Leaving Normal
Last night I watched a special on Primetime ("Deep Brain Stimulation: One Switch Turns Depression Into Joy") about a new Psycho-Surgical procedure, where two women who were suffering from debilitating psychological syndromes (suicidal depression and severe obsessive/compulsive thinking, respectively) voluntarily underwent an experimental procedure where electrodes were implanted into their brains which send targeted electrical charges in order to precipitate a specific emotional response -- namely, happiness.
The man interviewing one of the women talked to her as if somehow she was no longer feeling "normal" -- that there was some insidious danger that lurked behind her newfound surgical happiness and wasn't she worried about it? Wasn't it a (drum-roll please) "slippery slope" . . . ?
Look. No one has any idea what "normal" means, but I can sure as hell tell you that if "normal" means we're all going to have to run around apologizing for the feelings of well-being and emotional satisfaction that modern technology is capable of instilling in our lives, then f**k some nebbish TV journalist's idea of "normal". This woman was happy. HAPPY. She was smiling, her eyes were alive and her expression was radiant. Her husband actually started to cry during his interview when he talked about the difference between his wife's pre-operative (suicidally depressed) and post operative (charming, vibrant and alive) behavior, stating that "I feel like I have my wife back", while the other obsessive/compulsive woman was able to rejoin her family and the world around her, re-involve herself in her own life, the lives of her children and the larger world around her.
Yet the interviewer, with his "Aren't you afraid that you're not normal?" line of questioning, managed to twist these amazing breakthroughs into something slightly sinister and distasteful.
But why should it not be considered normal, or even preferable, for individuals to choose happiness and satisfaction over some vague, intellectualized theory of the value of human suffering? I mean, Virginia Woolf was a terrific writer, but I certainly wouldn't have wanted to live her life, and frankly, evidence seems to suggest that she wasn't all that into it, either. Ditto for Van Gogh.
It seems that we as a culture are far too willing to sacrifice the happiness, and sometimes even the lives, of our gifted citizens in order to coo approvingly over the lovely little painting/novel he/she created just before sticking his/her head in the gas oven.
In my opinion, human beings have put up with "normal" for too long -- the normalcy of death and disease, of loss, murder, hunger, war, pain, fear, rage and frustration. And we've put up with it and embraced it, wrote poems about it, painted pictures about it, filmed movies and wrote symphonies in celebration of our exquisite misery precisely because we had no other choice, not because misery and pain are the very essence of the human soul.
What I saw tonight, what science is on the forefront of discovering -- that happiness might possibly be capable of being triggered, voluntarily, at the touch of a button . . . all I can say is, "thank frickin' god, what took you so long?!"
Have you ever felt happy? Do you think your brain has shut down, and that you're incapable of rational thinking or creative output, just because you're happy? No, me neither. In fact, during the happiest points in my life, I function at my best, and make sharper, wiser choices for myself and for my future, while also finding myself far more productive in creative and intellectual endeavors.
So if the argument is that happy people are stupid people, and will accept anything you tell them just as long as you keep hitting their "happy button" (meanwhile, implying that only the miserable, frustrated and/or dissatisfied people are the ones who see things clearly) -- then that, my friends, is the true slippery slope, and it leads on down to idiocy (if not madness).