Frustration

I am getting old.  I’ve lived over 60 years and worked in medicine and science more than 30. I’ve been front lines in epidemics and treated at horrendous risk to myself countless communicable diseases. I’ve become sick from treating patients, despite best precautions, countless times. I’ve been treated for TB after volunteering to work on reserves where TB was endemic and no doctor had gone for years.  I stil treat Aids patients. I still treat diseases with unknown etiology that could be communicable. I’ve been at the bedside of sick people nearly everyday of my adult life but when I express an opinion I’m disregarded.  I’m shot down.

We’re even being warned by our lawyers to avoid expressing opinions other than the ‘state approved opinion’ as we may face lawsuits.  We are being muzzled.

I feel like I’m in a re run of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  It’s 1984. I’m the Prisoner.  I feel demoralized that my ‘opinion’ based on training and experience and fact means nothing if it runs counter to the propaganda. I don’t want to talk to people. I’m told of friends who I think of as geniuses, world reknown in their fields of endeavour but are now mocked behind their backs as perhaps dementing

I then realize with horror my father was often exasperated with me when I was a young genius opinionated arrogant and lacking due respect.

I remember having sailed solo across an ocean through winter hurricanes and despite a young man knowing that having to hear him suggest to me that I rig my sails differently, a rigging of value to a novice coastal sailor but long forgotten by those experienced. Another time a young man told me how to hunt deer having only shot one himself and not taking the cue from me that I had bow hunting and shot countess deer over decades.  I am irritated by these exchanges and fear my face now is a close imitation of the older men in my life who have training and experience in their special fields and I’ve simply ignored it convinced of the veracity of my age. I lack the enthusiasm for ignorance I had younger.  I am worn down with experience and book learning, to boot, but feel I miss some ingredient that I personally didn’t share sufficiently when I was younger either. The word I think is, respect. 

Our government is abysmal and encourages disrespect for experience, training and facts.  We’re devolving.  I love the old elephant stories.  Meanwhile I see our government lusting to euthanize the old and celebrating the adolescent fervour for criticism without knowledge or experience.  Useful idiots.

I’m probably on the receiving end of Karma. It may just be I’m facing the end of a career and loved seeing Jack Nicholson in What about Smit?  All his relationships were meaningless to the new replacements.  All his knowledge was garbage. The movie showed the new man throwing out the files accumulated over decades.I’ve just reduced thirty boxes of files to a USB stick. Ten thousand patients seen and now even though I remember details and the cumulative experience they are no longer acknowledged. My elderly patients have been telling me this last decade that they’re dismissed.

I’m dismissed.  

The rich and powerful aren’t. They maintain respect with money and guns. 

I’m just a scientist, a physician, a psychiatrist , an addiction and trauma sub specialist, a community medicine and public health specialist. I’ve a dozen letters after my name and have spent days with Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers. I’m an expert witness in the Supreme Court. I’ve spoken at international medical meetings . I’ve written papers and a book or two but now it’s yesterday.  Andy Warhol said we get ‘20 minutes of fame’.  Today the grandfathers’ have more joy than I do because the grand children look to them with adulation. I remember a father writing that only his 2 year thinks he’s a great basketball player being in awe that he actually can shoot the basket that high.  

Anyone can be lucky. They show the policeman or fireman delivering the baby in the ambulance or back seat of a car and everyone is so impressed. The baby lives. The mother lives.  I delivered a hundred babies. My friend delivered several thousand. I had a shoulder dystopia and used high forceps in a nursing station near the Arctic. Mother and child lived. I delivered a second twin the 12th baby to an Inuit lady in Churchill. We’d never suspected twins and after she’d not stop bleeding. I have cleared clots after a bit of placenta stuck to the womb and almost caused the woman to exsanguinate in her bed in a country hospital where the nurse had gone for coffee and left my patient almost to die. That same nurse with a powerful husband and horrendous negligence literally almost killed a half dozen of my patients after I ‘d saved their lives. Meanwhile the corrupt hospital administrator who would be found to be stealing operating funds for the hospital a year later kept that terrible nurse on despite her noxious behaviour.  30 great nurses in that hospital and 2 incompetents and both politically connected and the administrator already fired from a previous position for stealing.  I was so naive when I was young and innoscent. Today I’ve made so many enemies in high places saving the lives of the old and sick when my partner physician born and raised to wealth devoted her time to the prominent only and became the politically powerful and rich doctor who is admired. I’m self pitying and ready for heaven.

I feel the pain of false accusations and being jailed by the authorities to cover up the killing by a sociopath.  I survived but the delaying tactic of accusing me of the crime that they had committed resulted in it being yesterday’s news when I was finally exonerated. I feel like the sacrifices I made are known by God but I shudder when I see a lizard being awarded by the cronies and listen to those who have never been inside but live on the propaganda.  

I wonder when the pain will let up.  I have done my time in the trenches and have people back in the home country telling me how the war should be fought and they’ve never been shot at.  I identify with the veterans I treat. I know the disconnect between the world of the safe and those who saw the reality. My crime reporter friend who told me the true stories that were misrepresented in the local papers. My politically connected patients, cabinet ministers and assistants who tell me what really went down and that the news is just the cover story. My friend was the lawyer in the Picton cases. So many of these stories and they’re all yesterdays news. So today they’re picking sides. As Buffalo Springfield sang, People carrying signs , mostly say for our side. » Now the left is right and the rest is left. Yesterdays enemies are now our friends. But if you’re only in the first step on the spiral of time you can’t look back and see the switching sides and changing morality.  

I guess I want respect but not really. I want an identity change. I long for a day when I can stop being who I’ve been these decades. I’ve been The Provider, Protector, Advocate and Do Gooder Boy Scout. I’ve done the right thing. I’ve repeatedly done the right thing. I’m doing the right thing and frankly I want to have a vacation from myself.  I cerntailuy don’t feel very comfortable with family or friends. I miss the small town where everyone knew that the town drunk now no longer drank, that the town prostitute had another job, the schizophrenic had gone back to school. I miss where my work was seen and people smiled at me on the weekends as I went to the grocery store. I have always loved the praise of my colleagues. I’ve always had the appreciation of those experienced and working in the trenches. I am known in the circles that matter to me, a clinician. I’ve even had my time in academia but mostly I’m reliable. The authorities don’t trust me becuase I’m not a’team player’ and I won’t lie. They tell me to lie and to conceal the truth. They tell me to hide the bodies. I don’t . I’ve had all manner of difficulty in my career with the corrupt authorities only concerned about their jobs and happy to sacrifice patients and doctors for the ‘greater good - their jobs and those jobs of those above them ».  

I feel unapreciated and taken for granted like I did married to women who considered me a useful accessory.  I feel alienated and disconnected

I talk to people each day in the last 6 months and they say they feel ‘alienated and disconnected. »

The government has been doing this not for scientific reasons. The Nazi’s always said « we’re doing this for your good ».  Lenin said, « we much be the dictators of the proletariat’. Mother knows best. Listen to our hand picked spécialistes. Doesn’t it matter that thousands of doctors alone and in huge groups have raised concerns. It didn’t matter when 30 thousand scientists objected to the ideologically driven corrupt UN statements about climate change. The key is death or life.

As Nobel Prize Winning Bob Dylan wrote « You have to serve someone. May be the devil. May be the lord. But you have to serve someone. »

Tosher wrote that young people believe they can accept Christianity without eschewing the world

And I’m doing splits like the famous martial artist movie maker Jean Claude Van Damme. I’m trying to work in this world but increasingly only find peace alone or in prayer and mediation.

We are being forced into isolation. Our neighbours are the threat. We’re being taught to hate each other with Identify Politics. No one is hearing of Pride anymore. No one knows about hubris. 

I was such a proud young man. I knew it all. I talked to the old man and now I know divine retribution. The sadness in his eyes is what I feel. I did not show respect and now it’s too late.

I’m considering a sex change.  It would be a part of a whole make over. A new identity. I’d not be able to do my life over and really wouldn’t like to. I’ve done well in life. I’ve done the best I could and I truly fought the good fight. But I fear being rounded up. They’re saying that now. That they’re going to get the men. It doesn’t matter how I served. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done. It’S us and them. I think I’ll be safe without gonads. I’d be willing to walk to the gas chambers wth more aplomb. I can’t cry against the dying of the light. I am a whimper at best. I liked Valdy’s song, « just a dirty old man’.  Young women with children look at me like I’m the danger and they look up to the new Furhers and trust them.  I’m an old warrior. I’d rather be an old lady. I d rather sit and have tea and talk of fabric and relationships.  I’d like to be taken care of but expect there will be no ‘retiremen’t. The money has been stolen and spent by government. All the promises have been broken. I’m offered assistance with suicide and I’ve never needed it. I need a home I can’t afford and look forward to a dog that will cause me to believe that I’m needed. I don’t feel wanted or needed or anything much. It’s not depression or grief but reality. I’ve heard hundreds of aging people share the same.  I’ve done the rounds of countless nursing homes and sat with my dying mother and father and aging grandparents. They loved my company. 

I’m also spiritual enough to realize that I can’t rest on my laurels. I’m as good as I do today so I’m going to shower and dress and be that dapper older guy who doesn’t smell.  I’ll go about my daily routine and work helping others like me struggling today with meaning and purpose and hope in a world of disease and corruption.  I like that Jesus commanded « do not be afraid.’  The greatest story ever told.  We killed God.  Such a fall from the Golden Bough.  Hubris.  

I’m looking forward to a puppy that is coming and a nephew returning from overseas. There is always hope. One day the Death Cult will be exposed and all the fear mongerers  will be silenced and there will be dancing in the streets.  There’s always good music too.  I listened to fine jazz yesterday and may be will play my guitar poorly today.  I miss the book what to do while waiting for the messiah. I loved hearing about a patient taking courses and my nephew making movies,. I loved that a friend painted their bedroom. It’s not possible to save the world today but I can shower. It’s good enough if I get out for a walk. Baby steps. Do something even if it’s wrong. Dont’ stop moving or they throw dirt on your face.  It’s a Saturday.  Enjoy.  Mostly realize that the most spiritual are those who find the greatest joy in the least. You can only truly enjoy the day as you enjoy the moment.

For such a whiner and complainer I did get the new iphone 12 pro because I need it for my business and can write off the upgrade. But frankly I’m right now looking forward to taking pictures with the new improved camera. The iPhone 11 Pro Max was great especially for the camera. So here I am with a new toy and I’m worrying about feelings. Silly and typical.  I remember Dad and Mom in their later years loving a cup of tea. They were saints and wise people and I didn’t know. They savoured tea and they savoured life. Meanwhile I’m focussed on negatives when I’ve got a new puppy coming this month and a new iphone 12 max and the campers to play with. The fruits of recovery and the fruits f hard work. Thank you Jesus.