Take time to consider the result of your actions

Editor,

The morning-after pill proves we live in a society that attempts to avoid the consequences of its mistakes.

Can we avoid the consequences of living for the moment? Can one night of passion be wiped away with a single pill? It is sad to think that we can justify the frivolity of our lives by simply erasing the consequences of our actions. Yet, this seems to be the theme of our society. The Internet allows us to manipulate our identities to fit our delusions. Video games allow for endless replay, and constant cheats enable us to not face defeat. Surgery can bypass the collection of our consumptive lifestyles. Dietary pills can streamline our obesity. With just one pill, we can erase the so-called mistake of an initiated life.

What kind of society is created when mistakes are erased? The only thing that remains is unbridled consumptive individualism that takes what it can get for the moment and leaves the dregs to those who aren't fast enough. We don't take time to consider the result of our actions. It is the mere action itself that we crave. As a result, we live by impulses, emotions and envy. The great path of humanity is leading us toward animalistic behavior where cravings are our guide and emotions are the path.

We have the freedom to do as we please, to take a pill and to abstain from actions requiring a pill. It was G. K. Chesterton who said, "The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does, he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog."

Joseph Basso

UNM student