HOW SIMPLE, HOW IGNORANT

i used to think it was kind of lame for people to take meds to solve personality and emotional disorders, until i came to know well some people who really seemed to thrive only after the right meds were discovered for them. i read much about brain architecture and chemistry then, much that was new, really just learned since the advent of fMRI studies and personality genetics, until it finally dawned on me one day that the only reason i had used to think people shouldn't take meds was because i didn't need them. how simple. how ignorant.

i am afraid that the same kind of ignorance is rife in the political debates of today. the right wing types who think it is bad to help people in need are mostly just the types who — for reasons that may not be to their personal credit, but speak more to their situation — misunderstand why they themselves don't need any help, or fail to see how much help they in fact have already been given, and so strive to deny help to those who truly do need it.

sometimes our own experience can provide us very clear insights and sometimes our own experience is misunderstood by us. and when we project that misunderstood experience onto others whose lives we don't really intimately know, the mistakes we make are not useful, and the consequences of our misunderstanding can be tragic.