Fish Oil

How vitamins and a nuclear reactor led me to a perpetual pursuit of pleasure.

Words by MARSHALL SCHULMAN

When I was little, my mother fed me fish oil supplements every morning. She told me that the Omega-3 fatty acids would help my brain develop and that they would make me smarter when I got older. They tasted strange, but they came in gel capsules that I could chew. After I bit through the gelatin, the oil would seep onto my tongue.

I thought it was strange that something called a fatty acid would be good for me. My mother always seemed concerned about weight, and I had seen people get harmed by acid in cartoons. I decided to humor her and take the supplements. 

We kept them in a cabinet in our kitchen across from the refrigerator, between the spices and next to the other vitamins. I don’t remember when I stopped taking them, and it's hard to measure if they made me any smarter.

In 2011, when I was 9, the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown occurred after an earthquake and tsunami. It was the largest nuclear related incident since Chernobyl, and it had me and my mom worried. She was concerned that waves of radiation would travel across the Pacific Ocean and negatively affect my health—possibly even give me cancer. I was concerned that a nuclear reactor meltdown would cause people to mutate and perhaps turn into zombies or other creatures of similar fantastical and malicious caliber. As a relatively dutiful son, I took my mother’s concern to heart. I imagined waves of radiation surfing across the Pacific with their warm, glowing, neon energy pulsing toward my thyroid.

I thought her fear was somewhat ironic because we shared a cramped, one-bedroom apartment where she and my father routinely smoked cigarettes inside. But I decided to humor her once again as she began to keep thyroid supplements in the cabinet across from the refrigerator, under the spices and next to the other vitamins.

I am 22 now, not 9, and live in New York, not Los Angeles. My health regimen is still very important to me, except it no longer involves fish oil or thyroid supplements.

I try to smoke at least 8 cigarettes a day to calm my nerves, and use drugs no more than twice a week. Half of my friends are alcoholics. I try to go to the gym about 3-4 times a week to stay in shape. I aim to dance at least bi-weekly to improve my mental wellbeing. I match the amount of time I spend on my phone with the amount of time I spend reading books. Reading books is nice because they make me seem pretentious on the subway without having to even speak.

From my estimates, half of my friends—the nonalcoholics—take prescription medications. These range from mood stabilizers to ADHD stimulants. I suspect that many of them abuse their medications. I once witnessed two of them snorting lexapro on a Saturday afternoon during the end of our final semester in college.

In 2018, when I was 15, I was prescribed extended release Adderall, 20mg rapid release Adderall, and additional 10mg pills (to take at my discretion). The doctor, a UCLA Professor, told me that I should be careful not to open the capsules and pour the powder out and snort it because then it would become similar to cocaine. I thought this was a strange thing to tell a 15 year old. I mostly listened to his advice; people who snort adderall have blue boogers.

Eventually, I stopped taking the adderall because I found that it zapped my personality and made it difficult for me to maintain erections. I decided that academic success wasn’t worth sacrificing my masculinity. Besides, it didn’t help my writing much.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to think too much in school, in part because of fish oil and in part because I studied film and a combined major of history, philosophy, and literature. After reading many well regarded books and watching many well regarded movies I realized that everything good had already been made. All I had to do was read the good things and that would be sufficient for me to participate in discussions and analyze the good works made by other people.

Smart people—who probably took adderall and other prescription medications—made things like nuclear reactors and fish oil and look how that turned out for everyone.

1 person died from radiation during Fukushima, 50 people died in the associated evacuation efforts, 2,129 died from disaster related deaths, and 4 people have leukemia likely caused by the reactor meltdown. However, the issue is nuanced because without efficient sources of energy like nuclear reactors I wouldn’t be able to charge my phone or computer. Furthermore, without nuclear reactor meltdowns, the thyroid supplement manufacturers would potentially lose their livelihoods.

Nowadays, almost everyone in New York is medicated to some degree. One of my friends drinks about eight beers a day to be able to tolerate life. Another one of my friends puts so much crap up their nose that when they sneeze, they get high. I think most normal people take medication too, that way they can tolerate their lives and suppress fears of societal collapse and crushing debt. There’s a supplement, drug, or procedure to make you look or feel however you’d like.

I meet many nice and happy people when I go out in the city. One night I went dancing at a club called Basement. The club is essentially a dark atrium, a smaller stage, and a smoking area bifurcated by a labyrinth of tunnels and hallways that provide shadows for people to engage in behavior that can only be done under the cover of darkness.

As I wound my way through the labyrinth, I saw three people having sex in the corner. I noted that the people having sex seemed to be having a very good time, especially since they had gathered a crowd of people watching them. It made me happy to see other nice and happy people part of something larger than themselves. I figured that they had to be on some sort of vitamin or drug to be so confident, and I felt grateful that we live in a society where people have access to things that make them feel good. 

Oftentimes, like in the case of Fukushima, the desire for efficient energy leads people and societies to neglect safety. My mother imposing fish oil and thyroid supplements into my health routine was a result of the same causal chain that led 2,184 people to die, and had inadvertently pushed me to the very space where I could observe consensual sex under the hum of bass and the glow of strobe lights.

I think it’s good that people are built to seek pleasure. Without it, I would risk becoming content with my circumstances and surroundings. If I was ever completely content, I might stop seeking to learn and grow. I might stop bringing books with me onto the subway, cutting long lines for clubs, watching movies, or looking for new and exciting vitamins and drugs.

I wonder if this was what my doctor imagined my life would lead to when he prescribed me Adderall. Did he want to enhance my ability to give and receive pleasure, or did he want me to avoid it? Thankfully, I got my college degree and a Fulbright scholarship, so at least on paper, I turned out okay.

However, because almost everyone I know is medicated, it's tough for me to say which forms of medicine actually improve people’s quality of life and which ones actively work against it. I don’t think people consciously try to subdue themselves or others through medication; rather, they’re constructing a framework in which everyone is measured against an idealized vision of the fully actualized self.

At the end of the day, everyone knows what’s best for themselves and it’s up to the consumer to decide what they take and why they’re taking.

Many of the people who died in Fukushima weren’t killed by radiation. They died because of disaster-related tragedies: leaving their homes, losing everything, reckoning with a force outside of their control.

I hope that one day we can all have access to medication to control and create our idealized selves; that way we can all be made immortal through our material consumption.