My doctor brother was doing rounds, with his students on his heels. One man had his heart on the right side instead of the left. The difference is slight, but it is big if you are placing a stethoscope.

He just smiled at me, and we watched each student put on the stethoscope, feel around and make the discovery. Every one of them was afraid he was doing something stupid. Then each one finally got up the courage to say the heart was on the OTHER side.

Nature does not produce perfect replicas. That is why we have two sexes and a random combination of genes. The genius does not produce a brood of geniuses. He produces some geniuses and other children in a random distribution. This is a matter of statistics. It allows those who do not want to believe in heredity to talk about the exceptions.

When we say an animal like the kangaroo developed big feet ( which the word “kangaroo” means) to fit his environment, we have that millions of the offspring of earlier kangaroos just had ridiculously big feet.

Nature says, “Maybe we need some big feet.” Nature says, “Maybe we need a heart on the right side.” Nature is usually wrong about that. The freaks it produces usually die out at a ration of a million to one.

In the meantime, none of us is “normal.” If all the earlier ape-men had been normal, we wouldn’t be here.

But everybody worships “normal.” Addicts need to quit drugs and they will be in that magic condition, “normal.” A person who is satisfied with life as it is cannot understand why an addict is not happy with being normal.

Which brings me back to the rule I was given, “Do unto others as you wold have them do unto you.”

And it brings me back to another thing I keep saying: The critical rules of life are simple, but none of them are EASY.

An addict’s “normal” chemical makeup makes him unhappy, just as your normal makeup makes you happy enough. If you believe in JESUS’ Golden Rule, it is not enough that you insist they do what would make YOU happy.

You have to understand THEM.

The Oriental Golden Rule is both simple AND easy: “Do NOT do unto others what you would NOT have them do unto you.” If you have a chemical balance that makes you happy enough, you do not need to understand that an addict doesn’t. If you tell him that all he needs is to get back to normal, you are not asking him to do anything you would not want someone to ask of you.

But Jesus allows us no such wiggle room. You have to DO something. You have to understand where the addict is coming from, the fact that his normal chemistry is WRONG.