People who feel powerless are sometimes prone to abusiveness, in addition to self-destructive behavior.  The only feeling of power they have access to is the power to inflict pain on a creature even more powerless than they are, or to do something to alter their state of mind.   Given the choice between endless pain and momentary relief from that pain, most will opt for the relief, however fleeting and otherwise regrettable.

“Dassum shit,”  said the skeleton of my father, “but, sadly, a universal truth.” 

Your mother, for example.   

“May she rest in peace,” said the skeleton in Yiddish inflected Hebrew. 

Look, the only image I  have of her is of an enraged religious hypocrite, a tiny psycho who mercilessly whipped her first born son in the face from the time he could stand.   

“Not an entirely unfair image of her, given what little you know,” said the skeleton.   “On the other hand, Elie, you realize that for purposes of this particular exercise in spinning your wheels while tap-dancing on a treadmill, I am more of a cardboard cut out of a skeleton than the actual mildly endearing character you have taken some pains to create over the last couple of years.” 

That goes without saying. 

“Then why say it?” said the skeleton.   

I know you are, but what am I? 

“Look, on a given day,  given that you are not going to earn so much as a copek, what is the best you can expect of yourself?”   

To get enough sleep and to be the best version of myself I can be, I suppose.   

“Fine, so like the good advice on that sign in the City College gymnastic rooms– work good hand-stands everywhere — you are working every day to keep your tools sharp?”   

As sharp as I can. 

“OK, fine.  You gave this piece a title.   So?”   

There is a little buzz, recently, about the opioid addiction crisis that kills more than a hundred Americans a day (no reason to dredge up the mere twenty or so U.S. military veterans, thank you for your service, who kill themselves every day).  The opioid crisis has become news because white people are dying in large numbers now.   It’s killing mostly working class and poor white people, not the children of the very rich, mind you, but still.  It’s not like it’s a deadly drug epidemic confined to ghettos where you can just bring in the national guard to keep that shit contained where it belongs.   

“Trump country is opioid country,” said the skeleton.   

The famous drug experiment about the nature of addiction was putting rats in cages and giving them a choice between water and drug water.  The drug water would get them high, and eventually kill them, but all the rats chose the drug water and eventually every one of them killed themselves with it.

This was held out as irrefutable proof that given the choice between the deadly pleasure of an addictive drug and a healthy drink of water every little experimental mammal would choose the drug that gave them pleasure.  There was another experiment where they had the rat’s brain hooked up to an electrical switch.   Put your paw on the button and get an instant orgasm.  Every rat died, of heart failure, with its paw on the button.   These experiments seemingly confirmed that some substances, by their very nature, are irresistible, physically addictive, soul-robbing and eventually deadly. 

Another experimenter, noting that the rats in these experiments were all kept in solitary confinement and given the single choice of drug/no drug, tested this theory by constructing a rat playground and doing the same test.  Rat Park, as he called it, was a place where everything a rat could want was found in abundance: ample space, tasty food, toys, exercise, other rats to interact with and have sex with.   The rats in Rat Park had the choice of water or drug water.  Few rats in Rat Park had much use for the drug water.   No rat in Rat Park ever died of a drug overdose.  They had too much else to do.  The experimenter concluded that drug addiction was a product of despair, of lack of a better choice. 

“Well, think of that kid you walked home in Harlem, the hell of his drug addict mother’s life, his baby brother’s life, his own.  What were the odds of him becoming a studious high achiever and moral exemplar for his siblings vs. pursuing a life of whatever short-term pleasure he could find?” 

Of course.   The thing is, according to Johann Hari, who described the Rat Park experiment in his excellent book and talks, a follow-up to the Rat Park experiment was never funded, it was never repeated anywhere.   There is no solution to the larger social injustices that lead to virtual mass solitary confinement and the choice of drug/no drug.   The people caught in that situation, millions of us here, billions worldwide, are totally expendable.  People who talk about this are sneeringly dismissed, by hardy Nazi types, as Social Justice Warriors, SJW, LOL!

“Look, Elie, tens of thousands die in America every year because the pharmaceutical industry spends untold hundreds of millions to influence public policy, to ensure that their profits remain as robust as humanly possible.   Big Pharma spends far more than the oil industry.   The fucking NRA spends a tiny fraction of what Pharma pays out every year in campaign funding, and the NRA holds the Grand Old Party hostage.  Any Republican who speaks the first half of the sacred Second Amendment– A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State... gets primaried out of office at the next opportunity.   The NRA version of that Amendment is, simply, ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’.    As you know, a hundred thousand or so dead Americans a year, from guns, opioids, lack of health care, is a small price to pay for freedom and democracy.” 

Yes.  The maddening thing is that there is no possibility of even having the discussion, based on the actual merit and harms of each position.   By way of government response we have a pompous little asshole, our nation’s highest law enforcement official, pronouncing that no matter how stupid, outdated or erroneous the law, we will enforce it to the strictest degree to make sure our people are protected from the evil of a selected drug.   

“Well, of course we will.  And that allows ongoing selective, color-blind enforcement of the politically motivated law and the continued disproportionate incarceration of black and brown citizens and their literal disenfranchisement in many states.  No vote for felons, bitches.  What’s mysterious about any of this, Elie?”   

No mystery, dad.  Just… fuck. 

“Stay sharp, boy, and keep your eyes on the prize,” said the skeleton, pantomiming a sleepy oriental pulling on an opium pipe, as he slouched back into his soft grave.