Hi again my friends. Always thinking of you and wishing things could have gone differently, that your parents and teachers (and government 'leaders') could have allowed you to inherit more goodness, and less of the trash, depravity and errors that they have left you to cope with and hopefully start to clean up. I really wish all this crap had not fell upon you, but it was the previous two generations choices.
Anyway, rather than a case study, I thought of two questions for you to ponder. These questions sum up a lot of what I've written about in developing faith and developing reasoning skills.
Question One:
Which is better: If you know someone is doing something wrong or dangerous, do you speak to them about it and risk "hurting their feelings," "being judgmental," or "sounding like a dork," OR do you stay silent for either the above reasons or with thinly disguised glee, as you hope that something bad happens to them and they "get what they deserve?" Your parents and teachers by far selected the second choice.
Question Two:
Which is better: To go to a highly qualified doctor, counselor or spiritual director when one ails, or to insist that you only go to someone who has had the same illness as you? In other words, if you have a broken leg, refuse to allow any doctor or nurse who has not had a broken limb treat you? If you are an addict, insist only on ex-addicts? If you don't believe in God, go to someone else who does not believe in God? If you have swine flu, hold out, don't go to the ER, unless you know the doctors there have had the swine flu themselves? If you fall off a mountain and crush your bones, with your last breath insist that they phone ahead to the hospital and make sure that only mountain climbing members are on staff? Your parents and teachers by far selected the second choice.
Artists and writers looking for good ideas, you can select one of those scenarios and write a short story, or produce a work of art, contrasting the two alternative choices in some specific setting. Or even just write the outline or sketch of how it would develop. Like the cornucopia exercise, if you feel some sort of urge to "defend" the second choice, that's OK, it's free speech after all (LOL!) but use it as a thinking detox tool and ask yourself, why you have the urge to defend the second choice...and see if that is some latent programming by those who firmly embrace that view for kooky reasons.
Let's use the silly example of the fallen mountain climber. You might have an inkling of doubt as you kind of mock the second scenario, thinking, "Well, might not mountain climbing doctors have 'better understanding' of mountain fall injuries?" Test that theory. As the dude or dudette is laying there crushed on the mountain, you might think, well, only mountain climbers are coming to rescue him or her, no? So why not mountain climbing doctors at the hospital? Oh, I see. So if a non-mountain climbing pilot flies his non-mountain climbing rescue team to the injured person and winches them down (hence not needing mountain climbing skills) and then lifts the person in a basket (hence not needing mountain climbing skills), I guess you'd recommend the injured person wave off the helicopter since they aren't "authentic mountain climbers" and "would not understand?" So if you start to fall or seep into that trap use this tip that I've shown you, which is to compare that form of thinking to various scenarios of reality. No one in their right mind would wave away a faster helicopter rescue because the rescuers don't "share the same experience" and have the same "cred" as the injured.
Then, think ahead to the hospital. OK, suppose the injured argues that only a mountain climbing doctor should treat him or her, because that doctor would "better understand" the patient and his or her "reality." Oooooook, so let's think of a reality based scenario. Maybe that patients refuses treatment by a non-mountain climbing doctor, not realizing that this doctor, however, has gone to earthquake areas and set many fractured bones with greater expertise than anyone else. The injured dummy would just have turned down someone with vast and rare experience in exactly their injury, just because the patient thinks only a carbon copy of him or herself can treat him or her. Duh.
I know this is a ridiculous example but it's not all that far from the truth, unfortunately. I see that a lot in medicine, most obviously in the areas of mental health, but oddly enough, also in the areas of disease and physical ailments. It's scary, the mindset that I am pointing out here, and the cause of much of the alienation and gloominess in society today. When people are constantly categorizing themselves and others based on large traits, small traits and/or imaginary traits, they inevitably alienate themselves and others. This, by the way, is one reason why cults isolate members so much. It's both elitism and fear of alternate doctrines, but underlying all of it is an obsessive compulsive disorder to categorize people. Young people, instead of growing up in groovy times where all are equal (as all the major faiths teach), you've grown up in times that categorize to such an insane degree that no one really ever really belongs in any group, and you see that with tragic results in the school systems, in gangs, and in prejudice.
Another example of what I mean you can test yourself with by thinking how like a kind of code language or short hand you immediately know "what kind of person" someone is by what brand of clothes they wear. That is far different from when I grew up, when it was really "cool clothes" or "not cool clothes," or "has money for clothes" or "does not have money for clothes." You young people actually know a lot about each other if you just hear a few brand labels about what the other person is wearing. For example, in my day we didn't have punks who dressed punk. In my day we had punks, some of whom could afford cool clothes. Do you see what I mean? And we had cool kids who brought very cheap no label jeans because they just refused to spend the money on a label brand. But today, you have so much ridiculous categorizing that all it does is depress, promote anxiety, alienate and ultimately provide very bad medicine, rather than unifying and promoting genuine individuality. It's scary what is happening, even though I use benign and silly examples here.
I want to keep this thoughtful but relatively light, so I won't go off into more doomsday hand wringing, but I'm counting on you young people to be strong enough to take a look at what I am saying and start to ask yourselves some very serious questions about what attitudes you've been taught are really solid and worthy, and what is bogus crap.
Showing posts with label medicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label medicine. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Dealing with feelings of "unreality," "alienation"
Everyone has that occasional moment of feeling somewhat unreal. To put it simply, it is normal because it is like a brain "hiccup." You usually are not aware of what brought that moment on, but usually there was some outside stimulus that is unconscious to you. Like the feeling of deja vu, it is a burp, just a bit of a disruption in how the brain perceives what is actually going on, and it just lasts for a minute.
Deja vu (the "I've been here before") feeling, by the way, is also easily explained. Let me address that because when it happens some people get all paranoid about its "meaning." Rather than a "burp" or a "hiccup" like unreal or alienated feelings, deja vu is a momentary case of misidentification by the brain. You know how you get a glimpse of someone in a crowd and think you know who it is, but then realize it is not he or she? Well, the reason humans have such superior intellect and brain capacity (compared to animals) is that human brains are built for speed, to do very rapid processing, and brains are wired to do very rapid "pattern matching." Thus one can see an automobile and not each and every time go, "Hmm, what is that object? It has wheels and an ignition and a passenger cab. Ah, it must be a car!" Imagine if you had to think all that through every time you saw an auto! Instead, your brain rapidly "pattern matches." Your brain has pictures stored within it of things you already know, and when you see something it quickly compares what you are seeing to what it has in storage. When it sees a match it assumes, but tells you with certainty, that it is what it is. Deja vu happens when something that you see, or are feeling, or experiencing matches very closely, but incorrectly, something in your brain's picture gallery and memory bank. So you have a "deja vu" feeling that you have been there before, but that is because your brain jumped to a conclusion of familiarity because it found a weak match with a portion of something you have already seen before, or felt, but would not at all think they are alike if someone asked you. Your brain-all brains-once in a while make mistakes. So that's the deja vu problem. Let's get back to the main topic of feelings of unreality or alienation.
Before I explain how the "burp" or "hiccup" occurs, let's start with a clean table of understanding how things work normally when one is a living being, in a state of being alive within a real world. As I've mentioned in my recent blog about addictions, you gain a lot of information and solid grounding in wisdom when you remember that humans and animals share common biology. Animals and humans both have to breathe, eat, ingest fluids, have bodies that are composed of hard and soft tissue, internal organs, a way to reproduce, a way to move and so forth. Humans are basically animals with really big brains and a body that promote agility. (By that I mean, imagine a really smart dinosaur; even if he was really smart, without clever little fingers etc I doubt he could ever build a computer microchip! :-)
So you have to observe animals to understand humans, yourself, since it is like looking in a mirror. Do animals ever doubt their reality? No, they do not; they never doubt their reality. Ha, I can hear you saying, "You can't prove that!" Yes I can. Time for that time honored but forgotten and abused talent called logic and reasoning.
If a living being doubts their reality, this causes confusion in their state of being, obviously, since the person, for that moment, is not even sure if he or she "is real" or is "really part of this world." When one has that "burp," one usually stops what one is doing and mulls it over. The normal response is to realize that while creepy and unpleasant, it is just a burp and move on. The goofy and all too common response is to get whack job cultish, and get together with other paranoid people and worry "what if we are all really movies being shown on a projector," or "what if I'm imagining this," or "I must be remembering a 'past life' or a 'spirit being'" blah blah blah. It's like if you burped or hiccup you run out to find other people to see if they ever burp or hiccup, and when you find out they do, you go "Ah ha! Gosh! I knew it meant something." Then instead of researching how the lungs work and why burps happen you assume that little invisible aliens must be squeezing you with their cute webbed hands, "trying to get your attention." Ah, if only I was really joking, but sadly I am not.
So if animals had feelings of unreality, how would they cope with the sudden and harsh reality of life in nature, which, as we know, "is red in tooth and claw?" OK, now you are watching a nature show, such as one that shows African wildlife. You know that a scene of a lion stalking prey, such as a small wildebeest, is de rigour for such shows. How many times do you see the following?
Scene one: Lion sneaks up on potential prey, a grazing wildebeest.
Scene two: Lion makes a noise and gives away its presence, or it makes its move and leaps and runs toward the wildebeest. Either way the wildebeest is now aware of the lion.
Scene three: The wildebeest has a moment of "alienation" and "unreality," and wonders if it is real and/or if the lion is real (even though it is smelling, hearing and seeing lion with big teeth and claws in a dead run at it).
You don't have to "know" what an animal is "really" "thinking," because with animals all you need to do is observe what they do. Modern humans (not even traditional humans) are the only ones who think the obvious over and wonder about it. Why is this? Because it is what we call a "survival trait" not to think things over, but to quickly act to preserve life, while it is an anti-survival trait to think about whether or not the lion is real that is bearing down upon you and about to rip you apart. What human stands in the middle of a road and wonders if the bus that is about to run him or her over is "real," or if he or she is "really there." The answer is usually, "No one except the mentally ill or someone ingesting or abusing a substance." Mental illness, substance abuse, and some of the effects of a highly unreal media diet are the primary reasons for chronic, over analyzed and misunderstood feelings of "alienation" or "being unreal."
There is no species of animal that would last for the hundreds of thousands (and often tens of millions) of years that they have lasted as a species if any or all of them had "feelings of alienation and unreality." Any species that had such feelings would quickly die out if they were at all prevalent. First of all, animals have nothing to compare reality to in the first place, since animals have no conception of unreality. Animals do not understand that something is "made up" and thus "not real." Animals are entirely rooted in reality. But just so you understand, let's suppose that one wildebeest with too big a brain or who watched too much TV did have a feeling of "unreality" or "alienation." So he wonders if that lion that is leaping upon him is "real," or if he is "real." Yeppers, you guessed it. That wildebeest would become lunch for the lion and would never pass his overly clever but stupid genes onto future wildebeests. Any anti-survival trait is stomped on by the reality of nature, whether individually or as a species. Once an animal does anything that is not one hundred percent in response to reality, it is a goner and so are its potential offspring. So we can see from thousands of years of intelligent observation of animals by humans that animals are entirely reality based. Thus the cure, the detox, for people who have persistent self induced feelings of unreality are to reconnect with reality and get over yourself.
Why do I say "get over yourself?" Because almost always, unless the person is truly mentally ill, they have a grandiose feeling of having stumbled onto some great hidden "truth" when they have these "mysterious" "feelings." The answer, of course, is to let the moment of the brain burp or hiccup pass and simply reconnect with reality. People do try to self heal, and so the instinct to reconnect with reality is there, even in the nuttiest of people who deliberately cultivate their moments like this (again, I'm not speaking of the genuinely mentally ill who need to be understood in their confusion and treated with great kindness and appropriate medicine).
So the correct thing to do is to reconnect with normal reality. The incorrect thing to do is connect with an overstimulated and equal artificial "reality."
Stupid approach: "I have these feelings of unreality! I think I was a space angel! Or maybe I am not really here! Or maybe you are not really here! So I guess if I jump off a cliff I will find out!" *Splat*
Correct approach: Do something that you know is when you are least likely to have these feelings. If you cannot do it at the moment, then recall it in your mind or with a friend in conversation. Here's a perfect example. People rarely have inflated feelings of "alienation" or "unreality" when they are waiting in a long, slow line for something they either really want (a new release of a video game, etc) or are really dreading (motor vehicle bureau, inland revenue office, etc.). Notice you and your pals do not feel "unreal" when you are eagerly waiting for something that is a real treat, like that new video game or concert tickets. Equally you do not feel "unreal" when you are dreading with each step what the auditor is going to say to you about your taxes when it is your turn at the head of the line.
See, humans, up until the last one hundred years, like animals, could not escape mundane reality and thus never doubted it. When you have to go and hoe the crops by hand every day or your family will starve to death (really), you are so "connected with the earth" and "reality" that people simply never had those weird burps or hiccups. Again, one does not feel "unreal" unless someone has something to compare it to. Before there were movies, TV, radio, books, the printing press, etc, people did not have an "unreal" to think that they may be part of in the first place! People (and their brains) were always totally in reality since that is all that was offered to them. Again, going back to animals. A giraffe does not have a moment when he imagines he is "not really there" or is "maybe a carp instead" because he does not have the experience of what being something else, or of something being "real" or "imaginary" is like! I mean, duh! It's only when humans started to 1) isolate themselves from reality, since they no longer had to toil each day, unless one is still in those "less developed" "regions," in reality, to prevent the very reality of one's family starving to death and 2) started being exposed, through books (such as fiction, which are lies in print, LOL) and later electronic media to things that are totally imaginary and unreal.
By the way, most of you probably know without realizing it that one of the first things one does to someone he or she is torturing is to disrupt their connection with reality.
So to reconnect with reality one should really study animals as they are, and observe how they are entirely real and of the real world. Then remember that humans are still biologically like animals and hence are very connected to reality too (I doubt many people thought that they were imagining being swept away in the Asian tsunami). The third thing to do, then, is to accept the occasional brain "burps," but don't over analyze it as if you are something special (the tsunami swept away "smart" and "dumb" people alike). That "I am special" is a real problem to good mental health and logical living. So the fourth thing is to work on one's humility. The fifth thing to do is not to ingest substance that inflates one's ego or further disrupts one's connection with reality. As I pointed out in the addictions post, you don't see animals seeking medications; they are one hundred percent reality based. Not only don't animals seek mind altering medications, but they do not seek out physical medications, such as when they are wounded. Why is that? Because animals are entirely reality based and so they learn reality coping mechanisms. For example, if afflicted by flies or other insect pests, animals might roll in the mud, in the sand or immerse in water. They respond reality-to-reality (pest reality-barrier to pest reality). They don't wait around to get bitten and then seek out a pain medication. Animals are evolved to endure the reality and to have coping and survival mechanisms.
So humans have to be very careful in modern times to not become so disconnected from reality, and then worse, be a paranoid carrier of inflated beliefs about "alienation" and "unreality" so that others self reinforce, because society and life choices are increasingly disconnected, yet reality never goes away. Reality is reality because it is real, LOL. I mean, duh. So you can imagine and feel all unreal and alienated until you do get caught in a tsunami, or the bills aren't paid so your satellite TV is disconnected and you can't imagine that the series "Stargate" "might be real," because now your real family and your real rear end is about to be kicked out of your real house because your real mortgage did not get paid to the real banker with the real outstretched hand because your real boss really did fire you from your real job!
I hope this helped. Really.
;-)
Deja vu (the "I've been here before") feeling, by the way, is also easily explained. Let me address that because when it happens some people get all paranoid about its "meaning." Rather than a "burp" or a "hiccup" like unreal or alienated feelings, deja vu is a momentary case of misidentification by the brain. You know how you get a glimpse of someone in a crowd and think you know who it is, but then realize it is not he or she? Well, the reason humans have such superior intellect and brain capacity (compared to animals) is that human brains are built for speed, to do very rapid processing, and brains are wired to do very rapid "pattern matching." Thus one can see an automobile and not each and every time go, "Hmm, what is that object? It has wheels and an ignition and a passenger cab. Ah, it must be a car!" Imagine if you had to think all that through every time you saw an auto! Instead, your brain rapidly "pattern matches." Your brain has pictures stored within it of things you already know, and when you see something it quickly compares what you are seeing to what it has in storage. When it sees a match it assumes, but tells you with certainty, that it is what it is. Deja vu happens when something that you see, or are feeling, or experiencing matches very closely, but incorrectly, something in your brain's picture gallery and memory bank. So you have a "deja vu" feeling that you have been there before, but that is because your brain jumped to a conclusion of familiarity because it found a weak match with a portion of something you have already seen before, or felt, but would not at all think they are alike if someone asked you. Your brain-all brains-once in a while make mistakes. So that's the deja vu problem. Let's get back to the main topic of feelings of unreality or alienation.
Before I explain how the "burp" or "hiccup" occurs, let's start with a clean table of understanding how things work normally when one is a living being, in a state of being alive within a real world. As I've mentioned in my recent blog about addictions, you gain a lot of information and solid grounding in wisdom when you remember that humans and animals share common biology. Animals and humans both have to breathe, eat, ingest fluids, have bodies that are composed of hard and soft tissue, internal organs, a way to reproduce, a way to move and so forth. Humans are basically animals with really big brains and a body that promote agility. (By that I mean, imagine a really smart dinosaur; even if he was really smart, without clever little fingers etc I doubt he could ever build a computer microchip! :-)
So you have to observe animals to understand humans, yourself, since it is like looking in a mirror. Do animals ever doubt their reality? No, they do not; they never doubt their reality. Ha, I can hear you saying, "You can't prove that!" Yes I can. Time for that time honored but forgotten and abused talent called logic and reasoning.
If a living being doubts their reality, this causes confusion in their state of being, obviously, since the person, for that moment, is not even sure if he or she "is real" or is "really part of this world." When one has that "burp," one usually stops what one is doing and mulls it over. The normal response is to realize that while creepy and unpleasant, it is just a burp and move on. The goofy and all too common response is to get whack job cultish, and get together with other paranoid people and worry "what if we are all really movies being shown on a projector," or "what if I'm imagining this," or "I must be remembering a 'past life' or a 'spirit being'" blah blah blah. It's like if you burped or hiccup you run out to find other people to see if they ever burp or hiccup, and when you find out they do, you go "Ah ha! Gosh! I knew it meant something." Then instead of researching how the lungs work and why burps happen you assume that little invisible aliens must be squeezing you with their cute webbed hands, "trying to get your attention." Ah, if only I was really joking, but sadly I am not.
So if animals had feelings of unreality, how would they cope with the sudden and harsh reality of life in nature, which, as we know, "is red in tooth and claw?" OK, now you are watching a nature show, such as one that shows African wildlife. You know that a scene of a lion stalking prey, such as a small wildebeest, is de rigour for such shows. How many times do you see the following?
Scene one: Lion sneaks up on potential prey, a grazing wildebeest.
Scene two: Lion makes a noise and gives away its presence, or it makes its move and leaps and runs toward the wildebeest. Either way the wildebeest is now aware of the lion.
Scene three: The wildebeest has a moment of "alienation" and "unreality," and wonders if it is real and/or if the lion is real (even though it is smelling, hearing and seeing lion with big teeth and claws in a dead run at it).
You don't have to "know" what an animal is "really" "thinking," because with animals all you need to do is observe what they do. Modern humans (not even traditional humans) are the only ones who think the obvious over and wonder about it. Why is this? Because it is what we call a "survival trait" not to think things over, but to quickly act to preserve life, while it is an anti-survival trait to think about whether or not the lion is real that is bearing down upon you and about to rip you apart. What human stands in the middle of a road and wonders if the bus that is about to run him or her over is "real," or if he or she is "really there." The answer is usually, "No one except the mentally ill or someone ingesting or abusing a substance." Mental illness, substance abuse, and some of the effects of a highly unreal media diet are the primary reasons for chronic, over analyzed and misunderstood feelings of "alienation" or "being unreal."
There is no species of animal that would last for the hundreds of thousands (and often tens of millions) of years that they have lasted as a species if any or all of them had "feelings of alienation and unreality." Any species that had such feelings would quickly die out if they were at all prevalent. First of all, animals have nothing to compare reality to in the first place, since animals have no conception of unreality. Animals do not understand that something is "made up" and thus "not real." Animals are entirely rooted in reality. But just so you understand, let's suppose that one wildebeest with too big a brain or who watched too much TV did have a feeling of "unreality" or "alienation." So he wonders if that lion that is leaping upon him is "real," or if he is "real." Yeppers, you guessed it. That wildebeest would become lunch for the lion and would never pass his overly clever but stupid genes onto future wildebeests. Any anti-survival trait is stomped on by the reality of nature, whether individually or as a species. Once an animal does anything that is not one hundred percent in response to reality, it is a goner and so are its potential offspring. So we can see from thousands of years of intelligent observation of animals by humans that animals are entirely reality based. Thus the cure, the detox, for people who have persistent self induced feelings of unreality are to reconnect with reality and get over yourself.
Why do I say "get over yourself?" Because almost always, unless the person is truly mentally ill, they have a grandiose feeling of having stumbled onto some great hidden "truth" when they have these "mysterious" "feelings." The answer, of course, is to let the moment of the brain burp or hiccup pass and simply reconnect with reality. People do try to self heal, and so the instinct to reconnect with reality is there, even in the nuttiest of people who deliberately cultivate their moments like this (again, I'm not speaking of the genuinely mentally ill who need to be understood in their confusion and treated with great kindness and appropriate medicine).
So the correct thing to do is to reconnect with normal reality. The incorrect thing to do is connect with an overstimulated and equal artificial "reality."
Stupid approach: "I have these feelings of unreality! I think I was a space angel! Or maybe I am not really here! Or maybe you are not really here! So I guess if I jump off a cliff I will find out!" *Splat*
Correct approach: Do something that you know is when you are least likely to have these feelings. If you cannot do it at the moment, then recall it in your mind or with a friend in conversation. Here's a perfect example. People rarely have inflated feelings of "alienation" or "unreality" when they are waiting in a long, slow line for something they either really want (a new release of a video game, etc) or are really dreading (motor vehicle bureau, inland revenue office, etc.). Notice you and your pals do not feel "unreal" when you are eagerly waiting for something that is a real treat, like that new video game or concert tickets. Equally you do not feel "unreal" when you are dreading with each step what the auditor is going to say to you about your taxes when it is your turn at the head of the line.
See, humans, up until the last one hundred years, like animals, could not escape mundane reality and thus never doubted it. When you have to go and hoe the crops by hand every day or your family will starve to death (really), you are so "connected with the earth" and "reality" that people simply never had those weird burps or hiccups. Again, one does not feel "unreal" unless someone has something to compare it to. Before there were movies, TV, radio, books, the printing press, etc, people did not have an "unreal" to think that they may be part of in the first place! People (and their brains) were always totally in reality since that is all that was offered to them. Again, going back to animals. A giraffe does not have a moment when he imagines he is "not really there" or is "maybe a carp instead" because he does not have the experience of what being something else, or of something being "real" or "imaginary" is like! I mean, duh! It's only when humans started to 1) isolate themselves from reality, since they no longer had to toil each day, unless one is still in those "less developed" "regions," in reality, to prevent the very reality of one's family starving to death and 2) started being exposed, through books (such as fiction, which are lies in print, LOL) and later electronic media to things that are totally imaginary and unreal.
By the way, most of you probably know without realizing it that one of the first things one does to someone he or she is torturing is to disrupt their connection with reality.
So to reconnect with reality one should really study animals as they are, and observe how they are entirely real and of the real world. Then remember that humans are still biologically like animals and hence are very connected to reality too (I doubt many people thought that they were imagining being swept away in the Asian tsunami). The third thing to do, then, is to accept the occasional brain "burps," but don't over analyze it as if you are something special (the tsunami swept away "smart" and "dumb" people alike). That "I am special" is a real problem to good mental health and logical living. So the fourth thing is to work on one's humility. The fifth thing to do is not to ingest substance that inflates one's ego or further disrupts one's connection with reality. As I pointed out in the addictions post, you don't see animals seeking medications; they are one hundred percent reality based. Not only don't animals seek mind altering medications, but they do not seek out physical medications, such as when they are wounded. Why is that? Because animals are entirely reality based and so they learn reality coping mechanisms. For example, if afflicted by flies or other insect pests, animals might roll in the mud, in the sand or immerse in water. They respond reality-to-reality (pest reality-barrier to pest reality). They don't wait around to get bitten and then seek out a pain medication. Animals are evolved to endure the reality and to have coping and survival mechanisms.
So humans have to be very careful in modern times to not become so disconnected from reality, and then worse, be a paranoid carrier of inflated beliefs about "alienation" and "unreality" so that others self reinforce, because society and life choices are increasingly disconnected, yet reality never goes away. Reality is reality because it is real, LOL. I mean, duh. So you can imagine and feel all unreal and alienated until you do get caught in a tsunami, or the bills aren't paid so your satellite TV is disconnected and you can't imagine that the series "Stargate" "might be real," because now your real family and your real rear end is about to be kicked out of your real house because your real mortgage did not get paid to the real banker with the real outstretched hand because your real boss really did fire you from your real job!
I hope this helped. Really.
;-)
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Why all mind altering drugs so dangerous
I've blogged about this before, but a complicated and urgent topic like this benefits from discussion that approaches it from several angles, so you better understand it. I've had this angle of explanation on my mind for a while so here is a quick sketch of the problem with mind altering drugs. This is a problem whether it is illegal drugs or abuse of prescription drugs, and whether it is so called "mild" drugs like supposedly marijuana is believed to be by many (wrongly) or the extreme drugs such as crack cocaine.
First, think about what it is like to be a normal human in a normal human body. From the faith side we know that humans are created in God's image and thus have a high ideal that is within their reach... they need not debase themselves. From the reasoning point of view humans can observe that putting aside their being in God's image, they share biology with animals. In other words, all the same basic principles of biology (how the body, limbs, organs, blood, nerves, brain etc work) are shared between humans and animals. One need not even get into the old evolution argument to understand that humans and animals operate according to the same biological principles and chemistry.
Humans, and animals, achieved their current form because they have adapted to the environment in which they live. They gather and eat the food and drink the water that they can find and that they need, they tolerate the weather, temperatures and other external conditions, and they tend to maximize their success at forming relationships and having offspring.
So, using this logic, you need to understand that you can learn a great deal about what is genuinely healthy and authentic for human minds and bodies by observing animals, since they both succeed on the same principles.
I'm going to cut to the chase and tell you where I am headed with this logical development. The problem with mind altering drugs is that they overstimulate activity within the human mind and body. I am not talking about the immediate effect of ingesting a drug, whether it makes a person stimulated or lethargic. I am speaking about the basic nature of drugs, which is to emphasize continual reactivity. Reactivity, as in being in a constant state of action and reaction, is the word I will use, but you can think of being overstimulated as a handy slang word for what I am trying to convey.
Let's start with a simple analogy. Suppose that a human for some reason spends a day being immersed in water (bathing, swimming, whatever) while at the same time drinking lots of beverages. What is the effect of being within an extraordinary amount of water? You get moist, LOL. Water's nature is to make something wet. You become "wet" both on the outside, as you splash around in water droplets, and on the inside, where you are highly hydrated and have to go and pee alot. The nature of water is to make something moist.
The nature of drugs-all drugs-is to cause a reaction, to change the status quo. I mean, that is obvious, no? If you have a headache, you want to change the status quo, so you take an aspirin. The "job," the "nature" of a drug, therefore, is to go to work at changing your body in some way. How does this change occur? The drug causes an action and a reaction. Suppose someone throws water in your face. That is an action as the water attaches itself to you. You then flinch, close your eyes, turn aside, maybe shake your head, and grab a towel. Those are all reactions. Drugs work the same way. Once they are ingested, like the aspirin, they go into the bloodstream (the action) and then cause the body to react to its presence.
So let's personalize these inanimate objects. The nature and job of water is to make something "moist." The nature and job of a drug is to cause a cycle of action and reaction.
Humans are not meant to be in a state of constant action and reaction. It's not coincidence that animals spend a lot of their time basically doing nothing, with then spurts of energy when necessary to chase food (or run from being food), to find water, to dig for food or shelter, and to produce young and feed them. Humans, being based on the same biology as animals, have evolved and adapted so that they are not optimally intended to be in a constant state of action and reaction.
The more a person takes drugs of any kind, the more their body is in an unconscious expectation to be in cycles of action and reaction. Just as if you were always wet on your skin, and then your skin gets all wrinkly and prune textured on the outside, if you take drugs of any kind, beneficial or harmful, on your "inside" your body starts to expect to be in a constant state of action, reaction, action, reaction, etc.
You can see that following this logic and understanding that a person who occasionally takes several or many different kinds of medicines or drugs has the same risk of this type of change as the person who "only" takes one drug frequently. Remember, I am not speaking of the type of "trip" or reactions that the person has to the drug. I am speaking of the body being trained to not feel "normal" unless is it being constantly urged by a foreign ingested internal substance to act, react, act, react.
So a law abiding normal person who takes an occasional pain reliever, some medicine for other conditions, a number of so called "health supplements," and maybe something "special" for, let's say, erectile dysfunction has the same problem that someone who doesn't take any drug except they huff on dope all the time. Remember, I'm not speaking of the purpose and thus the results of the medicine or drug. I am speaking of the expectation that is created in the body of each person that some substance is going to be given to it, causing an action and a reaction, in a cycle. Both bodies, the normal person and the illegal drug user, now have bodies that "expect" action and reaction.
This then is the great problem with mind altering drugs. Not only the body but now the mind also becomes changed away from its basic natural nature (humans and animals who take no medicine or drugs), to a body that stops functioning the way it should because now it factors in that it expects to be frequently active and reactive in its chemistry.
Caution! I am not saying taking medicine is bad and please do not make any changes in your medication without consulting with a genuine and rational physician! I do not hesitate to take aspirin, for example, when I have an occasional headache or muscle ache. And also one of the great blessings of medicine is to treat conditions such as diabetes.
But there is a difference between, for example, medication that makes up for a natural body deficiency, and one that introduces a new function. For example, many people died of diabetes before insulin was discovered, a natural product of the body, and manufactured, for those who could not make enough of their own insulin. This is an example of medicine that is given to make up for a lack of that function in the body, but it is a function that the body has evolved to know and to expect to have.
Medicine that is a foreign substance (not what the body naturally produces) stimulates the action and reaction response, and that is the whole point, of course, and there is nothing wrong with that. The whole field of chemistry is the study of actions and reactions. Substances that do not react are called "inert," by the way. So a medicine causes an action on the area that you or your physician is trying to change (like relieve pain) and then there is a reaction.
So here is what I am saying. Even if you are taking a drug that causes you to be lazy, sleepy or low functioning, on the "inside" your body is busier than it ever was. This is because it is active inside within a state of action/reaction as the drug does its work, since that is its nature. The reason you are sleepy on the outside is that the drug and your internal organs are "busy" inside. So regardless if the drug is stimulating or depressing of functions, on the "inside" your brain and your body are accelerated in their level of activity. The mind and the body start to "adapt," just as it would adapt if you were constantly doused with water, where the mind and body now start to "expect" an increased and eventually a continual state of action/reaction, even if you are not ingesting a drug at the time. The body and the mind now start a pressure and a "countdown" to when it will next be stimulated and "busy," internally. That is the trap of the addict, and this is what I mean in previous blog postings when I explain that eventually the drug's "personality" has taken over the addict's, even if the addict is not high.
This is because whether medicine or illegal drug, once the body and mind have experienced the drug's action/reaction, it prepares and anticipates the next cycle of that action/reaction. We know an innocent example of this when people become "used to" their medications and the medicine is not as effective as it used to be. We know the not so innocent example of this when people, even when they do not realize it, are "counting down" inside, no matter what activity they are engaged in, waiting for the next cigarette, the next hit, or the next dosing. It's not just the craving that I am describing. I am explaining that the body and mind now expect to "get to work" in that special way it has learned, which is action/reaction.
Think of your inner mind and body like a perfect factory that used to leisurely produce on the assembly line a nice normal average day. One one starts ingesting drugs, it is like the assembly line now retools because it learned that sometimes half of the supplies it needs are missing, but it gets double the supplies that it needs in another part of the assembly line. So instead of having a normal day of let's say A+B+C, A+B+C, A+B+C, where you have just the right amount of A's and B's and C's to put together predictable and successful chains of A+B+C, your body now gets a whole bunch of C's sent to it, before the A and the B's arrive, and when they do arrive they are out of order. The body and mind are cleaver, though, and they learn how to cope with being thrown a lot of C's so that you can use them up, A+B+C+C+C, A+B+C, A+B+C+C+C, etc.... and you can also get used to missing some of the A's or B's.... so your body may go C+C, A+B+C, C+C+C, B+C+C......
But what if A is restfulness and peace of mind? What if B is proper nutrition? And what if C is stimulation? Your body retools to deal with whatever it is dealt, and even develops a sort of glee at how great it can handle it. (That is because under stress adrenaline is released, so even when something bad internally is going on, if you "handle it" you feel a kind of superior rush and glee). That is the horrible problem of becoming accustomed to internal chemical action/reaction and thus overstimulation, even though the drug you take may be a depressant on the outside.
Look at the speculation about what happened to Michael Jackson. He, like everyone else, is born with a body and a mind that expects A+B+C. But somehow, let's say due to his accident, or due to his false beliefs, he has trauma that results in a physical ailment, such as insomnia. If A in our example is peace of mind, somewhere along the line his A was disrupted. (No jokes about "A" please! Let's pretend we are all more mature than twelve year olds.) So due to a trauma or bad lifestyle choices, his A+B+C is disrupted. He then takes increasingly stronger drugs to help him sleep or whatever, which then throws a ton of "C" into his body. His already stressed A of peace of mind is now totally neglected because by using the drugs he has given up on treating the core problem and restoring A+B+C. His body now becomes used to, and at times gleeful, to doing "without" A. He may be sad on the outside and in his heart, but his body chemistry, since the body is a wonderful thing, becomes inflated, superior feeling and gleeful at "handling" all that C and just doing without enough A (peace of mind), which is what got him in the problem in the first place.
Do you see what I mean? The very talent that the body has at dealing with, for example a bite of food that has gone bad can also very quickly get used to an unnatural overstimulation of expectation of action/reaction.
This is particularly ruinous when it is mind altering drugs that is being ingested, even, as you now understand "small" amounts of "only weed." In a very quick time after even only one or two exposures, your body retools to expect the unpredictable, which is anything but A+B+C. Here we have the problem where A may represent reality rather than peace of mind. If a normal human or animal gets through the day thinking A(reality) + B (more information) + C (a decision whether to act or not), mind altering drugs train the body and the mind to ignore or be used to "shortages" of A (reality) to the point of even being gleeful that one is creating "one's own reality." Addicts start viewing the world as C+C+B+C+c+C+bbb+ C, stumble over an A, impose on it C+B+C+C, even if they are not under the influence at the time!
In other words, addicts and even casual drug users train their internal body and mind to expect first and foremost action, action, action, action, some information, action, action, action, some information, oops trips over reality, denies reality, replaces with more action, action, action.
This is why it's a very small step from casual drug use to being an inflated ego maniac who thinks he or she is "in on" the "truth" and is "called" to a "mission" to "fix" and do "good deeds" that "repair" the unseen "disruptions" in "the balance." There's a disruption in the balance alright, but it ain't because of aliens, spirits, social injustice, etc. It's the disruption in A+B+C in both the body and the mind's reality and their expectations.
This is why addicts, even when not delusional or using, are absolutely positively convinced of unreal things and just will not let go of the un-reality. This is because drugs have retrained their internal assembly line to do without genuine reality and to, instead, produce and continual stream of "product" based on "action" and "reaction." Addicts stir up trouble everywhere, in their own minds and in their deeds, because they are using up all that C, that "action" that they have started producing in their minds and bodies. They then end up chasing their own tails as they take more and more substance to compensate for the lack of A, whether it is reality or peace of mind.
Simple observation shows that animals do not self medicate. If they did they would have evolved in a way where animals seek out food that medicates, but does not interfere with A, which is the reality of survival (a stoned out gnu will quickly be eaten by a clean lion). So animals do some basic things to enhance jeopardized health, such as roll in mud for a wound, or eat from certain bark that relieves pain or has antiseptic, but they are not evolved to be action before reality oriented. This is how through simple observation we as humans know that we too are not evolved to be action before reality.
We all know people, such as the elderly, with genuine infirmities who take legitimate medicine, yet are still unhappy. There are many reasons of course, but the one that we are discussing today is that medicine gives a false sense of C, of taking real action, and when results are partial or imperfect, and the condition remains, though it is eased, humans start to devalue their A of peace of mind and reality. Even good medicine, when given in pill or drug form, stimulates over expectations and diminishing of peace of mind with reality. Imagine how much more so is the danger and the change as a result of taking mind altering drugs!
I hope that you have found this helpful. Do not stop taking legitimate medication, but be aware of how it gives unreal expectations and also the need for medicine that is not simply ingesting substance, but enhancing reality based peace of mind. And definitely do not take any mind altering drugs, ever, at all, not even "a little" and not even "to experiment." All you are experimenting with is ruining what your mind and body has been honed to do by both God and by its adapted for survival and thriving true nature.
First, think about what it is like to be a normal human in a normal human body. From the faith side we know that humans are created in God's image and thus have a high ideal that is within their reach... they need not debase themselves. From the reasoning point of view humans can observe that putting aside their being in God's image, they share biology with animals. In other words, all the same basic principles of biology (how the body, limbs, organs, blood, nerves, brain etc work) are shared between humans and animals. One need not even get into the old evolution argument to understand that humans and animals operate according to the same biological principles and chemistry.
Humans, and animals, achieved their current form because they have adapted to the environment in which they live. They gather and eat the food and drink the water that they can find and that they need, they tolerate the weather, temperatures and other external conditions, and they tend to maximize their success at forming relationships and having offspring.
So, using this logic, you need to understand that you can learn a great deal about what is genuinely healthy and authentic for human minds and bodies by observing animals, since they both succeed on the same principles.
I'm going to cut to the chase and tell you where I am headed with this logical development. The problem with mind altering drugs is that they overstimulate activity within the human mind and body. I am not talking about the immediate effect of ingesting a drug, whether it makes a person stimulated or lethargic. I am speaking about the basic nature of drugs, which is to emphasize continual reactivity. Reactivity, as in being in a constant state of action and reaction, is the word I will use, but you can think of being overstimulated as a handy slang word for what I am trying to convey.
Let's start with a simple analogy. Suppose that a human for some reason spends a day being immersed in water (bathing, swimming, whatever) while at the same time drinking lots of beverages. What is the effect of being within an extraordinary amount of water? You get moist, LOL. Water's nature is to make something wet. You become "wet" both on the outside, as you splash around in water droplets, and on the inside, where you are highly hydrated and have to go and pee alot. The nature of water is to make something moist.
The nature of drugs-all drugs-is to cause a reaction, to change the status quo. I mean, that is obvious, no? If you have a headache, you want to change the status quo, so you take an aspirin. The "job," the "nature" of a drug, therefore, is to go to work at changing your body in some way. How does this change occur? The drug causes an action and a reaction. Suppose someone throws water in your face. That is an action as the water attaches itself to you. You then flinch, close your eyes, turn aside, maybe shake your head, and grab a towel. Those are all reactions. Drugs work the same way. Once they are ingested, like the aspirin, they go into the bloodstream (the action) and then cause the body to react to its presence.
So let's personalize these inanimate objects. The nature and job of water is to make something "moist." The nature and job of a drug is to cause a cycle of action and reaction.
Humans are not meant to be in a state of constant action and reaction. It's not coincidence that animals spend a lot of their time basically doing nothing, with then spurts of energy when necessary to chase food (or run from being food), to find water, to dig for food or shelter, and to produce young and feed them. Humans, being based on the same biology as animals, have evolved and adapted so that they are not optimally intended to be in a constant state of action and reaction.
The more a person takes drugs of any kind, the more their body is in an unconscious expectation to be in cycles of action and reaction. Just as if you were always wet on your skin, and then your skin gets all wrinkly and prune textured on the outside, if you take drugs of any kind, beneficial or harmful, on your "inside" your body starts to expect to be in a constant state of action, reaction, action, reaction, etc.
You can see that following this logic and understanding that a person who occasionally takes several or many different kinds of medicines or drugs has the same risk of this type of change as the person who "only" takes one drug frequently. Remember, I am not speaking of the type of "trip" or reactions that the person has to the drug. I am speaking of the body being trained to not feel "normal" unless is it being constantly urged by a foreign ingested internal substance to act, react, act, react.
So a law abiding normal person who takes an occasional pain reliever, some medicine for other conditions, a number of so called "health supplements," and maybe something "special" for, let's say, erectile dysfunction has the same problem that someone who doesn't take any drug except they huff on dope all the time. Remember, I'm not speaking of the purpose and thus the results of the medicine or drug. I am speaking of the expectation that is created in the body of each person that some substance is going to be given to it, causing an action and a reaction, in a cycle. Both bodies, the normal person and the illegal drug user, now have bodies that "expect" action and reaction.
This then is the great problem with mind altering drugs. Not only the body but now the mind also becomes changed away from its basic natural nature (humans and animals who take no medicine or drugs), to a body that stops functioning the way it should because now it factors in that it expects to be frequently active and reactive in its chemistry.
Caution! I am not saying taking medicine is bad and please do not make any changes in your medication without consulting with a genuine and rational physician! I do not hesitate to take aspirin, for example, when I have an occasional headache or muscle ache. And also one of the great blessings of medicine is to treat conditions such as diabetes.
But there is a difference between, for example, medication that makes up for a natural body deficiency, and one that introduces a new function. For example, many people died of diabetes before insulin was discovered, a natural product of the body, and manufactured, for those who could not make enough of their own insulin. This is an example of medicine that is given to make up for a lack of that function in the body, but it is a function that the body has evolved to know and to expect to have.
Medicine that is a foreign substance (not what the body naturally produces) stimulates the action and reaction response, and that is the whole point, of course, and there is nothing wrong with that. The whole field of chemistry is the study of actions and reactions. Substances that do not react are called "inert," by the way. So a medicine causes an action on the area that you or your physician is trying to change (like relieve pain) and then there is a reaction.
So here is what I am saying. Even if you are taking a drug that causes you to be lazy, sleepy or low functioning, on the "inside" your body is busier than it ever was. This is because it is active inside within a state of action/reaction as the drug does its work, since that is its nature. The reason you are sleepy on the outside is that the drug and your internal organs are "busy" inside. So regardless if the drug is stimulating or depressing of functions, on the "inside" your brain and your body are accelerated in their level of activity. The mind and the body start to "adapt," just as it would adapt if you were constantly doused with water, where the mind and body now start to "expect" an increased and eventually a continual state of action/reaction, even if you are not ingesting a drug at the time. The body and the mind now start a pressure and a "countdown" to when it will next be stimulated and "busy," internally. That is the trap of the addict, and this is what I mean in previous blog postings when I explain that eventually the drug's "personality" has taken over the addict's, even if the addict is not high.
This is because whether medicine or illegal drug, once the body and mind have experienced the drug's action/reaction, it prepares and anticipates the next cycle of that action/reaction. We know an innocent example of this when people become "used to" their medications and the medicine is not as effective as it used to be. We know the not so innocent example of this when people, even when they do not realize it, are "counting down" inside, no matter what activity they are engaged in, waiting for the next cigarette, the next hit, or the next dosing. It's not just the craving that I am describing. I am explaining that the body and mind now expect to "get to work" in that special way it has learned, which is action/reaction.
Think of your inner mind and body like a perfect factory that used to leisurely produce on the assembly line a nice normal average day. One one starts ingesting drugs, it is like the assembly line now retools because it learned that sometimes half of the supplies it needs are missing, but it gets double the supplies that it needs in another part of the assembly line. So instead of having a normal day of let's say A+B+C, A+B+C, A+B+C, where you have just the right amount of A's and B's and C's to put together predictable and successful chains of A+B+C, your body now gets a whole bunch of C's sent to it, before the A and the B's arrive, and when they do arrive they are out of order. The body and mind are cleaver, though, and they learn how to cope with being thrown a lot of C's so that you can use them up, A+B+C+C+C, A+B+C, A+B+C+C+C, etc.... and you can also get used to missing some of the A's or B's.... so your body may go C+C, A+B+C, C+C+C, B+C+C......
But what if A is restfulness and peace of mind? What if B is proper nutrition? And what if C is stimulation? Your body retools to deal with whatever it is dealt, and even develops a sort of glee at how great it can handle it. (That is because under stress adrenaline is released, so even when something bad internally is going on, if you "handle it" you feel a kind of superior rush and glee). That is the horrible problem of becoming accustomed to internal chemical action/reaction and thus overstimulation, even though the drug you take may be a depressant on the outside.
Look at the speculation about what happened to Michael Jackson. He, like everyone else, is born with a body and a mind that expects A+B+C. But somehow, let's say due to his accident, or due to his false beliefs, he has trauma that results in a physical ailment, such as insomnia. If A in our example is peace of mind, somewhere along the line his A was disrupted. (No jokes about "A" please! Let's pretend we are all more mature than twelve year olds.) So due to a trauma or bad lifestyle choices, his A+B+C is disrupted. He then takes increasingly stronger drugs to help him sleep or whatever, which then throws a ton of "C" into his body. His already stressed A of peace of mind is now totally neglected because by using the drugs he has given up on treating the core problem and restoring A+B+C. His body now becomes used to, and at times gleeful, to doing "without" A. He may be sad on the outside and in his heart, but his body chemistry, since the body is a wonderful thing, becomes inflated, superior feeling and gleeful at "handling" all that C and just doing without enough A (peace of mind), which is what got him in the problem in the first place.
Do you see what I mean? The very talent that the body has at dealing with, for example a bite of food that has gone bad can also very quickly get used to an unnatural overstimulation of expectation of action/reaction.
This is particularly ruinous when it is mind altering drugs that is being ingested, even, as you now understand "small" amounts of "only weed." In a very quick time after even only one or two exposures, your body retools to expect the unpredictable, which is anything but A+B+C. Here we have the problem where A may represent reality rather than peace of mind. If a normal human or animal gets through the day thinking A(reality) + B (more information) + C (a decision whether to act or not), mind altering drugs train the body and the mind to ignore or be used to "shortages" of A (reality) to the point of even being gleeful that one is creating "one's own reality." Addicts start viewing the world as C+C+B+C+c+C+bbb+ C, stumble over an A, impose on it C+B+C+C, even if they are not under the influence at the time!
In other words, addicts and even casual drug users train their internal body and mind to expect first and foremost action, action, action, action, some information, action, action, action, some information, oops trips over reality, denies reality, replaces with more action, action, action.
This is why it's a very small step from casual drug use to being an inflated ego maniac who thinks he or she is "in on" the "truth" and is "called" to a "mission" to "fix" and do "good deeds" that "repair" the unseen "disruptions" in "the balance." There's a disruption in the balance alright, but it ain't because of aliens, spirits, social injustice, etc. It's the disruption in A+B+C in both the body and the mind's reality and their expectations.
This is why addicts, even when not delusional or using, are absolutely positively convinced of unreal things and just will not let go of the un-reality. This is because drugs have retrained their internal assembly line to do without genuine reality and to, instead, produce and continual stream of "product" based on "action" and "reaction." Addicts stir up trouble everywhere, in their own minds and in their deeds, because they are using up all that C, that "action" that they have started producing in their minds and bodies. They then end up chasing their own tails as they take more and more substance to compensate for the lack of A, whether it is reality or peace of mind.
Simple observation shows that animals do not self medicate. If they did they would have evolved in a way where animals seek out food that medicates, but does not interfere with A, which is the reality of survival (a stoned out gnu will quickly be eaten by a clean lion). So animals do some basic things to enhance jeopardized health, such as roll in mud for a wound, or eat from certain bark that relieves pain or has antiseptic, but they are not evolved to be action before reality oriented. This is how through simple observation we as humans know that we too are not evolved to be action before reality.
We all know people, such as the elderly, with genuine infirmities who take legitimate medicine, yet are still unhappy. There are many reasons of course, but the one that we are discussing today is that medicine gives a false sense of C, of taking real action, and when results are partial or imperfect, and the condition remains, though it is eased, humans start to devalue their A of peace of mind and reality. Even good medicine, when given in pill or drug form, stimulates over expectations and diminishing of peace of mind with reality. Imagine how much more so is the danger and the change as a result of taking mind altering drugs!
I hope that you have found this helpful. Do not stop taking legitimate medication, but be aware of how it gives unreal expectations and also the need for medicine that is not simply ingesting substance, but enhancing reality based peace of mind. And definitely do not take any mind altering drugs, ever, at all, not even "a little" and not even "to experiment." All you are experimenting with is ruining what your mind and body has been honed to do by both God and by its adapted for survival and thriving true nature.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
HUGE step forward in understanding cancer causes
Read this article, it sounds to me like a very big step forward, although the complexity of cancer remains daunting. This is the right approach to better understanding cancer. There has been alot of guessing and thrashing in the past, but in fairness, the technology has really improved to do this kind of analysis.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/06/healthscience/06cancer.php?page=1
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/06/healthscience/06cancer.php?page=1
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Fantastic article about Cuban doctor "exports"
This article is just fantastic because not only is it important, but it successfully exercises the brain as people are forced to suspend judgment in one of the most tempting areas for being judgmental, which is Cuba and its communist system.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/645017.html
snip
Cuba reaps goodwill from doctor diplomacy
Cuba churns out doctors like no other nation in the world -- it boasted one doctor for every 159 people in 2005, according to official Cuban estimates. By comparison, in 2000, the United States had about one doctor for every 414 citizens, according to the most recent figures on the World Health Organization's website.
But the doctor-to-citizen ratio in Cuba has decreased greatly because so many have been sent on international missions, a much coveted posting for doctors who make an average of $25 a month at home.
Despite the increasing risks of defection -- since 2006 the United States has made it easier than ever for Cuban doctors to abandon their posts by offering them U.S. visas from consulates wherever they defect -- Cuba seems to be relying more than ever on its vast health industry for income.
Julie M. Feinsilver, a Latin American scholar and author of Healing the Masses: Cuban Health Politics at Home and Abroad, maintains that Cuba is the only country that ``has developed doctors as an export commodity.''
snip
In the past four months alone, Cuba has inaugurated the first of seven ophthalmology hospitals that it plans to open in Algeria, staffed only by Cubans; it opened the second of at least three centers of the same kind planned in China; and it has made a commitment to staff with Cuban doctors a hospital in Qatar, Spain's La Vanguardia newspaper reported in June.
And in July, Cuba's national magazine, Bohemia, reported on its online pages that the country earned about $350 million last year from the sale of medicines abroad, second only to nickel and surpassing more traditional exports such as tobacco, rum and sugar.
More than 31,000 Cuban health workers -- most of them doctors -- who toil in 71 countries brought in $2.3 billion last year, Feinsilver said, more than any other industry, including tourism.
Most of them are paid $150 to $375 a month, a small percentage of the cash or trade benefits the Cuban government pockets in exchange for their work, she added.
ACTIVE IN VENEZUELA
The largest Cuban medical mission is in Venezuela, where anywhere from 22,000 to 30,000 health personnel have been working since 2003 in exchange for cheap oil and other trade benefits. Their presence here is an irritant for those who see in President Hugo Chávez a clone of Fidel Castro, but a relief for Venezuelans who see the doctors as the only way to receive free healthcare right in their own barrios.
***
Read the whole article, especially you young people who have been interested in case studies I present about how to balance faith and reasoning, and use more and better discernment in your positions on issues and life styles.
The author uses the typical journalistic style of profiling a person who is representative of the subject (the woman doctor who seeks to defect to the US and be a highly paid doctor in the west), bracketed by comments from each side of the "opposing views," a poor person who could not even dream of medical care if it wasn't for the Cubans, and conservative ideologues who oppose Cuba receiving any positive feelings by the populace due to their communism.
Now, I happen to think this is an excellent thing that Cuba is doing. Think it through with me.
1) For whatever cynical reasons, the Cuban government chose to invest in a service that the poor desperately need. For example, they did not decide to invest in video games. So they deserve huge merit and virtue for selecting a humanitarian investment regardless of their ideology.
2) I would think supply and demand capitalists would applaud Cuba's use of this model and be secretly gleeful that they are using capitalist principles and hope for subversion of the communism that way.
3) Oddly, by investing in people and not machinery (since a doctor is their hands and their mind, and not a machine out of a factory) Cuba is actually expanding a genuine elevation of the importance of the individual, defying the traditional Communist stance of the nameless faceless masses. Cuba is fully aware of the dignity and benefit of the individual contribution, and that is a very interesting deviation from the Soviet and early Chinese eras of devaluing the individual.
4) The only huge omission in this article is to not even mention Christianity and its huge heritage of providing for the poor, both believers and not believers. While Christians hoped to evangelize and convert they never made receiving medicine or food a condition of it (unlike capitalism where you must have money or an enabling welfare system). So I think that Cuba deserves praise and merit because other than some posters and awareness that they are Cubans, they require nothing from the people they serve. If people have a mindset change and conversion as a result of their experience, that is capitalism too. After all, those opposed to Cubans and their socialism could have used their wealth to provide alternative free medical services to the poor, and of course, they haven't.
I could go on but invite all of you to think more about this article and the very interesting humanitarian, economic and ideological model that it reports about. Very, very interesting.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/645017.html
snip
Cuba reaps goodwill from doctor diplomacy
Cuba churns out doctors like no other nation in the world -- it boasted one doctor for every 159 people in 2005, according to official Cuban estimates. By comparison, in 2000, the United States had about one doctor for every 414 citizens, according to the most recent figures on the World Health Organization's website.
But the doctor-to-citizen ratio in Cuba has decreased greatly because so many have been sent on international missions, a much coveted posting for doctors who make an average of $25 a month at home.
Despite the increasing risks of defection -- since 2006 the United States has made it easier than ever for Cuban doctors to abandon their posts by offering them U.S. visas from consulates wherever they defect -- Cuba seems to be relying more than ever on its vast health industry for income.
Julie M. Feinsilver, a Latin American scholar and author of Healing the Masses: Cuban Health Politics at Home and Abroad, maintains that Cuba is the only country that ``has developed doctors as an export commodity.''
snip
In the past four months alone, Cuba has inaugurated the first of seven ophthalmology hospitals that it plans to open in Algeria, staffed only by Cubans; it opened the second of at least three centers of the same kind planned in China; and it has made a commitment to staff with Cuban doctors a hospital in Qatar, Spain's La Vanguardia newspaper reported in June.
And in July, Cuba's national magazine, Bohemia, reported on its online pages that the country earned about $350 million last year from the sale of medicines abroad, second only to nickel and surpassing more traditional exports such as tobacco, rum and sugar.
More than 31,000 Cuban health workers -- most of them doctors -- who toil in 71 countries brought in $2.3 billion last year, Feinsilver said, more than any other industry, including tourism.
Most of them are paid $150 to $375 a month, a small percentage of the cash or trade benefits the Cuban government pockets in exchange for their work, she added.
ACTIVE IN VENEZUELA
The largest Cuban medical mission is in Venezuela, where anywhere from 22,000 to 30,000 health personnel have been working since 2003 in exchange for cheap oil and other trade benefits. Their presence here is an irritant for those who see in President Hugo Chávez a clone of Fidel Castro, but a relief for Venezuelans who see the doctors as the only way to receive free healthcare right in their own barrios.
***
Read the whole article, especially you young people who have been interested in case studies I present about how to balance faith and reasoning, and use more and better discernment in your positions on issues and life styles.
The author uses the typical journalistic style of profiling a person who is representative of the subject (the woman doctor who seeks to defect to the US and be a highly paid doctor in the west), bracketed by comments from each side of the "opposing views," a poor person who could not even dream of medical care if it wasn't for the Cubans, and conservative ideologues who oppose Cuba receiving any positive feelings by the populace due to their communism.
Now, I happen to think this is an excellent thing that Cuba is doing. Think it through with me.
1) For whatever cynical reasons, the Cuban government chose to invest in a service that the poor desperately need. For example, they did not decide to invest in video games. So they deserve huge merit and virtue for selecting a humanitarian investment regardless of their ideology.
2) I would think supply and demand capitalists would applaud Cuba's use of this model and be secretly gleeful that they are using capitalist principles and hope for subversion of the communism that way.
3) Oddly, by investing in people and not machinery (since a doctor is their hands and their mind, and not a machine out of a factory) Cuba is actually expanding a genuine elevation of the importance of the individual, defying the traditional Communist stance of the nameless faceless masses. Cuba is fully aware of the dignity and benefit of the individual contribution, and that is a very interesting deviation from the Soviet and early Chinese eras of devaluing the individual.
4) The only huge omission in this article is to not even mention Christianity and its huge heritage of providing for the poor, both believers and not believers. While Christians hoped to evangelize and convert they never made receiving medicine or food a condition of it (unlike capitalism where you must have money or an enabling welfare system). So I think that Cuba deserves praise and merit because other than some posters and awareness that they are Cubans, they require nothing from the people they serve. If people have a mindset change and conversion as a result of their experience, that is capitalism too. After all, those opposed to Cubans and their socialism could have used their wealth to provide alternative free medical services to the poor, and of course, they haven't.
I could go on but invite all of you to think more about this article and the very interesting humanitarian, economic and ideological model that it reports about. Very, very interesting.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Generation of doctors can't be replaced
From www.chron.com:
Feigin, a past president of Baylor College of Medicine, was one of the nation's best known pediatricians. A tireless advocate for children's health in Houston and worldwide, he grew Baylor College of Medicine pediatrics from a small, barely funded department into the nation's biggest and best funded, made Texas Children's Hospital one of the nation's elite children's hospitals and trained almost half of Harris County's current population of pediatricians.
It had been generally known that Feigin was battling lung cancer since late 2007, but he declined to talk about it publicly. In May, he announced he was stepping down as chief medical officer at Texas Children's Hospital and chairman of pediatrics at Baylor, but still wouldn't talk about the disease.
The news hit hard at Baylor, which last month lost legendary heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey to natural causes.
Feigin trained more than 2,000 pediatricians and pediatric specialists. Of those, two went on to become medical school deans, 22 became associate medical school deans, 10 became pediatric department chairs and 180 became section heads of pediatrics.
***
The golden era of doctors who were also giants and humanitarians is coming to a close. Men (and the few women) like this cannot be replaced because younger doctors have grown up in the commercial shake your money maker era of "medicine." There is a totally different perspective and a totally different set of experiences, none of which contribute toward the making of a giant doctor.
A giant of a doctor did not even have to be "famous" in that era. For example, the doctor who delivered me when I was born had delivered more than 10,000 babies in his career. Yes, you read that right. This attending doctor at an upstate New York State hospital, who was an Army Air Force veteran of World War II, delivered TEN THOUSAND babies in his career.
I've mourned the passing of good and decent doctors from the golden age of humanitarian doctors for many years, and the list of those passing just goes on. Enjoy your tummy tucks, you sad people, who don't even know what you are missing. Now you've got doctors who aim for the ten thousand aborter prize.
Feigin, a past president of Baylor College of Medicine, was one of the nation's best known pediatricians. A tireless advocate for children's health in Houston and worldwide, he grew Baylor College of Medicine pediatrics from a small, barely funded department into the nation's biggest and best funded, made Texas Children's Hospital one of the nation's elite children's hospitals and trained almost half of Harris County's current population of pediatricians.
It had been generally known that Feigin was battling lung cancer since late 2007, but he declined to talk about it publicly. In May, he announced he was stepping down as chief medical officer at Texas Children's Hospital and chairman of pediatrics at Baylor, but still wouldn't talk about the disease.
The news hit hard at Baylor, which last month lost legendary heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey to natural causes.
Feigin trained more than 2,000 pediatricians and pediatric specialists. Of those, two went on to become medical school deans, 22 became associate medical school deans, 10 became pediatric department chairs and 180 became section heads of pediatrics.
***
The golden era of doctors who were also giants and humanitarians is coming to a close. Men (and the few women) like this cannot be replaced because younger doctors have grown up in the commercial shake your money maker era of "medicine." There is a totally different perspective and a totally different set of experiences, none of which contribute toward the making of a giant doctor.
A giant of a doctor did not even have to be "famous" in that era. For example, the doctor who delivered me when I was born had delivered more than 10,000 babies in his career. Yes, you read that right. This attending doctor at an upstate New York State hospital, who was an Army Air Force veteran of World War II, delivered TEN THOUSAND babies in his career.
I've mourned the passing of good and decent doctors from the golden age of humanitarian doctors for many years, and the list of those passing just goes on. Enjoy your tummy tucks, you sad people, who don't even know what you are missing. Now you've got doctors who aim for the ten thousand aborter prize.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Pioneering heart doctor dies at age 99
He was a totally remarkable man. Dr. Michael DeBakey was a world-famous, pioneering cardiovascular surgeon. I'll leave it to readers to look up on their favorite news web sites the AP article, which is a very good one. But I want to use this moment to pay tribute, and also use it as an opportunity to tell, especially young readers, what those times were like.
In the 1960's, 1970's and into the 1980's, there was very little that could be done for serious heart patients. Try to imagine what that was like. People would read obituaries and if the person died at age 65, people would actually say, "He" or "She lived a good life." If a person made it to 65 that was considered average to pretty good. This was because heart disease really had no remedies or cures.
So there were three groundbreaking heart surgeons, and Dr. DeBakey was one, who personally invented many of the techniques and devices that people take for granted today. And this was of HUGE interest in the news for years at a time. That is the point I'm trying to make (this is not one of those "appreciate how advanced medicine has become" blog posts, ha). What I'm trying to do is use news developments like this to paint you a quick portrait of what life was like not all that long ago, though it seems like eons now. So what I want to explain is the things that these three doctors did made HEADLINES in mainstream and tabloid press for years. Everyone knew their names, their faces, and what they were doing. In many ways, those heart surgeons were the start of mainstream interest in medicine. They made it exciting and personal yet were still 100% real. These guys were in a personal race to save lives, thousands of lives a year. They and their colleagues revolutionized medicine.
"Back then" people were not entertainment and celebrity crazed. The news was not full of what celebrities were up to. People were fascinated with, however, ongoing "struggles" for "breakthroughs in medicine," and especially in the area where everyone was the most likely to have a family member affected, and there were few options, being heart disease. So very often these guys were the lead off news item on TV network news and the front page story in the newspaper. There really has never been anything like it since then.
Therefore this is one example of where the country really was a better place in many ways some decades ago. People ALL were excited, interested and pulled for these guys, and rooted for their patients too. Everyone knew the names and status of every early heart transplant patient, for example. THAT was news, and the country was totally united in being interested in each development in heart medicine.
I hope this gave readers, especially the younger ones, a feeling for a very important and positive chapter in our cultural history. Think of how much has changed, and how negative and distorted much of the public interest and the media that shapes and cultivates it has become. It's not that there are not fantastic things going on in medicine. But there is a real sense of not being "on the team." For several decades all of America who watched TV or read the newspapers "were on the same team" regarding these heart doctor guys and the race for cures and medical devices to save lives. It was awesome, and that is one of the things I really miss about what our society has become today. I hope my reminiscing here about that great guy and all that he and his colleagues did also helps you see that things do not have to be as factional, nihilistic and bleak as many of you have been programmed to think it must be. I remember when small town folk, high school dropouts and just about any average folk were all excited about the lead stories of the latest development in heart medicine. What a country it was then!
In the 1960's, 1970's and into the 1980's, there was very little that could be done for serious heart patients. Try to imagine what that was like. People would read obituaries and if the person died at age 65, people would actually say, "He" or "She lived a good life." If a person made it to 65 that was considered average to pretty good. This was because heart disease really had no remedies or cures.
So there were three groundbreaking heart surgeons, and Dr. DeBakey was one, who personally invented many of the techniques and devices that people take for granted today. And this was of HUGE interest in the news for years at a time. That is the point I'm trying to make (this is not one of those "appreciate how advanced medicine has become" blog posts, ha). What I'm trying to do is use news developments like this to paint you a quick portrait of what life was like not all that long ago, though it seems like eons now. So what I want to explain is the things that these three doctors did made HEADLINES in mainstream and tabloid press for years. Everyone knew their names, their faces, and what they were doing. In many ways, those heart surgeons were the start of mainstream interest in medicine. They made it exciting and personal yet were still 100% real. These guys were in a personal race to save lives, thousands of lives a year. They and their colleagues revolutionized medicine.
"Back then" people were not entertainment and celebrity crazed. The news was not full of what celebrities were up to. People were fascinated with, however, ongoing "struggles" for "breakthroughs in medicine," and especially in the area where everyone was the most likely to have a family member affected, and there were few options, being heart disease. So very often these guys were the lead off news item on TV network news and the front page story in the newspaper. There really has never been anything like it since then.
Therefore this is one example of where the country really was a better place in many ways some decades ago. People ALL were excited, interested and pulled for these guys, and rooted for their patients too. Everyone knew the names and status of every early heart transplant patient, for example. THAT was news, and the country was totally united in being interested in each development in heart medicine.
I hope this gave readers, especially the younger ones, a feeling for a very important and positive chapter in our cultural history. Think of how much has changed, and how negative and distorted much of the public interest and the media that shapes and cultivates it has become. It's not that there are not fantastic things going on in medicine. But there is a real sense of not being "on the team." For several decades all of America who watched TV or read the newspapers "were on the same team" regarding these heart doctor guys and the race for cures and medical devices to save lives. It was awesome, and that is one of the things I really miss about what our society has become today. I hope my reminiscing here about that great guy and all that he and his colleagues did also helps you see that things do not have to be as factional, nihilistic and bleak as many of you have been programmed to think it must be. I remember when small town folk, high school dropouts and just about any average folk were all excited about the lead stories of the latest development in heart medicine. What a country it was then!
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