"It's like I have a loaded gun in my mouth, and I like the taste of metal.", Robert Downey Jr

[olivia_sutton]

---I'm going to drastically EDIT and REDUCE this post (as of today, 29 June 2012)  I was in a real bad mood at the time, and I think a lot of this was too personal and too whiny (particularly at the end of the post).  Since it's been bugging me I thought I'd fix it.  I don't have a great excuse other than, well, the bad mood, and being rather stream of consciousness in my writing at the time.  I really need to learn to NOT do that.---

OK, I recently (like last week) re-watched four Robert Downey Jr films:  Sherlock Holmes, Ironman, Ironman II, and  Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows.  The Holmes films I'd seen in the movie theater.  The Ironman films, I'd watched for the first time just after Memorial Day, because I received them as a gift from a friend over Memorial Day weekend.  I always spend Memorial Day Weekend at Mediawest Con in Lansing, and usually spend a lot of time with this particular friend.  I also saw The Avengers again that weekend.  Anyway, I re-watched the films to review them for my blog (see separate posts).  I then, ended-up writing a very short fic, in long-hand, originally with the rather boring temp-title of "Ironman II Missing Scene", which was never what I was going to post in under unless I got really stuck.  When I typed the story, I remembered the below quote which I had found on the actor's bio page on imdb.  I'd had to check the page again to get Downey Jr's age for the story (and still managed to get it wrong -- he would have been 43 when the first film came out in 2008, when the second one came out two years later - he would have been 45).  And it became the title to the story.  Funny that.

"It's like I have a loaded gun in my mouth, and I like the taste of  metal.",  Robert  Downey  Jr, on his addiction to drugs.

Anyway, I really like the above quote.  And not for any obvious reasons, I think.  To me it's a quote about playing with fire, or flirting with danger -- not a quote about death or self-destruction.  There is a certain appeal to playing with fire, that impossible to describe love affair with risk and danger that some people seem to possess.  Which means, the quote isn't really about drugs either.  There does seem to be a personality type that seems attracted to the flame -- whether said personalities express that desire as adrenalin junkies (from extreme sports fanatics, to storm chasers, and everything in between), or through extreme risk-taking as an entrepreneur or stock trader, or through addictive behaviors.  But why is it that some risk-taking is seen as bad and other risk-taking is seen as acceptable and even encouraged?

And, I can certainly understand the bit about liking the taste of metal -- or liking the rush, to the point of taking the risk.  One just has to be very very careful.  To be PERFECTLY clear -- I've never used drugs and have no desire to.  My use of alcohol is limited at best (a beer or glass of wine or cocktail with a nice meal when I go out -- and in my household we have beer or wine with dinner at least three days a week.  That's statistically less than moderate -- and I don't get why so many people seem to condemn any alcohol use when it's completely legal, and not just safe but proven to be good for you in the case of red wine or anti-oxident rich beers).  I don't smoke, gamble or fool around -- at all.

I have to admit, though, I understand that need to flirt with danger or to like the rush of doing something you shouldn't.  And yeah, as I said on the first 'round of this post, because I have manic depression, I actually like being hypo-manic, or slightly manic -- and all the energy and creativity that gives you.  The trick is to not get completely manio.  (So yes, I do drink a lot of coffee and caffeinated beverages, tho' I literally cannot handle Red Bull as it turns out.  I also have a tendency to just not sleep sometimes.  I've had periodic bouts of insomnia since I was a kid.)  And trust me -- being just a tad manic certainly beats being depressed.

--Olivia

I hope that's better and not so whiny.