Magic Pill
Our Rusuk Blog writer Sergey

Actually, I need many pills to solve many personal and global problems; I mean, those global issues that I think I have to solve. Like, a magic pill would work for Vlad, red or blue one, I don’t care; though I believe such a cure exists already, it just happens not to be delivered to him on time…What a shameful delay!

Regarding my preferences, the essential magic pill to me is the one that can help me with indecisiveness. 

I am a man of numerous drawbacks because I am made of blood, flesh, and bones. Some issues are decades old. Out of this impressive list, indecisiveness is on top. 

This bloody thing is always two steps behind me all my life. I can make bold or tough decisions; this is true. I can be sharp enough as a decision-maker. However, I’ve got this virus that sometimes comes after me, affecting my actions. 

Something has been done too late. Or has yet to be done. Or it was only done partly. Often, I have been an underperformer in various ways because of that.

Pills

It is there when it comes to my personal life. It is there when it comes to professional issues. Or some concrete situations. It is always there.

Sometimes I use my mental therapy to nail down the virus. But, just like Phoenix, it comes up from ashes, and here we go again. I’d appreciate it if such a magic pill had been invented and I could use it. 

On the other hand, this indecisiveness is a part of me. I’m grown enough to understand it.

So wouldn’t taking such a magic pill be a suicidal thing to me, I wonder? In this case, if it works, it would be some other creature, not me.


My magic pill would be….

Roger Bara

There are only two on my short-list, and I have long since declared the winner. 

The runner-up is a pill that would restore my manhood to its previously robust self. 

For some 55 consecutive years, I had woken up every single morning with, what shall we say, an upright stance in my groin region. That is, until the day last year when a surgeon I affectionately call “The Butcher of Girne”, (a trifle harsh perhaps, as he probably saved my life), performed a prostatectomy on me, with the resulting severing of some rather useful nerves that I could really do with having repaired by a magic pill. 

But I digress. The pill I want, now, is one that will make my wife, Mrs B., much, much happier. And it would make me much, much happier too.

We both want a pill that will make Chronic Fatigue disappear. 

Person melting

Mrs B. has a multitude of auto-immune deficiencies. Each one has a massive detrimental effect  on her life. But her underlying symptom, and no-one is sure which of her ailments actually cause this, is Chronic Fatigue.

Not tiredness – you know, have a lie down and you’ll feel a lot better. No. This is a condition where she can barely talk in more than a whisper. She cannot raise her head, it’s too much effort – and a smile, with all the muscles that are needed to perform this simple deed, is impossible. A walk to the toilet is a huge struggle; forget a shower – the act of drying oneself is beyond possible. Add to all that, a “head-fuck”, where the brain cannot function in any positive manner, and you have a really shit scenario. Sometimes five or more days each week.

Over the past two decades, during which I have had to deal with the outflow from all this, I’ve discovered one other by-product of Chronic Fatigue. It’s isolation. Mrs B. feels completely removed from me, all her friends, and all her family during her bad days. She is in her own horrible cocoon, virtually unable to communicate or have any relevant ability to do what usually comes so naturally to her: socialise. 

She feels alone and not understood. She wonders if her friends think she is “putting it on”. After all, how can they possibly know what it’s like – few of them see her at her worst. And on an increasingly rare good day, she looks so bloody well.

Sod the erection, bring on the cure for Chronic Fatigue.


My magic pill would be…

Photograph of Dean Lewis

An anti-ageing pill. This is a bigger deal than you may at first realize; yes ending aging would mean living until something happened that killed you. But this is something that our society actually needs. We are ageing and this is really bad news for most industrial countries.

Here’s an example of the problem: roughly one in three Japanese were over 65 in 2022 . Even an advanced nation, like Japan, will have problems coping with this. Elderly folks don’t work but do consume. They get retirement benefits and fewer young people are around to pay into the system.

Older couple

Want to know why Russia has snatched tens of thousands of children from Ukraine? Some analysts believe this need for children was a major factor in starting the war. Yes, you read that right. 

But the big crisis hasn’t hit yet: China. China had a one child policy for years and it worked. Then they made it two and now they want babies! China is only a few years behind Japan demographically, and unlike Western countries, China doesn’t have the per-capita money to support the coming wave of elderly. China may not surpass the US economy and could even crash. China will recede in power in as little as ten years. The nation’s population and economy are already in decline — slowly for now.

Years ago, children equalled money. We mostly lived on farms and several strapping teenaged boys were a real help and would increase family income. Today… not so much. Children are hugely expensive pets and contribute nothing to the household income. Falling birthrates in advanced countries are the direct result. I’m sure you love your children but I bet you don’t want six.

So, my magic pill would contribute to world peace and to a better economy. I think most older folks would voluntarily work if they had more strength and better health. Moreover, a pill that cured ageing would lead to lower healthcare cost for all. 

Of course there would be some hard questions: 

  1. Would you provide these pills to countries where folks were still having six or eight kids per family? I can tell you right now screams of racism/nationalism will be quick to follow if you say no. 
  2. Would you force older folks to work? Against their will? 
  3. Would you stop older (young) couples from starting new families? 
  4. What about reverse age discrimination? Why bother with someone who only has ten years experience? 

I can think of many more problems. 

Would I take my magic pill? You betcha’