Thoughts on the Word “Seeker”☆

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Dear Editor:

“Seeker” is a word I used to treasure. To me, seekers are people with open minds looking for deep truths. My mental images, not to mention the images of much literature and movies, often depict seekers on arduous journeys into places of danger and wonder. Seekers are people who know that the answers to life's deepest mysteries do not come quickly or easily but come and change and evolve as we grow and as we learn to respect ourselves and others.

“Seeker” in the emergency department is a dead-end word. It is an ugly word that allows us to judge, punish, and humiliate.

If I make the argument that we are all seekers, an answer might be, “What they are seeking is harmful and illegal and they are weak, evil, and worst of all, trying to trick and manipulate us!” Perhaps that is the worst of it . . . the being tricked part. We do not want to look foolish. We do not wish to lose to a seeker.

Of course, the narcotics user is the real loser from the start. The user has given over his or her independence, his or her ability to seek truth and beauty, and his or her self-respect for a high he or she obviously found too tantalizing or numbing to choose to resist. Users probably have lost, or will lose, their families, friends, and possessions and possibly their lives. The user is the loser of any particular game, whether or not he or she gets what he or she came to the emergency department for. Whether he or she tricks us, hates us, or angers us, the user is the loser.

And what are we seeking out of the interaction with the seeker?

At times, are we assured of superiority because we did not make their particular bad choices?

Do we seek their contrition? Do we wish them to tell us that they know what they do is wrong and they want help? (Do we believe them if they do?)

Are we seeking authority? Dominance?

Do we assert that we do not ever manipulate others simply to feel good?

Of course, there are degrees of everything, and most would object to comparing our own poor choices with the ongoing poor choice of a user. And, of course, when laws are broken and people are hurt, there are, and should be, consequences.

However, when we determine to judge and punish seekers the moment we lay eyes on their track marks or their quivering hands or smell their odor, we lose. We close down an opportunity to participate in a deep and abiding truth. Human beings are valuable, especially when treated as such. And human beings who treat other human beings well are happier, more satisfied people. How we treat drug seekers is about them, but it is even more about us. What kind of people are we at the end of the day? Are we people who condemn and judge? Or are we people who respectfully set firm limits and who reflect a bit of human decency and mercy to another who has lost most everything?

Without expecting change, sometimes decency and mercy provoke change. They certainly can change the heart of the giver of mercy.

Should it matter greatly to me whether the loss was the result of a personal choice or not? Would it matter if I already knew and loved the person? Would I withhold mercy and respect from someone I know who made a bad choice? Certainly the role of personal choice does matter to the user, because the user will have the hurdle of self-loathing to cross should he or she ever rehabilitate.

If I choose to condemn others for their poor choices, I will be very lonely indeed and will be stuck with only my condemnable, foolish self.

I wish to reclaim the word “seeker” and to be a seeker. I would like to find the deeper truths that give me strength to carry on and come back to the emergency department another day. I know that I can only find a glimpse of the vast capacity of the human soul to love, in the presence of others. In the presence of many others. All others. The harder to love the better. Because the ones who are easy to love do not really require much seeking or thinking or even loving.

So, I am a seeker.

I seek contentment through kindness.

I seek fulfillment through compassion.

I seek peace through the strength of tolerance and love.