New Names, Same Old Faces

I saw a TV commercial this morning for a drug that will alleviate the symptoms of--get this--Restless Leg Syndrome!

What the hell? Back in the day, people with RLS (as it's called) were called 'twitchy', or 'nervous', or just plain 'restless'. Now they get their own syndrome?

The National Institute of Disorders and Stroke simply defines RLS as: "Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a neurological disorder characterized by unpleasant sensations in the legs and an uncontrollable urge to move when at rest in an effort to relieve these feelings." Sounds to me like this person needs to find an outlet for all that excess energy...like dancing, jogging, hiking, walking, etc. I'd be willing to bet that if an RLS 'sufferer' were to do any of these things for an hour a day, their RLS would diminish rapidly.

We live in an age of complacence, laziness, and sloth. No wonder people have the time to come up with syndromes to explain away the symptoms of a low-energy lifestyle. If people would spend more time just doing something physical, they'd have less time to become hypochondriatic about their 'twitches', both real and imaginary.

And on the same note...what about Attention Deficit? When I was growing up, all we needed to get our attention was a smack on the desk with a ruler, or a cuff up-side the head from our old man.

Now, though, it's so much easier to drug our kids into submission. Take an eleven year old boy who likes to gaze out the window of school and dream about running around and playing, and of course his attention is going to wander; of course he's going to be restless. But instead of channeling his energy into more studious pursuits or using his imagination to make class more interesting, we'd rather quench the fire of his creativity with medication!

No wonder we're raising such a bunch of jaded, dull children who can't imagine what life was like before movies filled with in-your-face special effects and luridly colored comic books with little or no story to fill their vacant minds.

Sounds like the 'attention deficit' is on the part of the parents and the teachers. Maybe if we all paid a little more attention to our kids, they'd respond in kind.

And so it goes...