To The New Millennium & Beyond

Years ago when our predecessors had visions of the new millennium and the humans dwelling in it, I wonder what they had in mind. I mean technology has definitely found a way to invade each and every aspect of our lives – cell phones, black berries, digital cameras, GPS systems, iPODs and this just scrapes the surface. We even have microchips inserted into our beloved pets so that we can find them if they should happen to get lost, heaven forbid. To paraphrase a quote from one of my favorite movies The Matrix – we are all tuned in and plugged up.

And although we have not yet transformed into half human half machine Cyborgs, we as the inhabitants of a major industrialized nation are among a new breed of people who are unable to eat, sleep, procreate, or even function on a daily basis without the assistance of pharmaceuticals.

Back in 2004 I read an unforgettable essay in the New York Times by Mr. James Gorman entitled The Altered Human Is Already Here. In this essay he talks about how occurrences in life that were once considered normal such as baldness, menopause, PMS and even fatigue are all being labeled as illnesses and treated with medications.In the quote below Mr. Gorman states:

No group has escaped. Last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 10 million children took prescription medication for three months or longer in 2002, and preschoolers, another study found, are now the fastest growing group of children receiving antidepressants. (Keep in mind that the numbers have grown drastically since 2002)

Even our children aren’t safe. What will we be in the next 50 to 100 years? If we are using Viagra to get up, caffeine to stay up, depressants to calm down, anti-depressants to cheer up, Metamucil to stay regular and Seasonique to skip periods, where will it end, where does being normal begin? What does it mean to be normal anymore? And how will my wallet survive because all of these drugs are life long treatments. None of them works as a cure because if they did the pharmaceuticals would not make enough money to keep making more drugs, to keep regulating our lives, so that we can achieve that American dream of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (without the unnecessary inconveniences that our imperfect bodies sometimes face.)

Well, I don’t know about you but I am a woman of the new millennium, I am tuned in to my iPOD, logged on to my computer, and charging up my cell phone as you are reading this. I get moody, I get sad. Sometimes I have restless nights, sometimes I am upset. But I am human; this is my birth right to go through the changes. I refuse to let a panacea in a bottle take that innate quality away from me. Will you?