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The Damned
Once upon a time, in a land far away, I played a text-based adventure game. Younger readers should understand that we engaged in such activities between riding dinosaurs and banging rocks together to communicate with distant communities. In this game, there was a phrase that appeared with a frequency evidently designed to unhitch even the soundest mind from its moorings: “you are surrounded by many passages, all alike. N, E, S, W?” With the aid of graph paper, it was possible to sketch out the labyrinthine nightmare which one sought to navigate, stopping only when it became clear that the sketch actually culminated in a satanic rune which, upon completion, would suck the player’s soul screaming into the abyss.
Suburbia is much like that.
I’m convinced that if one drew out the many twisting roads, cul-de-sacs, and parks on a piece of parchment using an appropriate medium–say, the blood of virgins–it would reveal unto humanity the dark language in which the Damned will sing the song that ends the world. Never have I been so cognisant of the swirling mass of mediocrity that inhabits these wood-and-plastic dwellings as I was when I chose to walk through such an area some days ago. When the Damned sing their song, it will be to the refrains of minivan honks, ESPN commentary, the sobs of alcoholic wives, and the crystalline tinkle of shattered dreams. Too harsh, you feel?
Know Your Role
Our society is sick.
More and more, I notice that people seem unable to break beyond the traditional roles and boundaries of society. People have roles, we’re told, and to not fit into that nice little package is to be strange, untrustworthy, immature, or deviant.
Are you thirty and want to dye your hair some interesting colour? You’re immature! Grow up, and stop pretending you’re a kid. Like animated movies? Those are for children! Don’t want children? You’re selfish! After all, everyone knows that the key to happiness is a house in the suburbs with a large mortgage, two or three children, and a steady 9-5 job that pays the bills. Ignore that hollow gnawing inside as what’s left of your soul begs for the final mercy of a bullet’s oblivion; that’s just what it is to be a grown-up!
Bullshit.
There’s an excellent comic over at xkcd.org that rather eloquently supports my point: we should get to decide what adulthood is, not the people who come before. Each generation has its own identity, and each generation before it tries to smash the newer generation into a shape that fits the prejudices of the old. For some reason, the Boomer generation (which, as you all know, I hold in the highest esteem) has decided that their youthful activities were folly and happiness lies only in the most rigid conformity. This is a lesson they have passed on to my generation, who are paying the price for so pestilent an idea.
Witness the endless sea of over-priced identical houses writhing through what was pristine farmland or wildland. The curves, ostensibly to create a feeling of neighbourhood, are utterly wasted on individuals who gaze mindlessly out of their air-conditioned SUVs, ferrying their offspring to mandatory piano lessons and sporting activities. There’s no sense of community, because a community requires individuals and everyone who lives there is a goddamned robot. This is not a community, it’s a hive-mind.
A Young Boy’s Tale
Watch carefully as the little boy tries to run around, shout, and revel in his juvenile masculinity. Once, he would have grown up and had his exuberance tempered by life experience and the responsibilities of manhood. Despite this, he would have been a man and all that entails. Today, he is drugged into oblivion.
Tired from working incessantly to afford the empty paraphenalia of a materialistic existance, his parents have no energy to deal with his antics. Hoping to raise his grades upon which rests the desperate hope that vicarious success through their son (look how far little Timmy went!) will silence the bleak emptiness of their own failures, they drag him to whatever physician will diagnose ADHD. Drugged into a compliant stupour, the spark of creativity and zest for life lost, the child will doubtless grow into the next generation of people who believe that a quiet life and fitting-in are appropriate long-term goals.
Or Not
What the hell happened? When did we decide to surrender our individuality? Sure, living in a community requires a bit of compromise here and there, but why the hell are you so threatened by the guy with green hair? Why do you feel the need to scoff at someone being “so different”? Is it really so scary that a young woman has no desire to have children, instead choosing to travel the world and work in a global effort for some cause? Why is “childless” an acceptable term, but you get so pissed off at “childfree“? Why does dancing in public embarrass you? Why are you so afraid of others witnessing you taking an almost childlike joy in something?
You don’t really need that SUV. Let’s face it, that thing will never leave hard pavement and the snowy days you invariably bring up are, what, a few times a year? Odd, most non-SUVs seem to do just fine on those days. Did you really need that big of a house, crippling yourself financially? How is that adjustable-rate mortgage working out for you?
What about your dreams? What happened to them? That thing you always imagined yourself doing, why aren’t you pursuing it? Having kids isn’t an excuse; it’s not a social duty and you won’t always be at their beck and call.
Go Be Magnificent
Our lives are so ridiculously short that it’s a tragedy to not make the most of them. Stop being safe, secure, and mundane. Take a risk: do something scary, or new, or thrilling. Screw getting that new giant TV; use the money to visit somewhere you’ve never been, invent something new, or fund something beautiful. Compose a song or poem, and then go perform it in your local park. Get out of the damned vehicle and try walking to the store, even if it’s miles away. Wear daring clothes, walk along walls, and make those around you laugh just for the hell of it.
You’re beautiful, passionate, and bursting with potential.
Sod the Damned, go sing the song that moves the world.
Yes, yes, I’ve been away. But never fear, I’m back in a position to expose you to the searing brilliance of my mind. Expect more posts soon. Incidentally, posts for the next month will be of a general nature, and will then gain a far more medical flavour in August. Enjoy.
Of the many trials of moving, getting rid of books is perhaps the most torturous for me. Ordinarily, you’ll get one of my books only by dint of an elaborately planned operation utilising a crack team of ninjas, special forces, and high-rent prostitutes. But today, I came to the conclusion that most of my academic books, along with a smattering of rarely-read paperbacks, would not journey forth to the promised land with me.
Of course, actually throwing away a book is unthinkable–an unspeakable crime in my mind that ranks right up there with burning books or, say, wiping out an entire species. Thus bound, I resolved to donate them to the local library, bolstered by the delighted (and dare I say dulcet) tones of the librarian who received my inquiry as to how they’d prefer to receive of my plenty. And so it was that I set the stage for one of the most gut-wrenching experiences I’ve had since that odd-tasting hamburger from the airbase chow-hall.
Such was the level of my beneficence that I required a little library cart in order to transport my books into the library. Not that the librarians (none of whom were as lithe as I’d fantasised about on the phone) would have minded watching my rippling muscles straining under the load of humanity’s acquired knowledge, you understand, but such distractions in the past have proven hazardous, with many a keeper-of-the-books bearing the scars of past papercuts.
Acquiring said cart, I pushed it towards the door and briefly imagined myself as a librarian, smiling benevolently down at the young seekers of knowledge dragged into the library against their will by well-meaning mothers. Occasionally, I passed a genuinely enthusiastic young user of the library, and wished him the strength to bear the inevitable mocking of his peers until he possessed the power to crush their day-labourer future selves though the sheer power of his superior intellect. And then, sunshine.
I begin to remove the (my!) books from my vehicle, and place them on the cart. It is then that the horror begins, slowly rising up my throat to gleefully strangle my brainstem. For there, laid out to see for any passerby, are my books.
I’ve never felt so violated.
Each time I return to the cart with another stack of books, I see them there, forlorn, with bright spines bravely displaying their titles to a cold world. The people walking by barely spare them a glance; there is nothing special here for them. For me, it is though I have stripped off my clothes and spread-eagled myself on the pavement for the amusement of strangers. A brief check of my own sobriety and the hurried repression of rising memories of unrepentant inebriation assures me that this is not the case, and that I’m just feeling that way.
Carrying the last of my books to the cart, and wheeling it towards the waiting door of the library, I feel that I’m abandoning well-loved companions. These books have been with me for longer than most of my friends, and haven’t borrowed nearly as much money. In the cool of the library proper, surrounded by library patrons murmuring in quiet tones their requests for directions to the Starbucks, the sensation of the surrounding books is palpable.
I tell myself that here my books will find new homes, and be loved by new readers. That, though I will miss their titles on my shelves, I do a good thing by passing on books to others. I remind myself of how heavy books are to move, and of the hernia the moving guy got when he tried to lift my box of books I’d forgotten to mark as “heavy”. I laugh, and feel better.
Goodbye, little friends.
I’m not going to get into the habit of writing brief comments on current news stories, but I had to throw this one out there. Alanis, this is irony. Oh, how I laughed and laughed.
You know, it’s funny how things can strike you. I’ve always been far less tolerant of cruelty or violence towards animals than I have towards humans. Of course, I’d prefer that neither humans nor animals were on the receiving end of such behaviour, but such is the world we live in.
Accordingly, I’m more than a little irritated by a video reportedly showing a puppy being tossed over a cliff by a couple of Marines. Now, I understand that they’re in a high-stress environment where normal rules of civility are often non-existent, but they knew what they were doing. Evidently an observer even commented that it was “sick”.
To be blunt, someone should have tossed those bastards over the cliff to see if the dog was okay. They’re clearly not worthy of being called Marines. What an embarrassment to the Service.
I have, as I’m wont to do, been thinking a great deal lately. The topic over the last few days has been on the progression of life, and our relationships within it. I am, as I’ve noted elsewhere, starting medical school in August. My path to medical school was such that it ripped almost everything away from me that I’d had before then, for the promise of newer experiences to come. A career, a relationship, financial security, friends, time, and a vision of myself–all have been sacrificed upon the bloodied altar of medical school admissions, mingled with the blood of countless others who have walked the same path or, worse, fell by the wayside, unable to summon the necessary strength to go on.
Holding On
I’m moving out of my apartment right now, and the experience is already wearing on me. Despite brutal cullings of my possessions in previous moves, I still have too much stuff. I understand now why those monks in saffron robes decline to own anything. It has nothing to do with spirituality, they just don’t want to move the crap when it’s time to change monasteries. Harder, though, are the reminders of my past.
Here, an origami flower, kept safe after she’d made it for me, just for fun. She didn’t know then that I liked her, nor that we’d end up in an eight-year relationship. Eight years, and the flower is less crisp than before, but it has travelled over 4000 miles and its colour is still bright. It’s a reminder of her, as she heads to the other side of the planet, and I disappear so thoroughly that I might as well have. Medical school was the final hammer-blow to that relationship, although the friendship that began our journey together somehow survived, and we part as friends with rueful glances.
A picture of my grandfather. An infantryman in the Second World War, he was so proud of my flying. Watching the aircraft overhead in the war, they’d represented a higher craft than he’d ever been able to do. He’d been almost a father to me as I grew up, and held me highest in his regard. I recall his disappointment when I stopped flying to pursue admission into medical school, and I was never able to express to him the driving urge, right at my core, that made any other path less fulfilling. He never heard that I got accepted–he died almost a year before that decision was made.
Piled high, endless textbooks, mementos of my academics over the years. Each yields a memory of where I lived when I took that course, and of the people I knew.
In a tin, military insignia, coins, and my beret. A host of images arises unbidden. Laughter, tears, struggle, and happiness. Voices from the past tease me, remind me of faces I knew in the service, scattered now across the country and the world.
My flight-bag. Old maps, a line marking the course of a flight. My headset. A set of wings. My log-book, most perilous of all.
Photographs–of friends, of family, of old lovers. Smiling at the camera, in eternal embraces in the light of yesterday’s sun. Each with its special feeling, each with a story known only to myself and one other.
I realise that, despite an almost pathological cynicism and well-accustomed enjoyment of solitude, my life is very much a collection of the things that have gone before. That each step I’ve taken has been witnessed by someone else, and thus the threads of our lives have intertwined. To do a thing is to simply do it, but to have one’s actions witnessed by others is to have meaning attached to what we’ve done. In some instances, the act of witnessing provokes little more than a laugh, or a frown of disapproval. In others–more rarely–our actions create a ripple effect that can quite literally redirect the lives of others. To reflect on those who have walked beside us for a while is, in some ways, to reflect on oneself.
Letting Go
And yet, despite this, one must eventually let go of the past, surrendering ourself to what we are today. Too often we live in the past, or in the future, never realising the full savour of the present moment. How strange it is that the gentle discipline of acceptance should be so wrought with difficulty and pain. To remember the happy times with past friends and lovers invites that heart-bound pang of regret that we no longer see their smiles or hear their laughter, and yet who would give up their memories to avoid that bittersweet pain?
Better then, to learn to appreciate what has come before without being bound to it. To accept that even the most hardcore, cynical, and absolutist amongst us have been shaped in some measure by past experiences, but also that we are not constrained by them. The ephemeral future contains immeasurable potential, and we cannot grasp it with both hands if we continue reaching one hand back into the past for what once was, or we wished once was.
When we have come to terms with our experience, when we have assimilated the lessons of past endeavours and come a place of peaceful gratitude for the good things we’ve experienced, then it is possible to live completely. Unbound by what came before, we can freely walk our path, open to what will come next.
And should we sometimes stop a while on our path, to linger over a person or time from our past, this too is okay. Though we have shrugged off the shackles of regret, we have not forgotten the value of those we loved or the experiences we’ve had. And if, briefly, we still experience a moment of sadness, we should understand that it’s because a particular person or experience was especially meaningful for us, and such momentary sadness is the price we pay for so valuable a thing.
Somewhere in Moscow
So there I was, watching the cold grey light of a new day filter through the windows of the luxurious Moscow apartment belonging to the exhausted Russian beauty laying next to me. Opening her eyes and seeing me awake, she stretched like a cat and then, nestling close, asked what was on my mind.
“I have one of the most read blogs on the planet,” I replied, “but I haven’t posted to it in some time.” Her eyes widened, clearly not understanding.
“But you’ve just saved the free world from a threat that, at the request of major world governments, the general populace will never know of.”
“I know.” I shook my head. “But those ungrateful bastards will undoubtedly assume that I’ve been sitting around watching re-runs of Scrubs while neglecting their clamouring for more of my words.”
“Surely your millions of readers must understand that a man of your calibre has limited time to dispense wisdom, in between world-saving military missions, paradigm-shifting scientific discoveries, and the complete satisfaction of women all over the world!” she cried.
“You’d think so,” I mused, “but I’ll make it up to them. While I was sitting here contemplating how to improve the bronzed magnificence of my rippling abs, I decided to solve the health-care crisis in the United States.”
“Incredible!” she breathed. “You satisfy me in every way, including intellectually! Can you tell me what the solution is?”
Of course I can.
It’s like this
There’s something like 47 million uninsured people in the nation, if the breathless caterwauling of the press is to be believed. In a completely unexpected turn of events, posturing by congressional politicians–who incidentally have a superb healthcare plan that shockingly isn’t available to the peasants general public–has been completely ineffective at solving, well, anything. Fortunately for you, faithful reader, I’m around to sort things out. My ridiculously powerful intellect will light the way, leaving politicians to pursue their own noble tasks (liquor and prostitutes) in their natural habitat (expensive hotel rooms). Bastards.
Economics
People with no real schooling and/or liberal arts degrees (but I repeat myself) can’t seem to grasp basic economic principles, such as supply and demand. Medical professionals, especially doctors, are in limited supply. This is going to become especially true once the baby-boomers truly start sucking the life out of the medical system, as they have for just about every other aspect of life as they’ve whined their way through their self-absorbed, self-righteous, petty little lives.
Doctors will become rarer than a straight model in an Aber-Crombie catalogue. For those of us holding the coveted title of doctor, it means that we’ll be able to demand high salaries, fast cars, and a hooker allowance in any employment contract. For you, the teeming masses of the sick, it means that you’ll either have no access to care, have access to care that will destroy everything you’ve built up over your lifetime, or you’ll be making friends with the strange, smelly guy in the ER who is perfectly content to spend twelve hours sitting there because it’s air-conditioned and the nurses have nice arses.
Not ideal, I think you’ll agree.
Thus, crying “free healthcare for everyone!” is not only moronic, but completely impossible. Not only does everything have a cost, but it ignores a very simple fact: when something is free, people don’t value it.
Incidentally, arguing that people have a “right” to healthcare is also grounds for being slapped like the weeping socialist that you are, because you can’t have a right to something that is the product of other people’s labour. This is called slavery and a lot of people have died to prevent this pestilential idea from spreading. Rights are inherent, and do not require other people. In the wilderness, you can exercise every real right: say what you like, worship as you choose, carry a weapon if you want, and wander around without restrictions. But try demanding that someone take care of your health needs in the middle of nowhere and you’ll suddenly understand that healthcare isn’t a right, it’s a service.
But shouldn’t we take care of each other?
You know, I really do think we should. But we need to do so rationally, taking into account the foibles of human nature that guarantee free-loading and abuse of the system if we allow it. First, we need to acknowledge some fundamental principles:
1) Medical professionals are in limited supply, perform a valuable service to the community, and are not our slaves.
2) When something is free, people will use/take it, even if they don’t really need it. There’s no motivation to preserve the resource, as self-interest trumps group interest in a phenomenon known as the Tragedy of the Commons.
3) Medical care costs money, which has to come from somewhere. There is no free ride.
4) We, as a society, have to decide where our priorities lie. What do we want our society to look like?
Fair enough, I’m ready to hear the solution.
Two problems exist with the current system.
For those paying for medical care, it’s ridiculously expensive. Insurance often will not cover the full costs of procedures and, in an effort to increase profits for shareholders, will often dictate medical decisions that they have absolutely no business being involved with. For those without health insurance, especially those with major health problems (e.g. cancer), medical treatment can wipe out a lifetime’s worth of work and cause people to lose their homes.
In contrast, those who have their medical bills paid for by various government programs have little incentive to limit their use of the medical system. The slightest health-problem, even if caused by poor life-style choices, can be presented to a physician for little more than the cost of their time. The payment scheme of these programs towards physicians is appalling at best, involving labyrinthine paperwork (for which the physician is not paid) and time-consuming hoops through which the harassed doctor must jump. Unsurprisingly, primary physicians are telling the Medicare program and its ilk to get stuffed at an ever-increasing rate. Good luck finding a medical doctor willing to put up with such idiocy in ten years.
That wasn’t a solution.
Shut up, I’m getting to it. Those of you with college degrees that didn’t have classes in which you talked about your feelings will be familiar with the concept of a rationing mechanism. Essentially, we need a filter to take a limited resource and ensure that it reaches the people who really need it. Simultaneously, we need to ensure that people with serious health problems don’t shy away from seeking medical care due to cost considerations. In short, we need to decide that we, as a society, want a country in which no-one loses their life-savings or their house due to an illness, but also a country in which the lives of the working populace aren’t sacrificed upon the altar of the sick, old, or infirm.
How can such an impossible task be accomplished, you ask? Can even my piercing intellect truly have a solution? Yes indeed.
A two-tiered system.
One of the tiers will be a comprehensive catastrophic national heathcare system, paid for by increased taxes. Socialists, you can hug yourself for joy now, if you like. Capitalists, I’d remind you of the concept of value for value. There is no free ride, and increased taxes are the price we’d have to pay for such a society as I described above. Fortunately, the tax rate wouldn’t have to be nearly as high as is seen in Europe, because I’m smarter than that.
The rationing mechanism for the national healthcare system would be the health problems themselves. I’m not entirely sure when the line would be drawn, but I’m thinking probably anything more serious than a simple fracture of the arm, or long-term illnesses such as Lupus. Such injuries are self-limiting, as few people deliberately get into serious car accidents, develop cancer, or have a heart-attack.
And the second tier?
Is the one that deals with everyday medical care and the part that makes this whole thing so bloody brilliant. For everything less serious than an arm fracture (say), such as coughs, colds, flu, and so on, medical care would be a purely private system. Families would still have health insurance, but it would be drastically more affordable (I’m talking like $10 a month) because there would be no possibility of the health-insurance company having to pay out exorbitant sums of money for major medical problems.
With a small co-pay for each doctor visit (say, $5 to $10), the rationing mechanism is that people are suddenly drastically less likely to visit the doctor for a minor cold that will go away by itself with a few bowls of hot soup and a day in bed. For those who couldn’t afford even that small amount, the cost is low enough that community groups (churches and the like) could afford to help out the truly needy. Suddenly, the community is taking care of itself again.
The final change I’d make is to require all health insurance companies to be non-profit. Now, I’m a hardcore capitalist in many ways, but insurance companies haven’t been subject to actual capitalist economic pressures for a very long time and they’ve abused their position. The current situation, in which the cost of patient care is competing with the interests of shareholders is intolerable and must not continue.
I’m…stunned.
Of course you are. This comprehensive overhaul will drastically reduce the workload of the primary care system and remove one of the main reasons why new physicians are shunning that speciality. It provides a rationing mechanism for basic care, allowing full access to healthcare at an affordable price while avoiding the mess that a full-on socialised healthcare system has wrought in Europe. It simultaneously allows people to work and live without worrying about losing everything if they are injured or become sick, creating a society in which we all look out for each other when things get serious.
Of course, you realise that this will never happen.
Probably not, but I might send along a copy to the Obamarama team on the off-chance they’re looking for ideas. In all likelihood though, it’ll only happen when I am King.
