BoppWeBlog

Is this really a bad thing? I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t want to pay more to the oil companies. It’s not fun to spend more money at the pump, while Exxon mobile records record profits. We all know this is pretty shady, and I hate it just as much as the next guy. But there is a positive side to this in my mind.

Somehow here in the US with gas prices continually going up, we continue to see the rise of gas guzzling vehicles as well. So are we really feeling the pain of high gas prices? It doesn’t seem like it to me.

So my question is, how high to prices have to get before America actually take fuel efficiency, and alternative fuels seriously?

Over the years we have developed amazing things. Amazing ways of generating power. There have been many alternatives to the gas engine proposed and built. Electric cars have been manufactured, and for he brief time in which they were offered, electric cars were in high demand. People were on waiting lists. (if you want to know more check out the movie “Who killed the electric car?”). So why do I see America still sitting around complaining about gas prices while they are filling up their 40 gallon gas tank.

I can’t really argue with why gas prices are high. It’s a product of capitalism. If the oil companies can get away with charging us that much for petroleum, why shouldn’t they? After all, the whole idea of working in a commercial society is to make as much money as possible. I’ll agree that it seems extremely unfair. But there are options. We can decrease the amount of gas we use if we really want to. Our society to a certain degree chooses to be dependant on oil.

Maybe if gas continues to rise we will eventually start demanding more fuel efficiency and begin looking for more viable alternatives. Just about everyone will say they want fuel economy, but if that really were the case for everyone when it came time to purchase a vehicle I think we would see a lot more options for fuel economy out there because of the demand.

Maybe crippling us with $5 per gallon gas prices is exactly what we need. A little kick to send us in the right direction.

I read an article today that read “It is estimated that 19 Million Americans struggle with depression. 2/3 are never treated. Untreated depression is the #1 cause of suicide. Suicide is the #3 cause of death among young adults.”. Depression might be bigger and more widespread than we ever realized. Over the course of my life I’ve had a roller-coaster of thoughts regarding depression. Everything from “why don’t these people get over their self pity, and face life like a real man (or woman)” to “this is the worst thing that can happen to someone, and it’s out of control”. This roller-coaster was obviously heavily influenced by what I’ve experienced in my own life.This is a tricky area of medicine/psychology/etc. The mind is so incredibly complex. What is physical? What is mental? How does it come about? Is it socialized? Is it hereditary? I don’t think there is any definite answer, it most likely is a little bit of everything. Which sucks for someone who wants to have the answers. I don’t think I’ll get into these questions at all in this post, but wanted to write a little about the reality of what we face in our world, and shed a little ‘light’ on this ‘dark’ topic.

Our society is finally starting to progress when it comes to issues of the mind. Thankfully we’ve come a long way from just throwing someone in a insane asylum. We now have a vast array of treatments (this is mostly good, but does have it’s negative side but I’m not going there right now).

Here are some more simple facts about depression…

• Often people who are depressed do not recognize the illness, and see it as a weakness or personality flaw.
• In Australia, New Zealand and Japan, there are more suicides than murders.
• Depression is treatable.
• Self Injurers use physical pain as an attempt to calm or numb the psychological pain or stress. They injure the outside in an attempt to release the pain on the inside.

As I am writing this I’m realizing how vast this topic is to actually write about, and thus will stick to leaving this post as an overview, and perhaps I’ll write more in the future regarding specifics. I just want to do my part to help get rid of the stigma attached to mental illness, and to help people realize that we all have flaws, we all have messed up things going on in our head that we’ll rarely admit to anyone else, and if at some point it becomes too much to bare, there are healthy, normal options, and your not alone.