Jim Carrey & Prozac

Jim Carrey makes upwards of 20M per flick. He's the highest paid comic actor atound. He is now talking about the fact that he used to take Prozac. I don't know all that much about these legal psychoactive drugs, and sure as hell don't want to. I guess if you go to a doctor with some kind of distress or problem dealing with life, that's what they give you. Don't get me started on the legal drug culture and this intense indoctrination. This massive media marketing of very powerful drugs, directly to the population is off the hook. We are the most medicated culture in history. Vioxx is now removed and five other majorly marketed drugs are about to be, because of deadly side-effects. But what about the intended effects of these drugs? As Carrey described it, the highs and lows are obliterated and you're left to gel around in neutrality. He calls it "a persistant despair". I think this is how most people actually spend their lives....whole communities "gellin". One gelatinous morass of averageness and unawareness. It's considered a problem when you're feeling too much, at least when you don't know how to identify and understand those feelings, and channel them effectively. Jim, obviously, ultimately decided it was better to feel. And look how he channeled that energy... into a free, unique & entertaining identity. I have a lot more respect for that, than folks who tamp their own connection to joy in order to conform. What I wonder is...how many Jim Carreys are we losing to Prozac? Not every person with a unique talent or artistic bent, or even an honest feeeling, is strong enough to resist the deadening effects of these prescription drugs, and the pressure to use them. Here, take this honey, and everything will be OK.
I'd rather see us using drugs which expand consciousness. It's only when we really understand what's going on, inside and out, that we can have the real peace, and the creativity. But that takes time, it takes away from productivity, whose interests prefer people managed over people aware. It is far more efficient and profitable to have people happily in boxes than seeking to have fulfilled lives.
Well, you know, we all want peace of mind, and many people cannot find it in this intensely competitive society. So we prescribe lots of Prozac, and everybody's happy....or at least not making trouble, or revolutionary art, or a point, or an insight... and we lose the Jim Carreys, and the Elvis Presleys and the John Lennons, and probably 99% of our artists. They were, and are, mostly misfits. Clay Aiken recently spoke about a book he wrote discussing his transition from bully target to superstar. Christina Aguilera, who had her voice at 10, talks about how people who now brag about knowing her in HS were throwing pieces of bread at her in HS. Artists are inner directed, they look around, they feel, they question. This threatens people.
At the same time, we idolize these artists once they make money. Aiken is literally "The American Idol". Who and what do we idolize? Is it the artist, or the success? It is probably that incredibly rare human being, who, against all odds, can do both.