Well, in nearly 500 posts, I have never published a retraction, and I'm not quite doing it now. But concerning yesterday's post, yes, there was an error on the bill I received, in the sense that it didn't give me complete information. I still had to pay the amount on the invoice, but it turned out to be for three sessions of physical therapy, not one. That makes things a bit more bearable, yet still...
Do I believe in universal health care? Absolutely. But I don't believe it will be possible to institute under our current system.
I've learned to trust my body, and to believe that it can, and will, adapt to most outside challenges. It also aligns with my inner reality, which I try to stay very conscious of. I'm not afraid of my body or of illness...am I a little afraid of falls and their ramifications? Yes. That seems to have been my biggest challenge; I didn't fall last month, but the IT band problem might have stemmed partially from last December's fall. Clearly these situations absolutely require medical intervention. Ditto, dental work. So we all need something, sometime. I am grateful for good care these last few weeks, but why is it that the minute money enters into any scenario, I feel sick in the pit of my stomach? I just feel better about a love economy, a "I'll do that for you because you are another wonderful human being" economy. In health care and in other scenarios.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Health Care
OK, so I've rarely spoken about this touchy topic in too much detail, and I actually won't today either. However, I need to weigh in.
Six weeks ago, I went overnight from being able to walk normally, to having such excruciating pain in my left thigh that I virtually couldn't walk at all. It turned out to be an IT band inflammation. Age has caught up with me, as my fall last Christmas should have completely illustrated. Being over sixty doesn't seem to be conducive to having no health insurance, which has been my norm for most of the last thirty years. I have started the wheels in motion to do the inevitable, even though my spirit didn't do it lightly. What seems sensible to most people is painful for me. I don't know if it's possible to list all my objections to our current system -- so I'll just say that my main ones are that it is largely based on duality ("fighting disease") and on some people profiting from others' illness and accidents. I don't find any of it sensible or ethical, but then again, my thinking finds few reflections out in the world.
But to receive an invoice for physical therapy at what appears to be the rate of $600 an hour (minus a small percentage because I am paying for it) is so stunning, it's hard to fathom. I am so grateful for this therapy, and it has helped enormously. I can pretty much walk normally again, although I am still having trouble with some stairs. I have nothing "against" anyone involved. As always, for me, it's mostly the philosophy of the thing. How can anyone, anywhere, stomach asking a person who has rarely made more than ten or fifteen dollars an hour, to pay sixty times what they have ever been paid per hour, for one hour of anything? Sorry, folks in the health care world, this isn't "caring" for anyone.
Sure, I'll call, check to see if there's been a mistake, and if not, maybe I'll get some eventual reimbursement. I'm willing to eat ramen noodles from now till Christmas and all the other ramifications of a sudden financial shock like this. My life has been a succession of such shocks. People wonder why I don't "fight" for better wages or health care or housing. Well, it's simply this. I don't believe that any of the current systems in place around the world can ever provide solutions to this kind of thing, so fighting will never produce a better outcome. These systems are not based on love. They are not based on beauty, or wisdom, or any of the attributes that are important to me -- which is why I've not been paid properly, or cared for. It's as simple as that. It's a vicious circle, which will only spin faster if I "fight" it. The only way forward for me is to act as lovingly as possible, and as honestly as possible. Writing this blog was the honest part.
Six weeks ago, I went overnight from being able to walk normally, to having such excruciating pain in my left thigh that I virtually couldn't walk at all. It turned out to be an IT band inflammation. Age has caught up with me, as my fall last Christmas should have completely illustrated. Being over sixty doesn't seem to be conducive to having no health insurance, which has been my norm for most of the last thirty years. I have started the wheels in motion to do the inevitable, even though my spirit didn't do it lightly. What seems sensible to most people is painful for me. I don't know if it's possible to list all my objections to our current system -- so I'll just say that my main ones are that it is largely based on duality ("fighting disease") and on some people profiting from others' illness and accidents. I don't find any of it sensible or ethical, but then again, my thinking finds few reflections out in the world.
But to receive an invoice for physical therapy at what appears to be the rate of $600 an hour (minus a small percentage because I am paying for it) is so stunning, it's hard to fathom. I am so grateful for this therapy, and it has helped enormously. I can pretty much walk normally again, although I am still having trouble with some stairs. I have nothing "against" anyone involved. As always, for me, it's mostly the philosophy of the thing. How can anyone, anywhere, stomach asking a person who has rarely made more than ten or fifteen dollars an hour, to pay sixty times what they have ever been paid per hour, for one hour of anything? Sorry, folks in the health care world, this isn't "caring" for anyone.
Sure, I'll call, check to see if there's been a mistake, and if not, maybe I'll get some eventual reimbursement. I'm willing to eat ramen noodles from now till Christmas and all the other ramifications of a sudden financial shock like this. My life has been a succession of such shocks. People wonder why I don't "fight" for better wages or health care or housing. Well, it's simply this. I don't believe that any of the current systems in place around the world can ever provide solutions to this kind of thing, so fighting will never produce a better outcome. These systems are not based on love. They are not based on beauty, or wisdom, or any of the attributes that are important to me -- which is why I've not been paid properly, or cared for. It's as simple as that. It's a vicious circle, which will only spin faster if I "fight" it. The only way forward for me is to act as lovingly as possible, and as honestly as possible. Writing this blog was the honest part.
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Christmas Shopping
It probably won't come as a big surprise to my handful of readers that I don't do much in the way of Christmas shopping. Something about the whole concept has troubled me for decades, certainly the way it manifests in modern America. I suppose if one is uncomfortable with notions like profit, ownership, and accumulation of superficial things, and if one has very little money, the season becomes increasingly awkward, peculiar, even traumatizing. It's like watching some kind of bizarre movie through pane glass that you are on the other side of. But at least until recently, the whole "thing" wouldn't start until after Thanksgiving. As I'm sure you've all noticed, it started the day after Halloween this year. The explanation I heard in passing on television news was that retailers were so concerned by the fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2019, that they had to expand the season. I mean, it is surely obvious that this has little or nothing to do with celebrating the birth of Christ and everything to do with retail profit.
I guess I wouldn't mind so much if we re-named the holiday, and just called it "Present Day" or "Yearly Celebration of Stuff." And I'm a non-traditional enough of a Christian, indeed post-Christian, enough, that it might seem like I would simply ignore the religious roots of the holiday. But I care. I care enough about the life and values of the holy man called Jesus and the religion I grew up with and whose music is at the core of my being, that I just cannot square these two polar opposites: the frenzied rush to spend enormous amounts of money on technology, household goods, clothes and plastic-packaged toys, and a mystic who, during his ministry at least, appears to have had no home, probably just one robe and one pair of sandals. If he manifested in our midst tomorrow, what would he make of this whole phenomenon? I can guess, but it's not a question I can definitively answer.
In December, I will probably do what I have done other years, which is buy one or two locally- or hand-made presents for my dearest friends, wrap them carefully, and send or give them in person. I will probably send out about a dozen Christmas cards, the old fashioned kind. And I will probably make some cookies or holiday food for a few other friends -- and that's it. By some people's standards, my life is pretty sad. I don't have any young children in my life, and no family that I am close with anymore. Many people may be going through the motions for their family's or tradition's sake, but I cannot and will not do it. And on Christmas Day itself, I am likely to listen to some music from England, or sit in silence, watching what is sure to be a very snowy, wintry scene outside. (If I had my own home, I would invite people for a meal, but I do not.) It is not about rebellion, it is about aligning with my perception of the spirit of the season. Under this kind of social and retail pressure, all we can do is make our own choices.
I guess I wouldn't mind so much if we re-named the holiday, and just called it "Present Day" or "Yearly Celebration of Stuff." And I'm a non-traditional enough of a Christian, indeed post-Christian, enough, that it might seem like I would simply ignore the religious roots of the holiday. But I care. I care enough about the life and values of the holy man called Jesus and the religion I grew up with and whose music is at the core of my being, that I just cannot square these two polar opposites: the frenzied rush to spend enormous amounts of money on technology, household goods, clothes and plastic-packaged toys, and a mystic who, during his ministry at least, appears to have had no home, probably just one robe and one pair of sandals. If he manifested in our midst tomorrow, what would he make of this whole phenomenon? I can guess, but it's not a question I can definitively answer.
In December, I will probably do what I have done other years, which is buy one or two locally- or hand-made presents for my dearest friends, wrap them carefully, and send or give them in person. I will probably send out about a dozen Christmas cards, the old fashioned kind. And I will probably make some cookies or holiday food for a few other friends -- and that's it. By some people's standards, my life is pretty sad. I don't have any young children in my life, and no family that I am close with anymore. Many people may be going through the motions for their family's or tradition's sake, but I cannot and will not do it. And on Christmas Day itself, I am likely to listen to some music from England, or sit in silence, watching what is sure to be a very snowy, wintry scene outside. (If I had my own home, I would invite people for a meal, but I do not.) It is not about rebellion, it is about aligning with my perception of the spirit of the season. Under this kind of social and retail pressure, all we can do is make our own choices.
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