I have been thinking lately about society as a whole, and how it reflects on us as individuals.

More specifically, how it impacts the way we live, and the diseases we suffer from, and our children.

Even more specifically, Pint. And me as well.

I started thinking, WHY do we all seem to suffer from psychiatric diseases of varying degrees? Depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Bi-Polar, ADHD, Oppositional Defiance, Autism spectrum disorders, etc.

Have our brains as a species changed? Did we mutate?

Because, basically, few of these diseases existed 100 years ago, even 50 years ago.

OH> we just discovered them. Balderdash. They were there all along I think.

So why now, are we all being medicated as a society. And further, what is the incidence of the above referenced diseases in third world countries?

Do they suffer from high teenage suicide rates in poorest African countries, or eastern Asiatic countries? Depression?

No. and I think I know why.

Because 100% of their time is centered around 'survival'. Basic things like Food, Water, Clothing, and keeping children alive.

They simply do not have the leisure to have the fashionable diseases, while surviving.

We, as a society, however, do.

It is sort of an existential thing I think. I am remembering back my lifetime. I am remembering the onset of “I'm okay, You're okay. EST, Warm Fuzzies, Cold Pricklies, Primal Scream therapy, Hypnotherapy.....it goes on and on and on.

Obesity is huge (pardon the pun there).


Since our lives got 'better', we got worse as a society. We ask less and less of ourselves, and we expect less and less of ourselves. We no longer hold ourselves or our children to standards. It is easy to put off tasks. Easy to break the law. Easy to make excuses for behaviors, or just things we would rather not do.

Especially me. Now retired. Nice home. Enough money to make it almost through the month. Husband home and retired (disabled).

When I worked full time, I had to schedule everything. If I didn't schedule it, it did not get done. Laundry, dusting, cleaning, cooking, activities, even bathing had to be scheduled.

Now, it is too easy to say “oh, I don't feel like running the sweeper today, I'll do it tomorrow.” Tomorrow may, or may not come. I don't have to worry about dinner other than to go to the freezer and face the monumental task of deciding which package of frozen meat to take out and thaw. Which non stick pan to use. Whether or not I have to wash the pans tonight, or if they can wait till tomorrow.

100 years ago, I would have had to send DH out to SHOOT and BUTCHER dinner. I would have had to send the kids out to the garden to gather the vegetables. Also to weed the garden. To milk the cow for our milk and butter that day. I would have gotten up with the sun to start a fire in the oven, to start the bread to rise, to start oatmeal for breakfast, or eggs and bacon. After breakfast, I would have immediately cleaned up the mess and started the preparations for lunch. Whilst all that was going on, I would have been making home remedy medicines, cleaning the house with homeade soaps, sweeping with a corn broom, shaking out bedding and linens, and rugs, feeding chickens and cows and pigs and goats....sewing clothes by hand,

DH would have been working the fields, tending the stock, building various outbuildings, using horse power to plow and harvest.

He would come in for lunch, which would have rivaled a three course meal in a good restaurant today, and went back out to work until dark.

The kids would have arisen with the sun, did chores before breakfast, eaten, taken their lunch in a box and walked to school. They would have gotten out of school to return home to do more chores, then homework, then sat around with us talking. Sewing. Knitting. Building.


They wouldnt have been 'fresh mouthed' either at home, or at school. They wouldn't have DARED. The punishment would have been swift, sure and left no doubt as to the expectations. When away from home, they would have been held to a standard MUCH higher than the one we hold our children to today. And any behavior not in line, would have been reported to parents immediately. And punished just as immediately.


Then we all would've gone to bed with the setting of the sun. We all would've fallen asleep almost immediately, from just being tired.

I think our brains are wired so that when we are BUSY trying to survive, we do in fact, survive. And the rest of it just didn't exist. I think for the most part, humans as a specie are still survival wired. And, since we do not have to struggle to survive, our brains are allowing all sorts of things to pop up which are actually a signal that we as a society have too much time on our hands. To much dead time.


Now, is there a cure? Nope. LOL. Sucks to be us doesn't it?

But maybe. Now I don't want to give up all my comforts. No one does. And I don't want to schedule my life so that we are constantly doing something. I don't think that will help anyway. I see that a lot with some moms. Their kids are in every single activity that they can find. Soccer, scouting, baseball, dancing, etc.

The kids are dragged from one activity to the next, none of which they ever excel at, but all of which they are cheerleaded and shepherded at.

I don't want my girls to think they excel at everything. I don't want to artificially inflate their opinions of themselves. I don't want to make them think everything they do is good, and wonderful.

How do we do that? I am not sure. If they draw me a picture, I say thank you. I don't tell them its the most awesome picture in the world, if it is not. If they sing, and ask me if they can be the next Hannah Montana, I tell them “Well, no.” You can't sing honey, not good enough to be a rock star, but I like it when you sing to me....

I can plant a garden, and have them work in it. But that won't really help.

The fact is, as a society, we ARE what we ARE. Rolling back time, artificially, I don't think is going to help.

I do think the diseases are REAL. I also believe it has something to do with not having to survive anymore.

I don't have any answers. Maybe the scientists should go study those barely surviving in third world countries, and see if there is some chemical their brains secrete that our brains don't anymore. Perhaps when every second of your day revolves around staying alive, your brain acts differently and puts out a chemical which keeps all these designer diseases away?

Does make ya wonder, doesn't it?