Lessons Not Learned

The woman at the corner table leering at me as I sat down to have lunch. It was a familiar look. Eyes angry, her jaw jutting out in maskless defiance, as if the mask I had worn coming in was an attack on her country, her freedom. Angry and so proud. Yes, I'd seen it before, and it was utterly absurd. So absurd that she didn't really register, and I had forgotten about her before I ordered. 

But as I think about it now, many months later, I realize how little so much of this country has learned from the over 600,000 Covid deaths. Most of those deaths were avoidable were it not for an incompetent, opportunistic government, and medical community, and selfish, purposefully ignorant, people.

Former White House response coordinator and career health expert Dr. Deborah Brix has stated that out of the over 600,000 Covid deaths in the US, nearly 500,000 were avoidable. Put another way, save for selfishness, ignorance, and twisted realities, 500,000 people died that needn't have.

As an ICU physician I ask, how do I reconcile THAT? Horrible, suffering, prolonged deaths, alone, separated from those that love them, and then when I do leave the hospital it’s maskless people in restaurants leering at me for not being a patriot because of a mask I wear to protect others. 

600,000 deaths exceed American deaths in all wars, combined, save the civil war. And yet it is still not enough to have touched enough people’s lives where meaningful lessons have been learned. It is 1.6 deaths per 1000 - meaning lots of families were not touched by this horrible disease. The defiant woman in the restaurant has learned nothing and in fact has reinforced her bizarre, twisted sense of reality - 'nothing happened to me - so I'm right'. Lessons learned from 600,000 deaths? For so many, none. 

I will ask again. How do I reconcile all those horrible deaths I witnessed, with that?

The Future

 50 years

1. Most material needs will be provided by subterranean autonomous machines/factories - procuring raw materials, refining, fabricating, distributing, while producing the energy needed to do so, self- repairing, and self-designing without human intervention. Full automation should be free - if its not free society will collapse - getting there will be the issue - for it will disrupt the worlds economies, and the fabric of society unless we plan for it now 

    a. automation will make most current jobs obsolete 
    b. we must evolve past money 

    c. power grabbing and controlling all material goods production and distribution will destroy the human species if allowed 

2. Medicines next greatest leaps - Cellular repair/genetic manipulation = curing most diseases, repairing injury, and slowing/stopping the aging process Lifespan determined by devastating traumatic events - murder/accident ~1000-2000 years? more?

3. Unlimited clean energy - power of the sun from space, fusion, quantum manipulation - energy from empty space? 

4. Colonizing other planets - and if it is possible - other star systems - if wormholes or equivalent exist - sending craft to other stars at sub-light velocity = unlikely unless we have no choice 

5. Autonomous transportation, robots, mechanical lovers - what on earth will keep societies together? No money, no religion, no nations, no materialism, even sexual desire sated without human partners =  Common pursuit of knowledge/artistic endeavor?   

6. Transmutation - a rose from dirt, a tomato from raw materials - we will master all living organisms biologic processes and learn to manipulate matter in ways the alchemist of yore could only dream of - star-trek's replicator 

100 years 

1. Super intelligence - be it 'machine' or human modification - again getting there is the issue - imagine Putin gets it first 

2. Human evolution - our next giant steps 

a. extra-biologic life 
b. multi-dimensional existence? Extra-dimensional existence? 

c. creators of universes?

d. programmers of universes of our desire = god

Say Hello

There are 10 billion trillion planets in the observable universe. 10 billion trillion. 

Tonight take the time to look up at your night’s sky.  Many of those 10 billion trillion other planets out there harbor intelligent life. Look up at them. Look beyond yourself. Look beyond humankind's made-up, shallow constructs that define so much of your existence, your ‘universe’ - ‘success’, money, nation, prestige, rank, religion - all human invention, none of them real. 

If people stopped believing in money - it would disappear, tomorrow. The same for nation, religion, rank, prestige, success. They are all made up human constructs invented at the dawn of civilization as societal glue. Intimacy and bloodlines alone can only keep societies intact for groups no larger than about fifty individuals - the original hunter-gatherer clans. But with the invention of nation, religion, money - came a control over people never before seen. For the first time, two complete strangers were willing to fight side by side for god, nation, money. Societies could grow in great numbers so that the few in control would benefit beyond their wildest dreams, with society held together by brass rings, magic, fantasy, and lies - our constructs. 

They are crude and for the most part dehumanizing and it is long since past time to evolve beyond them.  

Tonight, look up, look beyond all that nonsense and say, hello.

One World

All the oceans, rivers, lakes, and atmospheric water in the world could be contained in a sphere slightly wider than Texas. Centuries of exploration, epic journeys, and tests of mettle reduced to this? 

Never forget your humility or worldview - no matter how expansive you think your reality to be.

Hell is as Hell Does

If we weren't already in hell:

The better food tasted the better it would be for you

With each passing day we would get younger, stronger, and more attractive.

Excess would be good for you and Ying and Yang would be the same thing.

‘Success’ would be for losers and prestige would be a crime.

Money would be honey and only the bees would be rich.

Religion wouldn't be darkness for it wouldn't be at all.

And churches solely a place to put pews (got to put all those pews somewhere!) 

Politicians couldn't lie and so there wouldn't be any. 

Governments would govern. 

And the police would be kind.

 

A Universe for the Taking

People confuse brutal honesty for torment

Human construct for reality 

Self-made lies for truth

They confuse cowardliness for steadfastness and conformity

and ‘success’ for meaningfulness 

And then, they die

Having missed out on nearly everything

Family

I am who I am in spite of my parents. 

I am who I am because of them as well. 

There is no need in pretending, but there is no need for anger as well, especially since they are dead, and it wouldn't help

They gave me my life. 

They gave me moments. 

I choose to revel in my moments, in my life, and smile.