Get Out Of Your Own Way*
Your heart's a balloon, but then it bursts; It doesn't take a cannon, just a pin
For any profession, I expect you to know your jokes. That is, the ones about you. They don’t even have to be funny. Some are downright morbid. Most are hilarious. You must learn to laugh at yourself every now and then.
One evening Mr. Jones got that phone call from his doctor.
“Mr. Jones, I have some bad news and some worse news.”
Well doc, might as well start with the bad news. Ease me into it, OK?
“Mr. Jones, your test results came back, and you have about 2 weeks remaining to live.”
Doc, what could possibly be worse than that?
“Mr. Jones, your test results came back a week ago.”
The rather macabre application of this joke to current events seem harshly accurate. I actually don’t think it overly dramatic to say that Democracy could possibly die, in my opinion mostly due to the legacy media abdicating its responsibility to educate and search for and present the truth for all.
What could be worse than that? Our test results came back 9 days ago.
As an oncologist for decades, like all oncologists, giving bad news is something we’ve had a lot of experience doing, and I assure you it never gets easy.
So yes, I have given many people bad news over my career. What always made it easier was if I could also present them with a plan, a possible solution, a way out.
I am happily not giving the bad news about the choices made by the voters who did show up for this hugely important election, and I have yet to really hear anyone come up with a plan. Oh sure, bits and pieces – fight, resist, push back, etc. – but nothing has really jelled yet that I am aware of. That will take more time, and that’s time I sure hope we have.
I wish to no end that I had that plan to give you.
In my brain, geared to do just that, I must tell you that I feel like a failure, that I have not met my role fidelity to problem solve. I could always come up with a plan, even with the toughest situations. They weren’t all perfect, but they were plans all the same. Something to ground us, give us time to get our bearings.
In one such situation, I went out to the nurse’s station to arrange the schedule for our plan, with the patient and family close behind me. That was not unusual. I knew they were still processing in their own way. Their brain was doing shitty gymnastics, or perhaps vacant.
As I asked my Medical Assistant to schedule her for a short interval follow-up appointment, I realized she was patting me on the back, and quietly saying, “It will be OK. Don’t worry.”
She, was patting my back. That’s not supposed to be the narrative of this situation! I’m the caregiver. She is the patient. Those are our roles, no?
Twenty years in, and nothing had ever prepared me for that day. I was demolished.
She had clearly seen that I, the bad news giver, was struggling with her situation – not the plan – I of course had a plan, but just that we were here at all. Her husband was already my patient. I was usually much better about hiding it, or maybe I just thought I was, but regardless she saw right through my façade.
With plans, we always expected the situation to morph as we went along and expected to need to adapt. That is normal too, and she and I did just that, several times.
No, this isn’t going to be one of those sad stories - I’m very happy to report that dark day was 10 years ago, and my plan worked to the amazement of all the other specialists comprising her team. It was never easy, but she trusted me at every step. She is truly a special person to me.
Though I’m accustomed to carrying such heavy loads, I’m completely at a loss as to what the country’s current plan is. I hate this as much as I hate cancer, and you won’t bother me a bit if you consider MAGA to be a cancer – the metaphors are endless, but with no clear cure.
I’ll keep watching all of you, and hope that a coordinated plan forms, soon. Then we’ll need to adapt, of course. Along the way we need to support one another, even if it’s just a silent pat on the back every now and then. Don’t be your own worst enemy.
I suppose that’s a plan of sorts, for now.
And don’t forget to pet the fur kids.
* Get Out of Your Own Way - U2, Songs of Experience, 2017 — don’t be your own worst enemy. Though we may look hardened on the outside, we’re all a little soft inside.
At the moment, I cannot imagine what the plan might be except face each horror as it comes. But I'm not an expert at planning anything, so don't listen to me. I just hope America's case isn't terminal.
Being human, not just professional.
U.S. schools gave up on the human long time ago, when they gave up on humanities (adding insult to injury by allowing the continuous batteries of standardized testing to enforce the dehumanization. So now, ancillary to kids addicted to social media is how the males especially among them suffer even more from having no humanities in their schools to counter the social media world’s personal vacuity.
Scott Galloway has been eloquent on the massive damages due to "incels" – our millions of involuntarily celibate young men.
But he keeps in view the larger context – how their generation loses the most from wealth transfers both to wealthy elites and to older generations. Young adults cannot buy houses. Are crushed by student loan debt. Among elites in mainstream media have no role models for reading or quoting anything.
Dems made huge mistake giving platforms to wealthy celebrities. Huge mistake following Simon Rosenberg and his love of the old status quo machinery, when no Dems have any humanities to see any human suffering.
These failures of vision extend worldwide, where philosopher Slavoj Žižek credits Putin with galvanizing some leadership of the BRICS countries. There, across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, western universities’ failure to access “others” by their humanities leaves whole nations vulnerable to the demagoguery so Putin allies with dictators everywhere.
Slavoj Žižek stresses how we can’t leave out the human. Got to stress it. Keep some human passion, some reserves of the personal, as John Rochat got reminded of this ten years ago. Or, as Slavoj Žižek put it in a recent interview with Riz Khan, “To tell the truth you cannot occupy a neutral position, you must be shocked and engaged.”