Home Alone

I am an anti-social recluse. Never mind that - at this time of year when I descend into abject self-pity it is far more fitting to remember those who don't have the luxury to moan. This Christmas I earnestly wish and pray for:
Compassion and relief for the poor, tired, homeless and hungry. Healing for the sick; calm for the dying, comfort for the bereaved. Company for the lonely, abandoned, orphans, widows and the elderly. Safety for travellers, whether stranded or storm-tossed. Courage for those stationed abroad in the service of their country; peace for those torn apart by conflict. Self-reflection for those in power (yes, even them). Love for the brokenhearted. Joy for families. Most of all - hope - for everyone in this weary world - we are so desperately in need of that precious gift. Hope.
Amen.

Sic transit gloria mundi

"He renamed the month of January after himself and April after his mother; he banned ballet, gold teeth and recorded music; he ordered the construction of a lake in the midst of the desert and a ski resort on the snowless foothills of the Iranian border...interspersed with the crowd were stony-faced officials ensuring the public enjoyed the event. We heard of people being summoned to police station for not smiling broadly enough at such occasions." - BBC News, reporting the death of Saparmurat Niyazov.

Simple things.

It has taken me a long time to realise that turning back and changing direction can mean different things. Perseverance means that you don't stop hammering away; that does not mean you have to keep using the same mallet. A change of tactics (bearing the goal in mind) is a change for the better.
Good heavens, for such a simple truth I sure took my time.

Jenner and Pasteur would be turning in their graves...

I try to avoid overtly-'topical' issues; times change faster than catwalk fashions and there really is very little point trying to chase the wind.
Nevertheless, we all have our own little 'passions' and 'pet hates' and idiosyncrasies and it would be remiss of me not to cite my own. Vaccines. More specifically, the profound distaste I harbour towards the anti-vaccine lobby.
Is it not difficult enough for scientists to develop vaccines in the first place, for millions to perish for lack of treatment, for vaccine costs to price out those who really need them - is it not enough, I ask you - that now the vocal few seek to cast doubt over one of the scientific/public health advances that has done most to improve human health? Must the ravages of diseases like measles, polio or rubella once again stalk the West before these (I'm trying to control myself here) incomparable idiots stop their questioning of something that has most probably prevented their own deaths? They claim side effects, pharmaceutical/government conspiracies and more besides. Science panders to skeptics (i.e. the scientific community) and it is this approach to testing hypotheses that underlies the phenomenal work researchers undertake to bring vaccines to fruition. No, vaccines are not 100% perfect (no drugs are). I am driven mad with rage by the disgraceful actions of this idiotic few. This isn't an issue of more or less, it is one of life and death.

Patronising, paternalistic and authoritarian as I am, I would have compulsory vaccination written into law (with obvious exceptions - allergies etc). If you're too selfish that you won't protect yourself or your own child, at least spare a thought for the rest of the world - two words: herd immunity.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

I don't understand why pavements have to be made of marble or shiny tiles that get wet within the first five seconds of tropical rain and turn into deathtraps of slippery evil for pedestrians.

My mind was wandering as I listened to music (it tends to). The world would be a somewhat kinder place if we all submitted to that naive impulse to give the benefit of the doubt to our fellow human beings. For example - who knows if that irritating frog-like lady on the subway who kept treading on your toes is actually a war widow who spends her Saturday afternoons helping young children at church? No matter - it's incredibly difficult to find the goodness in everyone - tedious and pretentious, some might say - but worth a try nonetheless, as a goal in itself.

I sometimes wonder how much of our destiny is truly ours to shape - so many different faculties could have been developed in different ways if only a mentor, teacher or friend had influenced us in alternative ways. You can look back and wonder whether or why, but hindsight isn't much of a clue to the future.
Teachers are really, really powerful people - but then perhaps I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Iz Lives

So I sat there, falling into yet another one of my states of self-pity and depression (the non-clinical sort, if one exists). Hurrah - yet another crisis of self-doubt from a 20 year-old who (by his own admission, no less) doesn't deserve to have another bout of weltschmerz. The meaning of it all - pondering, wondering, gazing at the door as my mind turned into a whirlpool of nonsense. I'm naive enough to believe in 'goodness' and yet cynical enough to dismiss the notion, optimistic enough to cherish the prospect of encountering it while the pessimist within has lost all hope of it. Schadenfreude vs Empathy. Worse still would be gluckschmerz - good heavens, I think I'm beginning to see myself for what I truly am - an evil conniving hypocrite who baldly admits his flaws in a bid to dissociate himself emotionally from the cold interior that's melting like the polar ice caps. There we go with the self-pity again. Round and round in circles - a bit like Dante...borrowed that idea from my younger brother's English essay.
What of life? What of death? What of hope? Just get on with it, make your heaven here on earth, forget glory or damnation and just do your best - I don't know the correct descriptive term for this little mantra. I somehow find that innately depressing. There we go with the depression again.
Still I sit here, those thoughts spiralling out of control as I play Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' medley - the haunting power of that voice reaches over and floats into my little reverie. I listen and am unable to cry. Those bundled up thoughts, scrunched up in the brain's backyard just stay there, stubbornly refusing to give way. The music soars and my eyes close as I rock backwards in my chair as I hear those words 'why now oh why can't I?' Little channels of envy swirl around. I'm actually so happy with the simple things - the soft toy blue elephant, the simple songs, the simple food, the simple words and yet - the world around churns these into a curd of dissatisfaction, guilt and misery. O Lord, subtract the selfishness, add the goodness, multiply the friends and divide and flaws. I might be a normal person, then.

Iz Lives

So I sat there, falling into yet another one of my states of self-pity and depression (the non-clinical sort, if one exists). Hurrah - yet another crisis of self-doubt from a 20 year-old who (by his own admission, no less) doesn't deserve to have another bout of weltschmerz. The meaning of it all - pondering, wondering, gazing at the door as my mind turned into a whirlpool of nonsense. I'm naive enough to believe in 'goodness' and yet cynical enough to dismiss the notion, optimistic enough to cherish the prospect of encountering it while the pessimist within has lost all hope of it. Schadenfreude vs Empathy. Worse still would be gluckschmerz - good heavens, I think I'm beginning to see myself for what I truly am - an evil conniving hypocrite who baldly admits his flaws in a bid to dissociate himself emotionally from the cold interior that's melting like the polar ice caps. There we go with the self-pity again. Round and round in circles - a bit like Dante...borrowed that idea from my younger brother's English essay.
What of life? What of death? What of hope? Just get on with it, make your heaven here on earth, forget glory or damnation and just do your best - I don't know the correct descriptive term for this little mantra. I somehow find that innately depressing. There we go with the depression again.
Still I sit here, those thoughts spiralling out of control as I play Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' medley - the haunting power of that voice reaches over and floats into my little reverie. I listen and am unable to cry. Those bundled up thoughts, scrunched up in the brain's backyard just stay there, stubbornly refusing to give way. The music soars and my eyes close as I rock backwards in my chair as I hear those words 'why now oh why can't I?' Little channels of envy swirl around. I'm actually so happy with the simple things - the soft toy blue elephant, the simple songs, the simple food, the simple words and yet - the world around churns these into a curd of dissatisfaction, guilt and misery. O Lord, subtract the selfishness, add the goodness, multiply the friends and divide and flaws. I might be a normal person, then.

Prospects

The future is bleak. I remember muttering to the few who cared to listen (back in 1999) that the world would end in either 2000 or 2006. The millennium came and went and here we are today. A recent reminder from an old friend of the 2006 deadline made me wonder if it still matters. Who cares anymore? What on earth is the point? It might as well be over.

hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

Please, please, please - people! See some sense!
Surely 6/6/1666 would have scared the living daylights out of these luddites.

Odd, that.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1784869,00.html

It was reported last week that hundreds of junior doctors in Scotland, who have spent up to £100,000 on their medical education and could have taken some of the hard-to-fill consultant posts, may be deported within months.

As for the final two paragraphs:
100,000 ? Nah. Double that.
That's why I'm going to sit the USMLE...

Rigor mortis

Life is just a long, drawn out process of having all your emotions, hopes, dreams and any goodness you might ever have possessed crushed and blended away with each passing day. It all comes unstuck in the end. More's the pity because I can faintly remember, once, long ago - clinging to hope. What a lie. What a sham. What a shame.

Drawing blanks

It has taken me twenty years to realise the value of doing nothing. I shall endeavour to spend some quality time this summer ... doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not easy, you know. Not easy at all.

Cute?

Some kind soul posted a comment on the posting 'Los Angeles to Mosul for 140' - it's been about 10 years since I was last called that and - boy does it feel good... Jason the little munchkin...a stodgy, podgy, inky-dinky plippety-ploppety happy blobby cutey-pie with not a care in the world. Like a jolly pork pie just before he gets eaten!

Saturday Lamentation

I canter between the posts of buoyant optimism and bleak pessimism at the whim of the wind. It's awful to be pinballed like that, knowing that just as you reach the next marker all you have to look forward to is the fleeting sensation of something you'll forget before you could even wonder what had just happened.

Over the years I have come to realise something terrible. It has turned life into one long, sick, disgusting parody of a prisoner's worst nightmare.

I call it the 'downhill slide.' Each moment is the best moment of the rest of your life. Every passing second is better than the one following it because life is simply a downhill slide into oblivion and impending doom. As each day gets worse and worse, the realisation that each passing moment is better than the one following it becomes stronger and stronger. Nevertheless, a person's outlook on life can follow different patterns. Either:

You dread the next day, knowing that whatever the future holds, it can only get worse.
OR...
Paradoxically, you live each moment gleefully acknowledging that it is the best you're ever going to have.

Perhaps it doesn't make much difference because either way, each night one silently prays to have a really massive subarachnoid haemorrhage and not have to wake up the next morning.

Carpe diem, etc. You begin to die the second you're born, etc. D'oh. Whichever way you picture it, I think it's a cruel joke that a human being has to plumb the depths of despair to find some reason to make the most of each passing second of this moribund existence to which we're sentenced.

A good shot of diazepam would be very welcome right now.

Los Angeles to Mosul for 140

Well, there you have it. Four rounds and a knockout.
It was fun while it lasted. I hope that's true for other things, too.

78-75 Blindspots

I saw the cherry blossoms on Thursday and a few green leaves on Saturday. Spring has come.

I have reached the terminal phase of this odd stage of life but the rate at which the days fly past makes it difficult to stop and smell the roses. Before you know what's happened - it's over. A cliched revelation that has to be experienced. You look backwards at your own peril; it's so easy to trip over the stepping stones of tomorrow. Rather like reversing around a bend.

Empty patches demand a faith and persistence to bridge those gaping chasms we face from time to time. Amidst the emptiness we somehow have to stand firm and not be bowled over when the strong winds of uncertainty blow.

On a wing and a prayer

I have only myself to blame, I have a million people to thank.
I have a million obligations to fulfill, I have only one chance.
I have to concentrate while multi-tasking, I have to focus without blurring the bigger picture.
I have one life and a million ways to live it.

That is why ignorance is bliss. What about non-existence? Perhaps that's not even a valid question.

Litany

All or nothing, almost there.
Pity for the tired wayfarer, shelter for the weary.
Does dawn break over night's dark stillness?
Can the stale air drift away with the angry grey clouds?
The memory of things past falls away with the footsteps, we cling to them fervently until they almost dissolve into thin air.
Hope - remains. Hope for another chance, another day, another way to claw our way back to the happy golden hill on that far and distant shore, the coastline of faded memories.
Is all lost? Where did it perish - in which empty sea? The sea of emptiness can never be drained and its waters are bittersweet.
Bend over the edge and peer into the depths that mirror the hidden recesses of a fractured mind. Search for those lost longings and cling to them.
Once more into the breach, dear friends...

Almost home

There are some words whose meaning stretches far beyond the intended definition; such words provoke emotions and touch raw nerves that somehow seemed rather sclerosed on the surface but remained just as tender below. Some words are almost causalgic; they short circuit their regular meanings and take on new ones, opening the floodgates to memories that don't seem to fade with time - each time you polish away the dirt the memory seems to reflect your inner thoughts more vividly than ever before.

'Almost' is one of those words. When you 'almost' made the grade, 'almost' finished the task, 'almost' stopped the bullet. Almost - but not quite. Just not quite there. Never quite enough.

'Home' is another one that weighs on the mind heavily. Life is an adventure but home is where the heart is. Sometimes 'home' and 'the past' seem to get confused with each other, especially with the passage of time. I would give a king's ransom (if I had one to give) just to be able to re-live that once again. To sit cross-legged on a parquet wood floor gazing at the thunderclouds pouring heavy drops of rain as the afternoon wind blows. To smell the smell of home once again. The mere thought sends a tingle of ectopic beats slithering through me. Thing is - airline tickets aside - I don't have to pay for the privilege; somehow I'm paying to stay away. Is five years really such a long time? The clouded mind plays cruel tricks but it is no trick to be almost - but not quite - home.

Bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo

I am shocked and appalled. Listening to doctors rant about having to meet ridiculous NHS 'targets' is one thing, reading about government learning targets for five year-olds is quite another. Terms like "foundation stage profile" are now in use.
Statistics claim that
52 per cent had not reached their "early learning goals". The Department for Education said that meant that they had "failed to achieve a good level of development" between the ages of three and five and this raised questions about their "future potential to enjoy and achieve".
Who pays people to come up with, enforce and compile statistics about such ridiculous 'targets' anyway?
Somebody ought to launch a common sense campaign...this is just going too far.

Something to be angry about

I'm a medical student.
Call me naive - but our little world would be much better off if governments had fewer lawyers/bureaucrats running them (yes, my long-running antipathy/downright hatred for all forms of 'bureaucracy') and more doctors or scientists calling the shots. What I am referring to, of course, ladies and gents, is TOBACCO smoking. It's sooooo very simple. Ban it. Ban it. Ban it. Blah blah blah freedom of expression blah blah blah. You don't allow people to sell ecstasy on the streets because it is a POISON. Likewise, smoking cigarettes is POISONOUS - to you, to others around you and to the environment. Sure - you could be pedantic and declaim conventional medicines as 'poisons' - what is a poison if not something given in a large enough dose for toxic side effects to overwhelm the body? By the same token, alcohol would thus be a 'poison' - but that's perfectly legal. Don't give me that pathetic excse. Your liver metabolises alcohol and detoxifies the products of metabolism, which you then proceed to excrete. Your lungs, on the other hand, are poisoned from the word 'go' the minute you take that first puff. No detox, not cool. Abuse of anything - medicines, fatty foods, alcohol - will make you sick and probably kill you, but they can all be enjoyed within moderation - even to excess, most of the time. Smoking one cigarette probably won't kill you - but smoke one a day, the same way you eat one caviar blini or drink one pint of beer - and you'll definitely mess something up - even if it's 'just bronchitis'...IT'S COMMON SENSE, PEOPLE!!! Alcohol isn't a PUBLIC HEALTH HAZARD (alright, drunks and cirrhosis aside) - banning alcohol won't make as big a difference as banning smoking.
In fact, there's only one way to stop this - law courts don't work (money talks); governments are in the pockets of big tobacco firms - tax revenue, jobs, etc - and smoking lobbies delude the 'free world' into trying to protect their freedoms. Rubbish. Nonsense. What's lacking here is COMMON SENSE. Burn a little stick of poison and breathe in the toxic fumes - poison yourself and fill your lungs with tar (I think you actually have to be quite STUPID to smoke - that too is a 'choice' - one that reflects a depressingly low level of good sense). Just don't fumigate those around you. So, why do I care so much if I'm just a selfish twit who doesn't like smoke blown in his face? Simple - I'm a medical student... patients who, when questioned reply that they smoked 50 cigarettes a day for 42 years are pretty much shifting the blame to the little sticks of poison. If they don't have the will to protect themselves, somebody has to destroy the incredibly intelligent profiteering murdererous manufacturers who hold the smoking world hostage (1 billion smokers...on earth). So - what are we to do? I'm going to keep it secret until I've finally set my little plan in motion...

I'm not motivated by pure altruism - those who know me can testify to my cold-blooded bile-spewing cerebrospinal-fluid-leaking antagonism of 'the great and the good' - but hear me now - it is just SICK and WRONG to sell people poison. "Here - smoke this - it'll make you feel better but will make you suffer and die!" This has got to stop.

Round 1b

BBC TWO, 8.30pm, Monday 16th January 2006.
ICSM vs Trinity Oxford.

Firms. Unpredictable.

Food needed.

Resolve

Smile more, be happier.
Be happier, live longer.
Live longer, smile more.

See Ekman.