Yesterday I had my first appointment with a primary care physician in longer than I can remember. I haven’t avoided it; I didn’t have insurance then COVID-19 hit and couldn’t find a recommended doctor who would accept a new patient. I finally gave up and let the Montefiore Hospital system, the system I go to pick one of me. What’s good is that I can walk there. I have not been able to walk to my doctor since my doctor was a pediatrician and my parents always drove me there. His office was about a mile and a half from me. There were things about him that I liked, he had his entire windowsill filled with chachka. He was fun to talk to. Unfortunately, there were things that did not inspire confidence too. The worst was that he wore his mask under not covering his nose. He’s a doctor for god’s sake. How can he not know that the nose is connected to the lungs and wearing a mask that way only helps prevent spreading infection through coughing and speaking? He is not a native English speaker and at time had trouble understanding what I was saying. I told him I got infusions for my Crohn’s then he asked if it was for cancer. He never heard of the medication I take. I have a year to find another physician before my next yearly physical. On the bright side I have his professional opinion that I’m alive and the lab results verify it. I know people that look at their results and worry about everything out of the normal range. I know I don’t know enough to make those judgments. Sadly, my cholesterol is no longer ridiculously low. I think it was 130. The good cholesterol was near the top of the normal range and the bad dead center. A few of the liver numbers were a bit off but as he didn’t call me to tell me I need a transplant I’m not going to worry about it.
Finding another doctor in the same office would be nice, not only was it convenient but I loved the nurse that took my vitals. She was happy, laughed at my jokes, and made her own jokes. You want to send a woman to seduce me the secret is to tell her to laugh at my jokes and give me food I love.
On the way home I stopped at DD for my free drink. If you order from the app twice on a Monday, you earn enough points for any drink any size. I get the iced signature mocha latte. That is amazingly good. I’m not going to marry the person that served it to me, she didn’t laugh at my joke.
When I got home, I finally put the air conditioner in the living room window and used it! What luxury! AC is one of the great inventions. I try to not use it too much as the electricity it uses is generated largely by fossil fuels so adds CO2 to atmosphere and increases the need for air conditioning. England is expecting record temperatures this week, 40ºC (104ºF). The previous record was 38ºC (101ºF). This seems to happen every year now. Climate change has become noticeable, yet Joe Manchin won’t vote for any bill that addresses the issue. What’s scary is that he is way better than anyone else that could win a senate seat in WV. I don’t blame him; I blame the people that created the hostility to addressing the problem.
The irony is that I have huge difficulty dealing with problems in my life, I shut off thinking about them. I act irrationally. Most of my therapy is targeted at addressing my problem dealing with problems. I have no trouble thinking about the world’s problems. Then I can be rational, while people that can handle their own lives fine don’t even want to be rational about it. They reject experts and rely on “common sense.”
“Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.” – Albert Einstein.
That problem is not unique to conservatives. We all have issues with it at times. We don’t seen truth we seek confirmation. Every time a staunch conservative says something against Trump, they are branded a RINO (Republican in Name Only), think Liz Cheney. I had a friend that was a Bernie supporter that rejected one of her favorite leftist pundits when he said to support Hillary after she won the nomination. I have a friend that rejects the Sierra Club because they say what he doesn’t want to be true about nuclear power. On January 6, many people were saying that it was an inside job and that the Capitol police were in on it. When it was reported that a Capitol policeman died, the literally said, “so there was one good one.” Even days later when we had a good picture of what happened people were still saying that because it fit their chosen narrative. The same people said none of the insurrectionists would ever be punished. Now that many are in jail I wonder if those people changed their mind or continue to believe it in the face of the facts just as most Republicans think the election was stolen despite no evidence. My instant assessment of the insurrection was way off base. I saw the pictures of the mob walking through the halls of the Capitol like tourists taking selfies and thought it was an insurrection but a totally hapless one. A few hours later I saw how wrong I was.
The point I’m trying to make is that we are all prone to that kind of thinking. We’re overconfident in our gut. The scientific method that changed the world more than millennia without it is about questioning our gut feelings and testing them against reality. Then being willing to accept the reality. That doesn’t come without effort. Anti-racism is nothing but a special case of not taking our instincts as facts. You can’t overcome prejudice if you don’t acknowledge that you have prejudices. Racism is only one special case. Hell, there are people that have taken anti-racism so much to heart that their prejudices have simply found new targets. It’s so much easier to do that than work at always being rational and fair.
I have been thinking of writing this forever. It’s my cause of causes. I could write reams about applying it to baseball. I literally thing about this multiple times every day. I am now going to resist going off on another branch of the argument. I’ll save that for another day. Now to leave you with something much lighter. The latest edition of Gord’s Gold. Don’t you want to hear Justin Timberlake sing a folk song and Richard Thompson do a cover of Britney Spears?
Wise Madness 