People Who Do Bad Things To Themselves

You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it. ~ Robin Williams (RIP)

There are a lot of things that are bad for us. And part of the thing about growing up for most of us is learning how to avoid the "bad things" so you can lead a productive life and pay taxes and have children that can torture you the same way you tortured your parents.

There are some who think others spoil things for the rest of us by seeking out and performing actions that might end up hurting them... and they say their motivations come from something called "self destructive behavior."  They postulate these behaviors emanate from early childhood traumas (e.g. seeing your parents naked, discovering there is no Santa, pulling your uncle's finger when he tells you to, etc.) and manifest in early deviant behaviors such as sticking chewing gum under school desks, dressing in holey jeans, and turning in homework late. They will tell you these acts may seem innocuous at first but in truth they whet the appetite for more dangerous acts as people grow older. One day they're trying to do a wheelie on their bikes and the next they're mainlining heroin. A kid expresses an interest in beginning a coin collection and before you know it he's that man who buys gold jewelery from people and yells at people on television commercials. Embarrassing lessons on toilet flushing as a child can lead to problem gambling behavior as an adult. It would be sad if it was true. But it's not.

I know all this because I'm a trained professional in advertising. And we're trained to recognize behavior patterns. Risky behavior doesn't come from nowhere. Acts that are full of riskiness all emanate from fairy tales, Dr. Suez stories, comic books and heroic tales where the good guys win the day by putting their lives on the line for the betterment of mankind. Selfless acts.

The people who engage in risky behaviors in life are certainly courageous but they're not heroes. If they crash and burn it's because maybe they cared too much and maybe society let them down. And maybe it was meant to be. We can't judge. They were just trying to lead their lives to the fullest; and how they did so depended on how it was dealt out to them.

They deserve our admiration.