Hmmmm n people wonder why there's so mich deaths n addiction issues in this forum when people in EADD glorify drug use. Do continue. I'm off. Had enough for one day
Knocks anniversary two years in a few weeks. Remember him?!
Evey
Ohhhh.... Oh my.
As much as I would love to respond with unrivaled tenacity and incredulity I feel it may be just slightly more productive to generate a fitting analogy.
My interest was extreme sports. One day I stumbled across the notion of sky-diving. Now I'd never done it before and part of me was curious as to what it entails.
Luckily for me I lived not two doors away from a regional hub of an organisation specialising in educating on and reducing the harms associated with sky-diving. One day I decided to head along to a meeting at said hub to get more information, shockingly I was not asked for even a penny at the door! Inside I was treated to a jaw-dropping array of informative articles, images, opinion pieces, scientific facts, journal quotes, directions towards more information and so much more, not just a handful of them but over six point seven million pieces penned by thousands upon thousands of authors! I was in awe. At my fingertips was everything I needed to get a solid grip of the intricacies of sky-diving, the actual work had been done by those before me and all I had to do was take a little time to read such a gift! Even more unbelievable was that this type of hub numbered hundreds of examples all as simple to find as a search engine request.
Not long after my entrance I found myself in the company of dozens and dozens of motivated and informed people eager to share their experiences and knowledge. Using approximately seven brain cells I considered that I had heard of deaths associated with sky-diving and similar sports and for some reason had an inkling that falling at ridiculous velocity from nauseating altitudes carried some inherent risks. Risks like... death.
I was flabbergasted: if sky-diving is dangerous why do these people do it?! I thought to perhaps actually ask one of the many with both far more experience and knowledge than I. The retort given was as follows:
"Because I find it highly enjoyable and thus sky-dive on occasion as a short but euphoric break from the monotony of life".
I had half of the answer I sought, so channeling the intense investigative powers of a small child dressed as Inspector Frost I inquired further:
"Well if you're not dead yet it's clearly safe in every way, why do the murmurs I just about hear when I shove my fingers in my ears and enunciate 'la la la la la la' keep suggesting it is not the best thing since sliced bread but possibly more toxic than a loaf?!"
To this he began a thoroughly detailed explanatory monologue which made the dangers crystal clear to anything in the vicinity more advanced than a slime mould. The reasons for the aforementioned risks were also given, along with the scientific basis for every slight aspect from the physiology of jumping to the specific air resistance of the string on the 'chute and a list of where to find more data. The icing on the information cake came when I was given a thorough rundown of actual personal experience and the subjective portions of such as the yin to the objective yang of the prior verifiable knowledge.
Soon enough we were no longer alone. Several of the other attendees had overheard and took time from their day to bestow upon me every last tidbit of knowledge they could muster from the depths of their cortices to the far expanses of online libraries. It was made very clear that while subjective positives occur in incidences of sky-diving, the risks associated with it were not a worthwhile trade; it would be a terrible decision to take up the practise; the odds of my enduring harmful scenarios were infinitely higher than those of inconsequential use.
How much more could I ask for than those with information and personal experience go out of their way to supply me with every last drop of their collective efforts in the hope that I would heed the warnings and not sky-dive, but if for whatever reason I went against every piece of advice they would be glad to do their utmost to help reduce the harms associated with the scenario I willingly and knowingly entered myself into?
Alas, I found out soon after that the guy who supplied me with invaluable information was younger than me! Like any sane, logical person I quickly disregarded anything he had told me and convinced myself that he knew nothing because, as we all know, knowledge is gained in annual chunks each birthday like a particularly shitty academia based rip-off of Pokemon.
Armed with a level of cognitive dissonance previously seen only in neural trauma patients I took to the dive area and jumped horizontally down a flight of stairs. It hurt. Confused, I returned to the hub the next day and recited my tale. I was kindly and clearly told exactly what I did wrong in my attempt and given pointers to help me along with getting a complete rundown of the dangers involved once more.
I was advised that I would likely need to obtain a parachute which would make my jump safer. Rather than actually take the advice I opted for paying lip service to the notion and listed its arrival date as "erm... next time....". My jumping off a 15ft platform resulted in a second painful failure! Once again I returned to the collective of helpful volunteers who gain zero personally for their dedication to helping me. Again I was given everything I could ever need to engage in a safer manner than I had been doing. I was informed that obtaining a parachute would be of great help in my goal of not enacting a slow-motion train wreck every single time. The effort required to do so was slightly greater than it was to senselessly consider all who had helped me as "hypocrites" and "bossy" and so I decided that their advice was not needed because it wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear but in a lower voice.
I repeatedly threw myself off higher and higher ledges towards the concrete below and made sure to record my inevitable splat so I could play it on every single device in a 20 mile radius regardless of whether it was in the slightest bit relevant or appropriate to what others were discussing. Now by this point I was starting to sense a slight pattern: I was getting progressively more injured every time I engaged in my interpretation of sky-diving. The specific time period being roughly twenty times more often than the recommended maximum frequency according to every single source that wasn't myself. Whenever one of the volunteers attempted to provide harm reduction information to someone else I found it appropriate to stamp my feet and throw assorted objects in their vicinity until it was impossible for them to continue. Any and all who attempted to help others were verbally abused at every possible turn. They didn't agree with my romanticised and risk free view and as such they had to be stopped. That or my Tourettes flared up as a result of my allergy to actually considering the risks of my actions.
After several months of this scene playing on a loop I no longer engaged in sky-diving.
I had come to great harm in my attempts. I had been failed by the community.
They held me at gunpoint to repeatedly place myself in risky scenarios and do the complete opposite of every harm reduction notion given to me
every single day without fail.
It was their fault.
It was all because a stranger termed it "highly enjoyable". It had nothing to do with my refusing to listen to anything else. It was not my fault for being idiotic and certainly not exactly what I was repeatedly warned would happen!
Given "taking responsibility for my own actions and their consequences" was a notion about as likely to materialise as a diamond encrusted dildo every time I clapped my hands, I stormed round to the people who had spent months trying to help me while I fired abuse with the same joyous demeanour as a ten year old boy shooting spitballs and told them it was all their fault!
What do they expect when they allow such filth as "opinion" and willingly spread that terrifying infection they call "having a fucking clue"?!
They weren't best pleased by my conclusion.
There was a note left on my car which said something reminiscent of "using the tragic death of a remarkable human being as an emotive bargaining chip while embodying the antithesis of everything he and we stood for is absolutely disgraceful".