Vocation

John Oliver’s most recent topic on the show Last Week Tonight was on opioids, more specifically, the opioid epidemic in our country. You can watch the video on YouTube – be aware that the humor is often adult and the language is also fairly adult.

In the segment, John Oliver discusses the recent epidemic of opioid addiction, and the various factors and decisions different pharmaceutical companies, regulatory organizations, and institutions made that led to epidemic. John Oliver further discusses various aspects of our modern healthcare system that continue to lead people to risk of addiction. He concludes the segment calling for resources and advocacy to be allocated towards assisting those afflicted with addiction and prevention of further addictions in those at risk.

I saw the segment one late night earlier this week, while I was taking a break from doing homework in the wonderful main common space in South Campus. A while later, I stumbled upon Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell’s video on addiction. You can also find that video on YouTube.

Anyways, in this video, the media group discuss various reasons why addiction occur, but spend most of their time on the claim that addiction is an unhealthy bond as a result of environmental factors. They discussed the somewhat controversial research of Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander and his study of rats in Rat Park. Without over complicating the research for the sake of a blog post, there were two groups of rats. One group existed in an environment that was quasi natural. The rats had toys and companions. There was a lot of space for them. The other group of rats were confined to cages, similar to most studies of addiction. Both had water laced with drugs and drug-free water. In his experiment, the rats in the cages became addicted to the drugs, while the rats in Rat Park did not. He concluded that addiction is heavily influenced by environment and a lack of bonding.

The Kurzgesagt video segment continues to discuss other addictions and the relationship to a lack of bonding, while also pointing out that modern humans have less and less close friendships while also having more and more floor space in their homes.

Now, while the Rat Park experiment has not been perfectly replicated, and I am sure most people would point out that addiction is not that simple – there are various biological, cognitive, environmental, and social factors that help and hurt addiction, especially in organisms as complex as human beings – the videos did open my eyes to how important community is.

In modern society where people have had less and less close friends and more people are lonely, creating and sustaining communities are all the more important. In this internship for Marsh’s inclusive community, in being a former student leader, and in being the vice president of SojournBU, I am in a position to help in creating and maintaining communities. I am not entirely sure as to what extent I will be able to make a difference in other people’s lives, but what I do know is I just have to show up and put my heart into what I am doing. I became aware that I just need to put effort and care. If I do that, and if I sincerely am there for other people, then that’s enough to help create community. Everyone is incredible, everyone is telling a story with their lives, everyone is interesting, and everyone matters. Every single person I will come across in my existence as one of billions of human beings matter.

Everyone matters, and if I can help people find an inclusive community, I will do whatever I can to help.