From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 06:14:33 +0800
To: blanc <blancw@accessone.com>
Subject: Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
In-Reply-To: <01BB6D3B.F25E8780@blancw.accessone.com>
Message-ID: <199607091555.LAA13724@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



blanc writes:
> > I suppose you don't understand what it might be like for someone to be
> > unable to do their work no matter how heavy the threat against them if
> > they don't, and no matter how easy it is. There are people out there
> > who can't get themselves to pay a phone bill or throw out the
> > newspapers for months on end -- they just can't get themselves to
> > dance around into the task no matter how hard they try, no matter how
> > great the threat (job loss, etc) to them is.
[...]
> There are times when people have been totally unmotivated to take care
> of themselves or the mundane matters in life because they were not
> involved in the pursuits which were of true value to them, and life
> "lost its meaning".

Blanc, you really aren't listening.

There are people out there who are desperately unhappy. They can't
concentrate at all. They love what they do for a living, if only they
could actually manage to do it four days out of five. They are not in
the least scared of cleaning their homes, except for the fact that
they are frightened of the fact that they can't manage to do it no
matter what they try. They'd like to pay the light bill -- really --
but every time they start they get distracted, or they get distracted
before they start. Sometimes they get bursts of hyperconcentration and
they can work for two days straight on some project, and they end it
and realize that the phone's been cut off because they completely
spaced dealing with it or anything else. Sometimes they feel very
pissed off because people tell them to just "apply themselves" more or
"manage their time" better or "get a more motivating job".

Such people aren't upset that life has lost its meaning. They are
often perfectly intelligent, capable of being happy in their pursuits,
and not bad individuals. They suffer, however, from an inability to
keep from twitching. They ritualistically play with common objects --
rubber bands, paperclips, etc, folding and unfolding them, winding and
unwinding them, etc. You can spot them -- they're the people who even
as adults can be placed in a nearly empty room and will find a small
object to play with. Their workspaces are littered with small fidget
toys they have purloined or created. 

These people aren't unhappy with their jobs except for the fact that
they wish they could get their work done, they sit in front of their
work for hours on end, and can't get anywhere. They don't need new
pursuits. Even with newere and "better" jobs, most people on earth have
to occassionally maintain their attention long enough to pay their
landlord or what have you.

> Putting one's priorities into perspective can do a lot towards feeling
> motivated to attend to life's minor contingencies, while elevating the
> lesser items to the top of the hierarchy can totally dissipitate one's
> energies and interest.

Look, quit trying to tell people who have ADD that they are in the
wrong jobs, that they are unmotivated, that they are "lazy", or
whatever. Calling them "nuts" is actually far better. It at least
acknowledges that there is something wrong that isn't readily fixed by
the nostrums of people who have no idea whatsoever what they are going
through.

Perhaps, of course, we can just get all the suicidal people on earth
to quit wanting to kill themselves by intoning to them "don't be sad"
over and over again. I doubt it, though.

> Maybe Ritalin could make them forgot their true interest which was lying
> dormant, pushed away by who-knows-what kind of arguments against it, and
> help them to start paying attention again to those mundane, irrelevant
> aspects of existence.

Or maybe, when they take it, the noise in their heads stops, the world
focuses and clears up, and suddenly it doesn't seem like its so hard
to finish that two paragraph status summary after all. Maybe they take
it and suddenly they can function long enough to finish their resume
and get another job. Maybe you should quit telling other people how to
get through life when you haven't lived inside their heads.

> You're right, Perry, that no one should be making that decision for
> others.  I do think, though, that achieving self-command by a conscious
> knowledge of what is right for one's nature is actually the most
> beneficial (and less controversial).

Its always better to not need to use chemicals to help yourself
out. However, we acknowledge in our society that when someone has an
infected leg we decide that they aren't being "bad" by taking drugs to
stop the infection.

Perry