenty of people like me running just as fast in the other direction.
But I'm not sure that's a good thing, either. My dad doesn't take his depression medicine regularly because he says it doesn't work, and any mention of new or combination drugs turns him green. While there are people who are overmedicated for disorders they may not even have, how many people are there like my dad, who insist that drugs won't help them and continue to suffer needlessly? It's hard to deny that drug companies often go too far in marketing their products and harming healthy people in the process, but how many others are left unhelped?
Somewhere in all this mess is a balance. Even when people do take drugs, that doesn't cure them. ADD treatment involves a heavy dose of organizational skills, and depression doesn't go away when you pop a pill. Diet pills don't work if you continue to eat and sit around like you used to, and heartburn is going to hang around if you keep pouring on the hot sauce. But balance isn't comfortable, it's a strain. Being numb is easier. Somehow we need to keep people on their toes when it comes to medicine, before this goes to far and the scales are tipped for good.

And now for something completely different.

Have you ever heard someone say that our constitution provides freedom of religion, not freedom from religion? The first time I heard this, I was dumbfounded. It seems obvious that this shows a complete disregard for what freedom actually means, but I couldn't articulate why. I've thought about it for a while now, and here's what I came up with. It involves extending that lack of "from" to all other parts of the bill of rights. For example, freedom of speech. Going with the from/of idea, people do not have the freedom to hold their peace. So a boy is walking home from school, and some other boys start shouting, "Hey, are you a bright? Are you a faggot?" The boy ignores them, thinking they'll go away. They jump him, and he is seriously injured. His parents sue for damages and lose because there is no constitutional protection for those who do not speak. And then there's freedom of the press. Does this mean that not subscribing to a newspaper is unconstitutional? And which press qualifies as constituitional press? Which stories are constitutionally news? Coming back to religion, what does the freedom of religion cover? Deists are theists, spiritual people, but they are not religious. Is this unconstitutional?
My first encounter with this picky way of wording things was in an on-line video that I stumbled upon. Hopefully I can find it again. Meanwhile, I've discovered the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which might be interesting to those of you whom I haven't offended with this post.