Addiction

Concrete solutions. Like knowing the effect of artificial food products on one's body - if positive, eat/drink in moderation and if negative, stop using. Every life form seeks growth media. When separated from the environment in which a life form naturally lives or gravitates toward...

A mourning dove flies past my head. A fox runs along the eating path left by the turkeys. No, I'm wrong. A couple of small deer chase each other through the woods with a mother following close behind. The deer are so small I thought they were foxes at first, or even dogs but their spotted backs gave them away today. Crows call out not too far away.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the feeling of substances oozing through my veins. I drank a lot of artificially flavored liquids this past weekend, despite knowing from experience that I feel lumps or clots making their way through my blood circulation system the day after drinking sweetened liquids.

Our species no longer has to worry about its existence on a day-to-day, eat-or-die level. Clumps of our species do, though, through poor environmental conditions like drought, pollution, natural disaster, war.

In general, we long ago conquered local environmental hazards and made extra-survival conditions the norm. As individuals, we can concentrate on whatever we want, no matter what happens or we know will happen.

We have placed high monetary burdens on our strongest habits yet many of us maintain our habits, anyway (alcohol/tobacco consumption and motor vehicle operation being ready examples to show). We adjust our habits to accommodate our communal need for governance and paying for governing bodies.

[Didn't mean to write another dissertation on our species but I'm here so I'll finish this up and think up another comedy skit later this afternoon.]

Is it my responsibility to pay for the habits of others? No. Thus, taxing the goods/services with which others support their habits is acceptable to me.

My goal is still the same - focus on the species and see what it's capable of and doing to/for itself. If our habits on a macroscale are destroying our capabilities, then we should develop and teach healthier addictive habits for ourselves while using monetary disincentives as a slight deterrence (with the goal of using the disincentives to fund the newer habits), knowing some people will insist on maintaining old, destructive habits because of their bodies' lifeseeking needs, negative as they may seem to observers.