What do we do now?
Allowing injustice and trauma to inspire action not identity
After the Vindication: The Psychological Trap Consuming the People Who Were Right by Kevin Carmody was a very timely read on Substack today. He addresses something I have expressed before. There was a time before impending disaster when many of us warned about impending disaster. Now that disaster has occurred, we can find ourselves in a non-productive trap. Though he addresses himself to a particular population, he demonstrates in his essay that his ideas have broader application, likely, even, to every single one of us.
Common contemporary psychological concepts such as “intergenerational trauma” imply that we are all, in some fashion, victims of trauma. If you accept this, it is a great starting point for reflecting on Carmody’s essay, which I hope you’ll read (even if you don’t accept the concept of “intergenerational trauma,” I think we can all recognize that it’s hard to get through life without experiencing some kind of trauma). Do we let the trauma that has affected us define our very identity, possibly paralyzing us, or do we use it as inspiration to motivate constructive action?
Since I aspire to think biblically, I recognize that the “curses” of the covid era also came with many “blessings.” Alternative forms of care got more exposure. Realization that we had been missing some things led to hope for greater impact on health, wellness, and longevity. I apologize for being a downer. I am still a practicing physician who desires to continually grow in and bring my knowledge, experience, and skills to bear in improving the health of others. I have not given up the fight. I recognize, however, that some of my initial hopes placed in new approaches, discoveries, and techniques have been tempered. I am surrounded by people who many claim have done it “right” according to so-called best practices of health and wellness, and they are still facing chronic diseases, including cancer. I know of someone who had access to the best of both traditional and alternative care that lost their fight with cancer just this week.
If you’ve followed me at all, you can predict what kind of resolution this recognition stirs in me. I have a vocational calling as a physician. I have a vastly more important spiritual calling as a follower of Jesus Christ to share that, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:16-18).
The only trauma I experience is Gates and Fauci not being strapped to tables and given endless boosters.
Appreciate your writing and its intention. It seems to me that there is a mistaken role of public health and disease. The role of a physician and the individual is a primary relationship with much weight put upon the physician who also assumes that weight. It seems most unfortunate that so many deaths with cancer especially is related outside that realm of cure. How long has it been that science initiated a war against cancer and continually looking for a cure most often comes away empty handed. It seems that the role of public health is not fulfilling its obligations. It has done so many times brilliantly when it focused on its true role of searching for the cause and then initiating change. The cause of cancer appears to be a complex overlay of environmental poisoning and that addresses the economics of chemistry, electronics, and agriculture. Those areas seem to be closeted and immune from critical revision. Science is now ensconced in DNA causes when needing a scientific update with the roles of noncoding RNA which conducts our daily life. When the Essiac formula became popular in Canada and the head of the Cancer Society went to investigate, he returned saying this was a cure, only a year later to begin action to stop its use. So there are many factors involved but without doubt the major issue today is what is the cause- and that science already knows.