unanswered questions and late night thoughts

[sathor]

How much of a person is tied up in their biology?

If I am given a drug which changes the amount of a chemical, or chemicals, that exist at their current levels as a result of my biology, am I a different person as a result of that?

If being given a drug such as the one described changes a person and their experience of reality (a formerly depressed individual becomes one full of levity) are they now normal or are they instead modified abnormal?

If we define normal in this context as the most common temperament expressed by a given population, and give the opposing trait (depression as opposed to happiness) the stigma of a mental disorder, must we not also attach a stigma to having any trait which falls outside of the most common in a given population? For instance, high or low intelligence? Exceptional physique? Could we not use the term exceptional to define extreme temperament? Why are there negative connotations attached to depression - is it really a case of negative and positive, or is it more like the difference between two colors, or the difference between day and night?

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Glad to have met you too, and I am indeed enjoying reading your thoughts here - Livejournal is where I come for more intellectual conversation than I mostly have with my local circle, who are intelligent but not so well educated.

There's nothing wrong with realizing that one is exceptional in some respects. Nobody can be exceptional in all respects, and usually being 'better than normal' at some things means also being 'worse than normal' at others, but self-acceptance means owning both one's strengths and weaknesses.

For sure, times iz hard; I think the majority of people in this country are feeling trapped and anxious; even those whose personal lives are going well. Loneliness is just part of the human condition, like physical pain: nobody wants it, everybody has it, some more than others.

Hey, do you read greatpoets? My bro posted a poem there today that I think you'll like, 'A Brief For The Defense'.

I'll probably be offline till Monday, so have a good weekend!

[sathor.livejournal.com]

I haven't frequented LJ communities in a long time, but that poem is quite good. Your brother is talented, and I think the message is spot on. There's a lot of art out there, but I feel like today more than ever, a lot of it lacks valuable substance. Your brother's poem doesn't seem to lack there.

Trapped, anxious...surrounded and succumbing to decadence and avarice. Warning signs of declining civilizations.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Ah, he did not write that poem - greatpoets is specifically not for Lj users to post their own poetry, but for published poems by known poets. He and I are both members of greatpoets; he's also the maintainer of war_poetry.

In these times, it's well to remember that Robinson Jeffers wrote Shine, Perishing Republic in 1925, and we're still here. For sure, decadence and avarice are very popular - as they always have been, wherever people can find an excuse to indulge them, and the past century has provided a plethora of excuses. What we have now is a global civilization, and so we have the usual threats to civilization on a global scale too. but that doesn't mean we're doomed.

It's up to us to save civilization. The antidote to feeling trapped is to find some useful action to take, and then take it, even if one doesn't believe it will do any noticeable good. The taking-of-action belongs to you, like an archer releasing an arrow; the effect of the action does not, as the archer can do nothing further once the arrow is released.