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Living in the Margins

Molly Charles (1) Margin, a term familiar from tender age; notebooks with clear cut margins to delineate the main body of text, define it. The margins give it definite shape, a practice that continues into the virtual world. Among humans, it is these margins that give identity to the large majority we term normal. The often, porous boundaries offer a chance for individuals to slip through and slip back into either ‘normal’ or ‘marginal’ spaces. The decision to identify with marginal groups or positions can be a conscious one as with (gender identity, drug use), enforced as in (mental health, racial and caste based discrimination) and accidental for (drug use, stigmatized diseases). In certain instances, as with mental health, some individuals may find their being part of marginal groups a permanent reality, in most other instances individuals do move in and out of marginal groups, as a survival strategy to deal with marginalization. Even when physical spaces merge, with an emph...

Peace, Security & Fourth Industry, Technology—impact on Us and Our Becoming

Peace is something everyone can sense, and yet, find difficult to define. Its complexity, and simplicity is reflected in our restricted definition of peace as an absence of war/violence, even though we sense it is far beyond that. Peace is a concept that exists beyond the boundaries of empirical reality, but we seek it within the realms of empirical reality, where power has the final say. We conceive it as a static state, where a world view palatable to u...

Drugs, Altered States of Consciousness & Us - Implications for Drug Policy

C enturies have gone by and yet we struggle in our waltz with Mind Altering Substances (MAS), our steps still falter and a probable safe distance evades our grasp. The yesteryears centered around finding mind altering substances in nature, from far and near; now we hone our skills in identifying the right chemicals or the means of manipulating molecular formations for creating MAS within kitchen labs or in the pharmaceutical industry. The presence of numerous substances to choose from has apparently not satiated user demand nor dampened the passion of enforcement agencies to exterminate the 'enemy'. There is an ever widening gap in the perception of MAS by users, numerous sub groups within the larger society, inclusive of enforcers of the Law. Users who adhere to cul...

Molly Charles-Reflections

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