About PersephoneK

PersephoneK writes about anything and everything that moves her, but usually she can be found skeptically discussing Liberty, Atheism/Agnosticism/Christian Apostasy, Workplace/Government reform, poker, history, politics, economics, science, sports, movies, music, television, and pop culture. Pretty much anything that crosses her mind is free game. She loves heated debate, has thoughts, and want to share them with you.

Author Archive | PersephoneK

I Am We the People, And So Are You

image of dumpster fireMany years ago, I read Ayn Rand’s [easyazon_link identifier=”B0082RHM4A” locale=”US” nw=”y” nf=”y” tag=”persephonek20-20″]“Anthem”[/easyazon_link] and in hindsight, it completely changed the path of my thinking.

Let me pause for a moment to take inventory on who is still reading. I mentioned Ayn Rand in my first sentence, so I assume a handful of readers decided to skip the bailing and just jump ship. If you’re still with me, I assume it means you either disagree with Rand but have an open mind, or are not offended by the mere mention of Rand’s name. I actually hope it’s a little bit of both. For those of you I lost, although you’ll never read this, I hope there comes a time when ideas contrary to your biases cause you to dive in more deeply to understand someone else’s perspective. Until then, best of luck in your utopia bubble.

Back to you, dear reader, who has stayed the course. Don’t worry, this is not going to be all about Ayn Rand. For the record, I have only read one of Rand’s books, and do not consider myself a “Randian” although I do find many of her ideas kickass, and others not so much. I felt it was important to begin by invoking her for three reasons:

  1. Reducing the reader pool to people with open minds,
  2. Reading “Anthem” changed my mind, and
  3. Rand once said that the “smallest minority is the individual.”

The last two items are completely intertwined for me, and have shaped my current political philosophy. More on that later.

Last week (I’d originally drafted this on 5/5/16 but had some blog tech issues and couldn’t post) , I read an article by Elizabeth Nolan Brown that summarized Nebraska Republican Senator Bob Sasse’s epic rant on the completely awful choices for President the American people will be faced with next November (Sasse says “there are dumpster fires in my town more popular” than Clinton or Trump). But something else he said stood out to me even more than that colorful one-liner:

“The main thing that unites most Democrats is being anti-Republican; the main thing that unites most Republicans is being anti-Democrat. No one knows what either party is for—but almost everyone knows neither party has any solutions for our problems.”

For me, sadly this is a broadly true assessment, and it’s the main reason I loathe all party politics. Humans are innately tribal. We all have tendencies to form bonds with people similar to us, join together for comfort, friendship, and security, and to defend each other when the other side tries to knock us down, even if the other side is justified. These bonds were a significant factor in the survival and evolution of our species. Tribalism is not necessarily always a problem. It’s the same mechanism that galvanizes us to join together to fight for and against causes that affect us. But in the modern world, in particular in the modern political world, this tendency manifests itself too often in defending our political tribes above everything else, even to the point of ignoring clear evidence to the contrary. I see far more knee-jerk defense of the tribe, or the tribe’s dogma, than I hear discussion of political philosophy, and the reasons for our viewpoints. Do we even know what our viewpoints are, or are we simply parroting the party line or the talking head of choice? The reason I hate political parties of all stripes, but especially the Democrats and Republicans, is that aside from having far too much power concentrated with two very similar authoritarian brands, they reduce us to being no more advanced than our tribal-bonded ancestors, relying on instinct to join together to protect the camp from perceived threats, rather than elevating the other aspects of our nature, namely our capacity for reason, logic, and nuanced thinking to creatively solve problems.

In short, at their core, all political parties force us to think as collectivists, and there is very little room for the individual, of which I am among the strongest champions.

This brings me inevitably back to Ayn Rand. Sorry if you thought I’d forgotten her.

If you have not read “Anthem” I would strongly recommend you do. There’s evidence “Anthem” inspired George Orwell’s dystopian masterpieces. Anthem is a quick, short read. It’s not a literary masterpiece. Rand’s native language was not English, and that comes through in her prose. But it does reflect her perspective as having been raised in the Soviet Union in a middle class Jewish household, and as someone who once lived under communist, authoritarian rule. Her father was a pharmacist whose business had been taken over by the state, and these experiences are reflected in “Anthem.” The story takes place in a fictional, dystopian world where there is no such thing as the individual. Even the word “I” is not allowed. All people refer to themselves as “we” and they have names that sound more like they came off an assembly line (Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000). They have virtually no choices in their lives. They are assigned jobs they cannot escape, and are told what is appropriate to think. Every aspect of their lives is centrally planned. They have no free will, no ability to change the course of their lives, and are beholden to the will of the state for everything.

Obviously, it’s an extreme example of even what Rand lived through in the Soviet Union, but as with all science fiction, it is meant to bring into focus ideas about our own lives we may take for granted. It did this for me as a tenth grader when it made me question what does it mean to be an individual? Living in society means living with other people, and therefore leads to conflict over how best to live with others. “Anthem” asked the question does living in society mean we must sacrifice being an individual for the perceived good of the people?

Based on my anecdotal observations, the answer to that question by many people today would be a very quick “yes.”

Modern western society emphasizes the “collective good” above the individual. That in order to achieve the collective good, ideas need to be generated by consensus. That equality of outcome is the highest standard for the collective good. That sometimes, or often, it is required and good to suppress an individual’s needs or wishes to achieve the best result for all of society.

I actually agree that the goal of achieving the collective good is noble. But where I diverge from (what seems like) most people (on the right and the left) is in thinking that the collective itself is like a single organism. In reality, there is no one thing that is “society.” Society can only ever be two or more individuals living together with some mutually agreed ways of interacting. So, Ayn Rand was correct when she said that the “smallest minority is the individual.” The only way, in my view, to maximize the collective good, is to maximize the autonomy of the individual without sacrificing the equal autonomy of another individual. Once equality of outcome becomes the most important goal, individual autonomy must naturally be reduced. We can’t have it both ways. But we can have equal protection to live as individuals with preordained, natural rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

No single person agrees with everything the group(s) they belong to supposedly believes. Party politics, religion, and so many other factions and types of GroupThink make it difficult to be an individual, especially when we’ve eroded the framework that promotes individualism, and in many ways made that very term a pejorative.

While this election cycle has been depressing for so many reasons, it has in some ways excited me. The appalling choices the Democrats and Republicans have given us encouraged some people –even some entrenched deeply in the parties themselves like Sasse — to break away from their collective safety net, and question what they really believe. It has encouraged them to think about why they support a candidate instead of following along the party line like lemmings. Perhaps when the dust settles, people will have reverted back to the status quo. Many of the #NeverTrumpers are already backpedaling, and the majority of people tend to vote based on who is the lesser evil of the party they align with, rather on the merits of the person.

The lesser evil is still evil.

As an individual, you must be able to live with the consequences of your choices, so I will not tell anyone who to vote for or against. I won’t even berate you if you vote for Hillary or The Donald.  That is for you to decide.  All I ask is that you take some time before November and think about what you as an individual believe in. What do you stand for? Does it matter more to you that your tribe wins, or does it matter that you supported a person who adheres to the framework within which you want to live your life? What is that framework?

Another wise piece of science fiction once posed two seemingly opposing viewpoints I feel are relevant. In Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (TWOK), Spock sacrifices himself, and while succumbing to radiation he recalls an earlier discussion he had with Kirk by saying “Don’t grieve, Admiral. It [his choice] is logical. The needs of the many outweigh…” Kirk finishes for him, “The needs of the few.” Spock adds, “Or the one.” This is a powerful endorsement that the group matters more than the individual, even if it means death.

In the next film, Star Trek: The Search for Spock (TSFS), after the crew of the Enterprise risks itself to get Spock back (in a complicated rejoining of his body and soul), Spock asks Kirk why to which Kirk responds, “Because the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.” This directly contradicts the sentiment in TWOK, and suggests that there are times one person is more important than the group.

It seems on the surface, TWOK endorses a collective way of thinking, whereas TSFS highlights an individualist way of thinking. But, if I may, I would rewrite these two lines of thought, and join them together in much the same way Spock’s mind and body were rejoined as two entities that can’t survive without the other, and say it this way:

“The needs of the individual, properly protected and left to flourish, lead to the good of the one, the few, and the many.”

That sentence, I believe, summarizes my current framework for successful human society. That is the lens through which I see all political decisions and ideas. That first there is no “we” without an individual person, without an “I”. Each person is constructed from a myriad of properties forming who they are, what they care about, what they think and want, and what they are capable and incapable of achieving. No single group, party, faction, or tribe can completely encapsulate each one of us. And we shouldn’t want, or need one to completely speak for us, either.

When you (and I) embrace our unique identities as individuals, and see each other as individuals first, society at large (whatever that really is) will thrive. Until that time, we are forced to endure the will of the tribes.

Peace,

PersephoneK

P.S. If you want to learn more about Ayn Rand and her philosphy (and common misconceptions about her), I recommend this 3-part interview with Yaron Brook (President, Ayn Rand Institute) on The Rubin Report:

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My Thought Evolution on Freedom: Remembering 9/11

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-liberty-image26285626Two obvious points: 1) Its been a really long time since I’ve blogged!  2) Obviously, its the 14th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11/2001.

I’ll skip the boring and lame reasons for #1 and focus on #2 today.  Every year on 9/11 I feel like I should have something profound to say. I never really do, and today its especially true, but I do have something to say.  I started this post on my Facebook page, thinking it was just going to be a sentence or two, and it quickly blossomed into a full post, so it sparked my enthusiasm to fire up the old blog again.  This should be a short one, though.

9/11 changed the course of my life. That is not hyperbole. If it had not happened, I’d be leading a different life in many ways. Not a better or worse life, just a different one. And I’d be a different person with very different viewpoints on many topics, if I had a viewpoint on those topics at all. 9/11 was the butterfly flapping its wings across the world creating the storm of my life.

I’ve spoken before about how 9/11 changed my views of religion (specifically here and here), but I think what stands out most to me today, is how 9/11 changed my view of what it means to be free. 9/11 was also my birth, or maybe the beginning of my adolescence, as a libertarian (although I had no idea what that term meant at the time).  9/11 itself evoked extreme feelings of patriotism for me, as it did for many Americans.  It sparked me to join the fight by going to work for an agency involved in the “Global War on Terror”.  That experience led me to learn more than I ever had before about economics and Classical Liberal philosophy.  Perhaps a future post will dive more into why that happened.  In turn, what I learned in those areas has altered my view of 9/11 from what it was the day it happened and the first few years afterwards.  I no longer think of today as a day of unbridled patriotism.  Instead I think of it as a reminder of how far the country has come from the ideals it was founded upon.  I still believe that the “American Experiment” was one of the greatest endeavors humans have ever attempted. We always have been and always will be a work in progress. I’m worried that we have given up on the effort to live up to our ideals, however, and are heading down a path of becoming the thing we fought against.

I feel truly lucky to have been born in America.  I’m one of the lucky few of the billions who have lived in my time and before.  9/11 taught me that where a person was born shapes a lot of who they become, and I don’t take that for granted.  But I also don’t accept blind patriotism anymore.  I believe in the ideals of individual liberty, and I fear that 9/11 pushed us as a nation further away from living up to those ideals.

That terrible day should never have happened. The lives lost should have been able to continue their days as if nothing had happened, but instead they were stopped in time too early. Not a single person deserved what happened to them that day, except for the 19 participants in the plot. So, I remember those lives today with honor, even though I never met one of them.  And I will continue to honor them by remembering that they were individuals with hopes and dreams, wanting to live their own lives in peace.  That those men who took their lives thought more of the next life than this one, and took away the choices of 2,958 (I do not count the hijackers in this total) in this life is haunting.  9/11 taught me that this life is the only one we know we have, and that my right to interfere in the lives of others going about their own business is (or should be) limited.

Peace,

PersephoneK

world-trade-center-lights

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Fighting Depression, Building Friends Up, Tearing Stigma Down

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-skull-dream-image23282383“It’s the same voice thought that … you’re standing at a precipice and you look down, there’s a voice and it’s a little quiet voice that goes, ‘Jump.’ The same voice that goes, ‘Just one.’ … And the idea of just one for someone who has no tolerance for it, that’s not the possibility.” Robin Williams, 2006 Interview with Diane Sawyer, ABC News.

I’m not a psychiatrist, or any type of mental health professional whatsoever. Just a regular, overthinking human trying to understand her place in the world while occasionally battling inner demons and alternately partying with inner angels. But like half the world, I’m caught up in the loss of Robin Williams to apparent suicide. It affected me in ways that surprised me. I wrote much of this post last December after a high school classmate of mine died suddenly. I never posted it. Mr. Williams’ death made me revisit it, add to it, revise it, and finish it.

There’s at least one thing I think needs to happen before we have a shot in hell at helping people overcome or cope with depression in a non-destructive way: recognize that depression and “mental illness” of varying kinds are fairly normal and common. All over social media people are imploring each other to “help those with mental illness.” I completely agree with the sentiment to help. What I disagree with is the laymen among us calling depression (and its cousins) mental illness.

Like I said, I’m no shrink. I’m not even going to argue about whether or not depression (clinical or otherwise), bi-polar disorder, anxiety disorder (pick your poison) are mental illnesses. That is for the scientists and mental health professionals to debate and decide. I’ll concede they are in the strictest sense of the word “illnesses.” But the rest of us average Janes and Joes need to stop calling them, or thinking of them, especially depression, as mental illness, or we have no hope in helping anyone afflicted. In no way do I mean to discourage anyone who is depressed from seeking professional help. I think all the tools in the toolkit should be on the table as an option, and each person must find their own path. But the reality is there can be very serious consequences for those who admit they’re struggling with something all too common. Stigma. A record of “mental illness” slapped on official documents. Loss of job. Never getting that job. Pity. Behind the back whispers. Humiliation. Loss of some rights. Even a trip to the mental hospital, or involuntary incarceration. For people to feel more willing to seek professional help, it starts with re-framing the entire thing. And it starts with us being there for each other. Really, truly being there for each other.

Suicide is not just an angsty teenager problem. According to the CDC, in 2010 (the most recent comprehensive data) there were 38,364 suicides in the United States. That’s an average of 105 per day. It’s the leading cause of death among those ages 15-24, second for those 25-34, and fourth for those 35-54. And people who are 45-64 years of age – Mr. Williams’ age group – tend to be the most depressed of all cohorts. One in ten adults report current depression. That’s ten percent. If you expand the range to adults with any type of mental illness, it jumps up to more than 18 percent (close to one in five). By comparison the total number of homicides in the same year was 14,772, less than half the number of suicides. That’s startling really. When such a large number of people are afflicted (right now, that doesn’t cover past affliction), I feel it does it a disservice to call the affliction an illness in every day conversation. Leave that to the medical professionals, but for us regular people, let’s just call it life. “Mental Illness”, especially depression, seems to be, for whatever evolutionary reasons, a part of the human experience. Perhaps a wide spectrum of experience, but a common experience nonetheless. We all have moments of mental torment, even if they don’t arise to the level of “illness.” Yet there is still such a stigma. Why is that? It’s easy to understand why some choose not to seek professional help, but why do we ignore the cries for help from those we love, and fail to reach out to willing friends when we’re the ones in need?
I’ve often wondered what it is that pushes a person to that final moment. I’m sure it’s different for everyone. I once watched interviews of survivors who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. They said the second after they jumped, already in freefall, they regretted it. I believe nearly all human minds are capable of being pushed too far, and of coming back from it. All of us. Not just the “mentally ill.” The tricky part is making it through the gauntlet of despair (each time we travel it) to learn this, and to remember it – and believe it — the next time we’re feeling at our lowest. After all, who among us has not been blue one time or another? I understand that clinical depression is different from sadness, but it’s a close relative. Robin Williams once said this in an interview when asked if he’d been diagnosed with Clinical Depression: “No clinical depression, no. No. I get bummed, like I think a lot of us do at certain times. You look at the world and go, ‘Whoa.’ Other moments you look and go, ‘Oh, things are okay.'”

I’ve often heard people make comments like “I can never understand why someone would” commit suicide, or “it always gets better,” or “it’s not worth it,” or “pain is temporary, death is forever.” Survivors are often angry with the deceased for being selfish. I can’t blame them. We all grieve in our own way, and almost no response to grief is really wrong. And suicide is a selfish act. But we have all had moments of selfishness.

I can only say, if you can’t understand that level of despair, I’m happy for you in a way. It means you’ve either never been in a truly deep and dark depression and/or you have a natural born mental toughness that many people don’t have. I used to think I had that kind of toughness. I was wrong. Almost four years ago, I was pushed to my near breaking point. I won’t go into the details in this post. I’m not sure I ever will frankly, as that may lead to another discussion of stigma I’m not ready to address publicly. For me, it wasn’t a sudden drop. It was gradual, came at me from many angles, and took many years of fighting through an intolerable (to me) situation followed by a severe trauma to my sense of self-worth. I believe my descent was probably obvious to most people who knew me.

At the time, I read a book called For Richer, For Poorer, by Victoria Coren, a writer and professional poker player. She talked about a time in her life when she was at her lowest, and she framed so perfectly what I was also feeling at the time. To paraphrase what she wrote, “it wasn’t that I wanted to die, but I didn’t want to keep feeling the pain.” When you’re at your lowest, it really is like a persistent physical pain. It’s all you can think about. You can’t think about what it will feel like when it’s better. You can’t remember what better feels like. All you have is the intense pain in the moment. That is what depression is. Combine depression with a momentary lack of impulse control, and disaster strikes. It only takes one microsecond of weakness to enter oblivion.
Those of you who claim not to understand suicide or even deep depression, can you honestly say you’ve never cheated on a diet, or missed a workout, or lashed out in anger? Have you always maintained 100% perfect discipline with everything you wanted to achieve? If you can say yes to that question, you may not be depressed, but you definitely have other mental issues. As Han Solo said, “I’m out of it for a little while, everybody gets delusions of grandeur.”

We all have moments of weakness. We all experience pain. Some of us just have more moments than others, and they manifest themselves differently in each person. Some people can recover more quickly. Some of us – the luckiest or heartiest among us — may never experience that trigger that begins our downward spiral beyond feeling a bit blue. I never reached that point of actually wanting to kill myself, but I stepped closer to it than I ever had before, and that was bad enough. I think of a quote I read once by Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad’s Walter White, where he talked about understanding his character’s evil and capacity to do bad things. The GQ reporter asked him if he believed in evil, and Cranston responded:

“Yeah. I think it’s right next to good, inside every person… I had one girlfriend I wanted to kill… And I envisioned myself killing her. It was so clear. My apartment had a brick wall on one side, and I envisioned opening the door, grabbing her by the hair, dragging her inside, and shoving her head into that brick wall until brain matter was dripping down the sides of it. Then I shuddered and realized how clearly I saw that happening. And I called the police because I was so afraid. I was temporarily insane—capable of doing tremendous damage to her and to myself. “

While I don’t believe in supernatural evil, I do believe that we are all capable of dark things as well as beautiful things. Depression and suicide are part of that darkness. Sometimes they win us over. It only takes a second.

What can we do about it? Ultimately, that’s why I wanted to write this. I don’t proclaim to have the answers. I don’t think every, or maybe even most, suicides are preventable. I don’t think the living should blame themselves for the actions of our loved ones in their weakest, or most selfish moments. Our psyches are fragile creatures, easily frightened. But I think back to my darkest hours… and while there were friends occasionally asking how I was doing, at the time I felt abandoned.

I struggled writing that last sentence. In no way do I mean to condemn my friends, or tell them I think they were terrible, or make them feel bad in anyway. I’m sincerely sorry if any of them take this that way. It’s entirely possible – likely even — that my memory is clouded with the selfishness that is inherent with so much mental pain. When you’re depressed, all you can think about is yourself. It’s not that you want to think about yourself, it’s just really, really hard not to. Again… mental pain is not that different from physical pain. Try breaking a bone and not thinking about it. But I think we all (and I include myself here wholeheartedly) talk a big game in our culture about helping those with “mental illness,” or ending bullying, or preventing this or that tragedy, yet we often continue on with the same behaviors that make all of those things inevitable to continue. We talk about being there for each other, but how often are we really there?

Have you ever seen one of those “the most annoying things your friends do on Facebook” types of lists? There’s almost always something in the vein of “that friend who fishes for sympathy” category. I know I’ve fished. I know I’ve been annoyed by people who I see fishing. But why are we (raising my own hand here) so cold to people who are clearly crying out for attention? Is it because in our minds they are just narcissistic whiners who are otherwise perfectly fine? We think they should just “get over it” and “up their attitude?” Or do we just not care about them? I know with me, my annoyance increases the less close I am to the person. It makes me sad that a tool that could truly save people’s lives is still often just a vehicle for high school type gossip, and pushing people further down. All life is like high school I guess. That’s a shame.

Four years later, after a lot of biking-by-the-lake therapy, kitty cuddle therapy, and improvements in my overall life situation have made me begin to forget what that pain was like. I think when we’re in a happy place we judge those who aren’t more harshly, even when we’ve experienced near similar pain in our past. We get on with our lives, and tell ourselves that person will be ok, if we even notice their pain to begin with. It’s part of the human coping mechanism. Again, I’m just as guilty of this as anyone. But, I keep trying not to forget what I felt like during my rock bottom moments. I never want to feel that way, for that persistent a time, again. I am working on reaching out to people more when I need them. I have a long way to go. I recently lost my cat after a long six months of fighting for his life, and it devastated me. He really had been a bedrock that supported me through that dark time. He didn’t pass judgment, just snuggles. It’s difficult to pull a human friend into your inner demonic battles. Fear of judgment lies in the shadows. No one wants to be the cause of deep eye rolling in others (you’re this sad about a cat???). But we have to try.

On the flip side, I understand that it is difficult to be a friend and reach out to someone we see in pain. As an introvert who fears conflict and who does better with the written word than in person, reaching out directly to give help is more difficult for me than almost anything. Although Facebook and other social media can be loathsome vehicles for perpetuating pain, I believe they can also be amazing saviors. I have found friendships online that never would have existed. For myself, I have tried to recognize when my friends are fishing. At worst, not hold any ill will towards them, and at best ask them what is wrong, or give them a virtual hug. We all need a pat on the back – or massive bear hug — from time to time. Sometimes we need it often. Some of us need it more often than others. Some of us just haven’t hit that wall yet.

Thinking back to my own abyss, I wonder what might have helped me climb out sooner. It’s impossible to know for sure if anything would have. For me, I think my darkest moment of prolonged depression was tied very closely to a specific situation, and once that situation no longer existed, healing began. Even so, I can’t completely ignore some inherent traits within my biology that might make me more prone to relapse than others. But I think for me, the occasional thoughtful words “Do you need anything?” “I’m thinking of you?” “How can I help?” “Do you want to talk?” from friends have always gone a long way. Just knowing that someone out there had literally been thinking of me was sometimes all I needed to lift my spirits. Even if I didn’t take them up on their offer. Everyone is different. When someone would tell me “it’s going to get better” that honestly made it worse. I wondered what was wrong with me that I couldn’t feel that? I logically believed what they said, but as Coren said, I just wanted the pain to end now. You can’t see the future when you’re in that kind of pain. You live in the moment. Sometimes acknowledging how much things suck is what you need. Sometimes you just need a friend to listen to your bitching without judgment. Everyone is different, and that makes it hard for friends and family to navigate.

It is difficult being a happy (at the moment) friend listening to a depressed friend drone on in selfish reverie. I’ve been on that side as well. We all have been on both sides. For me, healing took time (and frankly, it’s still happening, perhaps I’ll never truly heal, I’ll just scar over). For others, the struggle might just be a continual part of who they are. Needing constant maintenance. We’re all fragile in our own ways.

Ultimately, when someone takes their own life, they are responsible. They leave a swath of pain from that hasty, selfish moment in time that probably will never leave those who loved them. We can’t blame ourselves for what might have been, or what we didn’t do, even though we will. All I hope is that we forgive them, and not ignore each other, those left behind. We are all capable of losing track of what matters most in life. Those of us who took the final steps to end this short life far too soon, and those of us who remain… we’re all capable of darkness and light.

Robin Williams’ pain is gone. So is his capacity for joy and his genius to make us laugh. I will try to remember the lesson of his choice. We’re all flawed and beautiful creatures. We all need help from time to time. We all fail to recognize when to ask for it, and when and how to give it. I promise to work on improving those failings in myself. I promise to remember that we’re all merely human. I promise to try very hard to be a better friend. That’s all I can do. I hope it’s a start.

Peace,
PersephoneK

 

A freed Genie says goodbye to Al.

A freed Genie says goodbye to Al.

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Of Bonfires and Water Vapor – Why Banning eCigarettes Sucks

Photo Credit: dreamstime

Photo Credit: dreamstime

I do not smoke. I have never smoked. No one close to me has ever died as a result of smoking. My mother smoked for most of my childhood, but she quit around the time I started college, and has been smoke free for nearly 20 years (congrats mom!). She quit with a friend. He had been ordered by the doctor to quit, and was not so lucky. He died in 2007 after suffering from cancer for years. He was a lifelong smoker. I’m so thankful he dragged my mom to those meetings.

I tell you all of that because I want to make it clear, I really don’t have a strong bias driven by personal experience when it comes to smoking and cancer, but I have seen what they can do, and have thought about the “what-ifs” when it comes to my mom. In the last year or so I have become obsessed with stories about attempts (and successes) to ban e-Cigarettes. Recently I read a fantastic article originally posted in Forbes (which I read at reason.com) by Jacob Sullum called Save E-Cigarettes From the Children. It’s pretty short, so I recommend checking it out. It’s one of many such articles I’ve read in recent months (due to my obsession), but for some reason it prompted me to finally write about the subject after months on hiatus from the blog. It occurred to me there are probably two major reasons for my eCigs obsession despite the lack of a real reason for the emotional attachment to the subject matter.

Banning or significantly restricting e-Cigarettes

  1. Literally might kill people, and
  2. Epitomizes one reason why rushing to enact laws is scary – the reasoning is often based on flawed interpretations of (or no) science and/or evidence, or bald faced lies.

Sullum’s article nicely and succinctly highlights the evidence (taken from the same report several Senators are using to persuade the FDA to regulate e-Cigs) showing the strong correlation between increased use of e-Cigarettes and decreased use of tobacco-based (traditional) cigarettes as well as the lack of evidence for e-Cigs being a “gateway” drug to using tobacco. And most (almost statistically all) e-Cigarette smokers were traditional cigarette smokers first.

Here’s what we do know. Cigarette smoking definitively increases the risk of causing cancer. If you want to know some truly terrifying stats and what it does to your body, there is a deluge of evidence on the web. I’d start with the CDC which tells us that one in five deaths per year is caused from smoking related illnesses.

ONE IN FIVE…

That is a staggering statistic. That is more than the total deaths per year caused by HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, car crashes, and guns COMBINED.

It is not the nicotine in cigarettes that is primarily harmful. Addictive, yes. The harm is in the carcinogens. You may not want to know this either… campfires produce up to 30 times as many carcinogens as cigarette smoke. Campfires are deadly. I’m not joking. More than 4 million people worldwide die because they heat their homes and cook with solid fuels (usually wood, but also dung and coal). Essentially, 4 million people worldwide die from campfires. Why aren’t we banning them as well? The reason I suspect is that in the West, where we can cook food and heat our homes without polluting the air, our sense of reference is out of whack.  We often don’t realize how amazing our lives are in the West.

And perception is a bad tool for legislation. E-Cigarettes look like “real” cigarettes and campfires are nice for cooking smores therefore e-Cigs are bad and campfires are lovely. In other words, there is no logical reason for banning one and allowing another, and any reasons given are completely anti-scientific, or ignorant. If politicians and their supporters really want to save people’s lives, they should first ban all campfires, then cigarettes, and then cars, cleaning solutions, choking hazards, rat poison, all the things on this list of ridiculous things that have killed people, and water*. These are all things that are dangerous in certain quantities or situations (to name a tiny few). Yes, I said water.  Drinking too much water can kill you. It’s called hyponatremia.

However, only one item on the list of things I mentioned kills about 400,000 Americans each year. You guessed it (I hope)… its cigarette smoking. If e-Cigarettes remotely have a chance in taking a chunk out of that total, and the only reason for banning them is that they may appeal to kids (who often smoke themselves before trying e-Cigs), or they “look like smoking,” then any attempt to ban or restrict them is morally decrepit and willfully ignorant in my opinion. Absent any strong evidence that they present a danger (to kids or adults) that puts them anywhere near balancing out the lives they could save by helping to end smoking, they need to be allowed, and allowed anywhere (although I would support a private business owner’s right to restrict them even though I’d think that business owner is dumb).

Finally, something has come along that can literally save thousands if not tens to hundreds of thousands of people’s lives. That is not hyperbole. If politicians and their supporters actually cared about saving lives above scoring popularity points or appearing like they’re “doing something for the kids”, the world would be a better place. I may be but one tiny insignificant vote, but any politician at any level for any party who supports any measure to limit or ban these life saving devices will not have my vote, nor my respect (not that they’d probably care about the latter).

As a person pro-not-killing people, and who is anti-bad-reasoning-used-to-restrict-liberty-or-pretty-much-make-any-decision, I suspect this subject will continue to be high on my list of stuff to watch for years to come.  Its a shame I have to bother.

Cheers,

PersephoneK

*No, I do not really want to ban these things… obviously that would pretty much violate my Classical Liberal values.  And it would be absurd.  But I’m sure some people want to ban many of them.

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Support for an Amazing Kitty

Kitty under a blanket... does it get cuter?

Kitty under a blanket… does it get cuter?

Just a quick update on my previous post about my cat, Oni and his recent near death experience/medical ordeal.  A friend of mine created this GoFundMe page for anyone interested in helping support Oni’s recovery.  While he’s doing so much better, he also has several challenges ahead of him.  I’m so humbled to have such amazing friends.

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Love and Grief, Not Just for People

Three weeks ago, one of the most important creatures in my life nearly died.  He was hours, probably less, away from closing his eyes forever.  I brought him to the ER thinking he had severe back pain, and possibly had a blocked intestine.  Instead, they told me he was in shock, severely dehydrated, low potassium, and was being poisoned by diabetes induced ketones in his blood… I didn’t know he had diabetes until that moment.  It was an unexpected realization that I might lose him that day.  I felt like I’d been punched in the face.  And I felt terrible guilt because I’d missed (in hindsight) some pretty blatant signs he was in much worse trouble than I’d thought, assuming it was his back that had been bothering him.  He managed to make it through that first night, and fought his way out of immediate danger in the following days.  But while recovering from the near death experience, he was diagnosed with an adrenal tumor, that probably had exacerbated his decline, and would prevent him from coming home if not extracted.  And to add insult to injury, he had bladder stones.  After nearly two weeks in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), two surgeries (one to remove the tumor and bladder stones, and one to repair his ruptured bladder two days later) and now after one week at home as we adjust to life on twice per day insulin, my cat appears to be on the road to recovery.  I’m not so sure I am yet.

That’s right… I’m writing about my cat.  His name is Oni (short for Onnicus, appropriately the Finnish word for ‘lucky’), and he means the world to me.

Over the past few weeks as this has gone on, I’ve experienced generally two responses from people who learn about the ordeal.  There are those who get the devotion I have for a non-human companion, and why I did everything I could to save his life regardless of the expense, and there are those who don’t.  With this blog, I wanted to share my story so that perhaps a few of the latter group to gain some understanding that those of us in the first group already have.

Most people understand love in its various forms.  Unless you’re a sociopath, you probably have loved some other person, so you understand the basic emotion.  But sometimes when that love is applied to a non-human, we have trouble understanding what we may not have experienced.  I’m not trying to equate animals with people.  I’m not saying we’re the same.  But we have far more in common with each other, than we like to admit sometimes.  If you’ve ever loved another person, you should be able to understand my love for my cat.  If you’ve ever loved a good friend… you absolutely understand my love for Oni.  He can’t carry on a conversation with me like my other friends can, but where he lacks in communication, he makes up for in loyalty, affection, and love.  He’s comforted me during some very dark times.  He’s made me smile, laugh, cry out of happiness, and lifted my spirits when I’ve been blue.  When I’ve felt utterly alone in the world, he has been there to remind me I am not.  With a loud purr, a gratuitous cuddle, or a meow to greet me at the door when I come home from work, he helped me believe I am needed.  He has been a friend as much as any human I’ve known.  And I have some amazing human friends as well.

When a person we love dies, part of our grief is due to the sense of loss and finality.  We will never share with that person what we have shared before.  All future potential falls into the void.  Gone forever.  Losing a beloved pet stirs the same despair.  As we toil with grief, we often are wracked by regret.  In my case, as I mentioned, I had missed many signs over the previous weeks and days before I brought Oni to the ER.  I allowed him to suffer needlessly, and possibly could have helped him much sooner had I been more aware of his illness.  So along with the normal fears of losing my friend suddenly, I felt tremendous guilt for putting him through this.  The day before I brought him in, I’d gone out to breakfast, spent the day out and about, all the while I should have been rushing him to the emergency room a full 24 hours (at a minimum) sooner than I had.  I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself for that.  Its hard to think about.  I felt I’d let him down and might never have the chance to make it up to him.  He’d only know those last hours of pain, and not how much I loved him.  As a person with anxiety and obsessive tendencies, I knew it would torment me until I died.  I’ve lost pets before, mostly during my childhood, and I still feel that pain.  This would have been multiplied by 1000 because of the responsibility I felt his condition.

Those regrets were only part of the picture.  I also wrestled with guilt for the occasional dark thought that would cross my mind.  that maybe it would be better to have it all end now.  That even if he made it through that first night, his life might still be short.  There might be many more emotional days ahead for us.  And I would need to make sacrifices to care for him.  I will worry about him until he takes his last breath, whenever that is, and part of me wanted to end the worry, and deal with the pain of grief instead.  I would have those thoughts, and then feel like a traitor.  Like an evil, selfish person undeserving of the blind devotion of one amazing furball.

One thing I decided early on… if Oni had a chance at recovery, a recovery which would extend his life, and make it one worth living, then I would do whatever it took to make it happen.  I would not be able to live with my demons if I pulled the plug — or worse… asked doctors to push drugs into him to end it when there was still hope — when he had given me more joy than I could repay him for.  In some ways, this cat saved my life.  I ow him everything.  Three years ago, I’d lost my job (the details I’ll save for another day, perhaps).  At the time, that experience had felt like a death.  I felt grief for my lost career, regret for choices I’d made, and fear of the unknown.  I went into a pretty big depression.  I didn’t know that kind of darkness was possible for me until then.  My mind wandered into some pretty desolate corridors.  If my cat hand’t been there to give me his fluffy, unconditional love and neediness, I’m not sure if I’d have come out of it.  He needed me to keep him alive, and that gave me a purpose to keep going.  I owe him every chance I can give him.

Dealing with the stress of possibly losing a dear friend was difficult.  The world understands the loss of a parent, or child, or husband or wife, or relative.  Its usually sympathetic to the loss of a human friend (though somewhat less).  The world doesn’t always understand the loss of a pet.  I found it difficult to focus at work (luckily I had a fairly light schedule, and an amazing boss, but I’m not sure how long I can push that leeway).  Not everyone completely understands why I was struggling so much.  While many of those who “get it” were amazing, some of those who don’t made coping with the stress even harder.  When I would say my cat was in the hospital, and explain the situation, many people would say things like “that must be expensive” or “maybe its time to get another cat”.  I heard more stories about people putting their pets down than I’d ever care to hear.  Oh, and did you know, I was working for free that week (with all of my salary basically going to pay off the Vet)?  It was difficult to see the look in people’s eyes (and sometimes hear their overt words) that suggested I am crazy for spending any money on a sick cat.  And I won’t lie… its a lot of money.  Its stressful to think about the amount of money I’m spending on my cat (and its not over… he has more ahead of him).  While I’ve joked about selling a kidney, I am seriously considering moving in with my parents for a year or more and renting out my condo.  No joke.

My only response though is this: If you want to ridicule me for having too much love for another creature that has emotions similar to your own, I’m ok with that.  My love for my cat doesn’t mean I don’t love people.  The ability to love beyond ourselves is a virtue, even if one of the targets is a non-human.  Can it ever be a bad thing to expand our circle of love?  I submit that anyone who can love a cat, or a dog, or a parrot, or any non-human companion, is a person better able to love humans alike.  Money means nothing if I can’t live with the choices I make.  I’d rather lose everything else, than lose my empathy, compassion, and love.  If that makes me crazy, or a source of easy mockery, then so be it.

Peace,

PersephoneK

UPDATED:  Anyone interested in helping support Oni’s recovery can do so via the GoFundMe page a friend of mine set up for him.  I’m so humbled to have such amazing friends.

Oni day before 1st surgery.

Oni day before 1st surgery.

 

Kitty under a blanket... does it get cuter?

Kitty under a blanket… does it get cuter?

 

Oni became an ICU celebrity, loved by all.  He even got two traveling trophies...Stuffed Barney, and the Medal of Hope.

Oni became an ICU celebrity, loved by all. He even got two traveling trophies…Stuffed Barney, and the Medal of Hope.

 

Close to homebound, Oni was given an expansive cat condo in the ICU.

Close to homebound, Oni was given an expansive cat condo in the ICU.

Home!  Showing me his tough scar.

Home! Showing me his tough scar.

2014-02-08 15.47.51

Enjoying a well deserved snooze one week at home.

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