Prompt #3

For this prompt, I started with an empty prescription pill bottle.

I first filled it with water.

Then I filled it with a mix of milk and honey.

In this project, I was interested in exploring the relationship between necessity, excess, and desire. The pill bottle I used is a medication which must be taken daily. The medication is not directly required for my day to day survival. However, were I to stop taking it, my quality of life would decrease dramatically. In this sense, the medication is not an absolute necessity, contrasted with the water that I filled the bottle with second. Water is the absolute baseline. We cannot survive without water, it is almost impossible to drink too much water, and our desire for water is linked directly to its necessary function in our bodies.


It is odd to think of medication in terms of degrees of necessity. Sometimes the distinction can seem clear cut - tylenol, not so necessary; antibiotics, very necessary. But there are many shades of grey in between. Overuse of antibiotics is one of the most dangerous aspects of modern society. We don't talk about it much, except for media overspecialization. But among the medical and biomedical sciences communities, the topic of antibiotic use and abuse is viewed as critical, and as something that poses an imminent threat to us at both a local and even at a species level. Serious medical conditions like cancer may be treated with chemotherapy and radiation, two things which in any other context would be considered poisons. And believe it or not. acetaminophen (Tylenol) is the leading cause of acute liver failure in the United States, and acetaminophen overdose is responsible for more poison control than any other substance overdose.


So there it is obvious that there is no clear cut line, even when it comes to such extreme sides of the medical spectrum, and avoiding the subject of recreational pharmaceutical abuse. In the end, these are just chemicals, and how beneficial or harmful they are is situational and usage dependent. This is not a new concept, and is well explored in both the public sphere and medical literature. This is the difference between necessity and excess. But what about the role of our desire in this? I desire symptom alleviation, so I take my pills every morning. Nothing requires me to do this. I have simply decided this is how I wish to live. There are cancer patients who decide that they would rather live their last days in more comfort than to attempt a high risk procedure that will certainly be painful and uncomfortable. And there are many people who are in pain and simply take too much acetaminophen by accident, ignoring the warning labels. Our desire mediates between necessity and excess, but it can fail in that, either by lack of information or for other reasons. It can be hard to see the objective truth of necessity vs excess when we desire something.


In my final alteration of the object, I replaced water with milk and honey. It is written in the Bible:

Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (Exodus, 3:7)

This has always struck me as odd. God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden for gaining too much, specifically knowledge. He punished them for their excess by depriving them of their perfect lives. But here God does not offer a land that will be simply good, fruitful, or peaceful, etc. Rather he offers a land 'overflowing' with milk and honey. This is a land of excess. It is marketed by God as an excess, both in quantity of that which is present, but also as to the materials being in excess. This is not a land of milk. It is a land of milk and  honey. I wanted to explore this in the context of my object, bringing together the necessity of out survival in water, the gray area between necessity and excess brought about by out desires, and finally that which we desire but do not need, even though we have been told for millennia that such excess is a gift and a goal.