WTF (Part 2)

One of the side effects of the Parkinson's Disease drug Mirapex is "pathological gambling."

WTF?

Yesterday it rained mud. I am not making this up. I went in to the gym and when I came out my car was completely covered in dirt. It looked like I had gone off-roading. I had dirt spots on my shirt from where it rained on me too. When I asked someone what caused it, they said "Mexico."

Divisions

David Lipsky wrote a book called "Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point" about the Class of 2002 at West Point. One of my classmates was in that class. I had some friends over the other day, including him, and he pulled that book off of my bookshelf. He was thumbing through it and showed us a couple of the pictures in it. "This guy was one of the first people to be killed in Iraq," he said, pointing to one photo, "he was my math partner." In another picture he pointed out another guy "this guy was my chemistry lab partner, I just heard that he was killed a couple of days ago."

It dawned on me that I am completely unaffected by the war (police action, invasion, whatever you want to call it) in Iraq. I'm not saying that I don't care, or that I don't find it tragic and infuriating, just that it does not, and has never, really impacted my life.

I can probably count on one hand the number of people I know who have been in Iraq. No one I know has been hurt or killed. None of us have to ration anything, gas prices are high, but not because of the war. I even got a tax cut, and am getting another refund later this year as a result of congress's attempt to stimulate the economy. In my last job working for the government, I never saw my budget decrease either. I don't have anyone to worry about "over there" and I don't make decisions in my life based on the war.

There is this complete disconnect between the people who are fighting this war and the rest of American society. I think that is why I always find myself incensed when I hear politicians say things like "we're at war" or "... in a time of war". We're not at war, a small subset of our population is.

Greatest Experience Ever

I am having an experience right now that is about the best one I've had in years. Its called Spring Break. I have one week off from school and have nothing to do. When I was working I took time off to go on vacations, even trips to the beach where all I had to do was sit, and still this is better. I think one of the main reasons it seems better than any vacation is that at the beginning of spring break I didn't have to race around wrapping up loose ends at work and now, at the end of the week, I don't have the dark cloud that is returning to a job I hate moving in. No Sunday blues, no small episodes of anger/stress that hit me when I think about work, none of that. I have no kids, I am single, I have no job, nothing that demands a chunk of my time. My place is spotless, I've gotten all my errands done, exercised a ton, made dinner with friends, stayed up late watching movies (I've seen four movies this week... which is four more than I've watched since Christmas), slept until 10, then taken a nap later in the afternoon. Its been great. It doesn't hurt that its 90 degrees in March here in San Antonio.

I'm off to the pool...

What am I doing here?

How did I manage to develop a case of writer's block before I even began?

I thought about writing about my experiences in medical school, but it tends to be a fairly boring existence. My experiences so far seem to consist of staring at a book for the majority of my waking hours and that can't make for good reading either, can it? Plus, its already been done to some extents. For a thoroughly discouraging and depressing account, check out "Heart Failure - Diary of A Third Year Medical Student" (link). For a more light-hearted account, go watch Scrubs. I also have this fear of turning this into some sort of minaret from which I parcel out thoughts and observations gleaned from my small window into medicine... primarily because it is a really really small window and anyone with a bigger one will know its b.s.

No where but here

Last Thursday at 11:30pm I was in the gross anatomy doing some last minute cramming for my lab practical the following afternoon. Approximately a dozen of us were crowded around a dissected foot. It was crowded and late, and I'd slept approximately 5 hours since the previous morning. Amid all of that, it dawned on me that I was so happy that I was there. I don't think I delighted in my instantaneous position (dead foots smell worse than live ones), but, rather, in the fact that I was in medical school, finally, doing what I really wanted to do with my life.

How Do I Really Matter?

In the afterward of his book 'Better' Atul Gawande reflected on the question "How do I really matter?" This was a question he posed to himself whilst preparing a talk for a class of medical students at Harvard Medical School. In essence he decided, you make yourself matter by becoming a positive deviant. You make yourself different from your friends, your family, your colleagues, your fellow human beings, in a way that makes something better. You deviate from the norm in a positive way.

In a more eloquent verse, Ralph Whitman says essentially the same thing in his poem "O Me O Life." Ending with the verse(s):

The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

What One way he decided that this can be achieved is to write something. Anything. Just something. And, here is the kicker, you have to share that with people. In doing so, you contribute something to people. What that is, I've yet to figure out, but here I am. I am writing something. Contributing a verse to the powerful play.

I don't know what I expect to contribute to "society" (or the dozen or so people who will take the time to read this) with my reflections. Dr. Gawande's guidelines were simply that "it need only add some small observation about your world." I have observations, and I have a computer, so I thought I could start there.

When we contribute a verse to the powerful play need it only be a one-way street? Perhaps more importantly, should it not necessarily be a two-way street? What I mean by that is that I think when we do our "thing" for the world, it should make us happy in return. In my previous life as an engineer I did some awesome work, stuff that I am proud of, but that ultimately left me wondering if it mattered at all. Lets face it, does anyone out there know anyone whose life will be affected in the least if the Next Generation Hubble Telescope doesn't launch? I don't have an answer for that question, but its once that has occurred to me on occasion.

Shall we see where this takes us?