Only A Beginning ...

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Assume for the index moment that there is no order or pattern that human conscious minds can now recognize. There is motion, only motion, only change. We name that state random or chaotic or unpredictable. Then, happenstance, one thing bumps another, sticks, then clusters, … and the non-clustered, what didn't fit didn't thrive, became still, decayed ... The disorderly is discarded. Human consciousness seems hard-wired to see patterns and order and wonderment. Systems develop and that seems miraculous and is attributed to the supernatural. There are some expectations of prediction, and then influencing the prediction with prayer and hope, wishes and visions for an other future.

Consciousness has evolved to recognize some patterns. Were there patterns when humans think there weren't? Is there another layer looking at us as we look at ants?

I've been watching the healthcare, health insurance conversations. And in particular about longevity, end-of-life costs, futile interventions, .. I was thinking today that the longer we live with chronic illnesses, the more pharmaceutical profits. Kleinman uses the word 'pharmaceuticalization.'

I am intrigued at the focus on pain relief, interpreting use of medications as abuse, interpreting looking for a doctor who will prescribe adequately and appropriately as 'shopping' - but I don't understand this war on pain relief, the benefit to those looking to cut health care costs to have a hurting, and thus maybe angry, constituency.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-04/elderly-drug-abusers-may-cost-medicare-150-million-a-year-senators-say.html

Stupid!

I can hear my mother's dismissive “stupid” directed at people and systems she didn't understand. I censor myself and don't speak it as I watch that word, stupid, move from my mind to my tongue. It's so much easier to blame outside, 'stupid', than to look at my own inability to communicate and be communicated with.

I'm too aware when I send a quick email comment to a friend that the valence of my mood hasn't been heard. I don't want to have to write more and more. I want to be heard! I get angry when the email response detours. I blame myself for having even tried. Sometimes I drag more words out of my brain, resisting, resentful. Sometimes I feel so lonely, want so to dismiss that correspondent from my friends list. My mother's way was easier. Spray discontent. Blame the other. Stupid!

I saw an online ad for 100% cotton sweatshirts and phoned the 800 number. The answerer fumbled the phone and then a sluggish voice with a New Jersey accent put me on hold. And then disconnected me. I called back. The same east coast young male unconcerned sounding voice answered.

“Did you call before?”
“Yes, we were disconnected. I saw your ad for 100% cotton sweatshirts. I'd like a gray one.”
“We don't have gray.”
“No gray. Why?”
“No gray.”
“Because?”
“It's black that makes the gray and black is polyester.”
“Well then the sage. Long sleeve. Medium.”
“We only have short sleeve.”
“Only short sleeve?
”Right.”
“What about in the fall?”
“Short sleeve. It's a niche.”
“What about when it gets cold.”
“Then we have heavy weight.”
“Are those 100% cotton?”
“No, 95%.”
“Thank you”

I hung up, remembering the website offering 100% cotton sweatshirts and imagining the bodies in the niche market for short sleeve sweatshirts.

The upper classes don't fidget.

Social conservatism appreciates cleanliness and purity. The current stress on hand-washing and education about germs and infections tilts society in a more traditional, less innovative direction.

Society is aging, and older people tend to be more cautious, less bold.

The awareness of one's own death affects the decision-making of individuals and groups of people. A consequence of more public discussions of end of life care, advance directives, right to die, and mortality might be that we become … “more socially conformist and centered on group values, more authoritarian, less understanding or forgiving of deviance, and all the more willing to punish eccentrics and outsiders and to reward mainstream heroes.” *

Might these three trends lead to the end of deviation? Are there other markers?




* NIcholas Humphrey, Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness, Princeton, 2011, p 189