A World of Soma

Introduction The noted psychologist Sigmund Freud, who was the founder of the psychoanalytical school of psychiatry, also contributed a lot to human culture and philosophy. While many of Freud's psychoanalytical theories have fallen out of favor or have been modified, his ideas continue to influence Philosophy and Social Sciences even to these days. In a book entitled "Civilization and Its Discontent" which was published in 1929, Freud presented his theories on Human Condition. He described happiness and pleasure as everyone’s main goal in life. According to Freud, all humans strive to gain happiness and to maintain it throughout life. Mankind struggles to avoid feelings of displeasure and pain and to experience only feelings of joy and delight. Freud named this concept the "pleasure principle". The Declaration of Independence of the United States, which was written many scores of years before Freud's book, had already expressed ideas on the striving for happiness: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". But, side by side with those who succeed in the pursuit happiness, there are multitudes of men, women and children who cannot pursue happiness at will – they suffer from depression or various mental disorders. The book before you belongs to a mixed Genre – it combines Science-Fiction with Non-Fiction. In its science-fiction parts, it describes a marvelous Break-through achieved by four scientists – they developed a drug which eliminated depression and opened an epoch of bliss and peace for all humanity. Such a happiness-inducing drug still does not exist, but its development may be just a matter of time, given the current capabilities of modern Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Neurophysiology. Early steps in this direction had already been made in the form of drugs for mild and medium depression. In its non-fiction parts, the book brings some basic knowledge about the structure of the human brain and its functioning, about the causes of depression and mental disorders, and information on the ways that new drugs are developed. These non-fiction parts resemble a collection of "Reader's Digest" articles… They bring information on a variety of psychological and biological subjects in a concise way. To compile all this packaged data in my "special Reader's Digest issue", I culled information from many sources and set them in the book in a way which could save the reader much time trying to find and assimilate a lot of scientific and psychological data. Part of the scientific information that I brought is accurate, although somewhat simplified for the sake of clarity. Another part is fictional and invented as befits a science-fiction novel. However, when I observe the recent developments in Biology and Medicine and the technics that were used to achieve them, these developments seem to me very much like true science-fiction. Some scientific descriptions in the book may bore readers whose studies did not include biology. Still, try to read them, since, in my opinion, any intelligent person in our times could benefit by it. All that you will read below happened in a Utopia . The drug invented by the protagonists of my book cured very serious mental disorders and, first and foremost, brought happiness and peace to the whole world. There may be readers, who themselves or whose relatives suffer from depression or mental disorders and may, justly, say: "Hey, we suffer, while you, with a glib tongue, sell us some bullshit story about happy, health humanity?" But, may the Lord be my judge, my intentions were quite honorable - I wanted to bring the plight of the sufferers to the awareness of the general public which is not always sympathetic, and through ignorance, may shun, abhor or fear "mad people". I did this by describing the heart- rending and anguishing symptoms displayed by the patients of some mental disorders. On the other hand, many people may shun the book for a different reason. They may say: "Utopia, fine, fine. But who wants to read about depression and mental disorders? We have our own troubles. Why should we read about other peoples' problems? It is better to read "happy" romantic books…" To these people I can answer that "A world of SOMA" is also a "happy" romantic book! In the face of our materialistic, cynical and belligerent times, my book is somewhat at fault…It is what I might term a "sweetish", naive book. Everything about it spells "doing good unto others"… Unfortunately, good things do not widely happen in our real harsh world. "A world of SOMA" is essentially a fairy tale, a utopia that uses materials taken from a sophisticated world that practices science, psychiatry and biotechnology, rather than from a world of witches, fairies, gnomes and elves. I pride myself that it is like a sweet dream in which everything goes so well that you want it to continue forever. When you wake up, you carry this sweet dream into your day, dwelling on it from time to time with a smile. This is an apt description of my book. But, for those of you who consider fairy tales to be suitable only for children, I can offer another definition of the book. I can say that "the World of SOMA" describes the history of a really fortunate and happy world that exists somewhere in a "parallel universe " – a world that we can only watch across time and space with envy...