When the class riots erupt and the skies are on fire

[pageantry]

I know everyone gets upset about the possibility of declining reimbursements in socialized medicine. But personally I'm more concerned with whose backs will be first against the wall when climate change forces the coming class war. Who's with me? Amirite?

Anyone else thinking about thirty years from now? I'll be in my sixties but that's still plenty young enough to patch up the resistance fighters from the depths of the burning rain forests.

That said, I'm so much more interested in psychiatry than trauma surg. What oh what to do. ADVICE PLZ?


P.S. It's been a long secondaries season.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[psychic_detective]

Personally, when Cthulu comes back I don't know that you becoming a psychiatrist will be of much help. The elder God is known for the madness he instills in the souls of men. That is why I am applying to a program that will let me gather the skills necessary to to fight this archaic monster at Miskatonic University.

 

[pageantry]

Personally, when Cthulu comes back I don't know that you becoming a psychiatrist will be of much help. The elder God is known for the madness he instills in the souls of men. That is why I am applying to a program that will let me gather the skills necessary to to fight this archaic monster at Miskatonic University.

Oh word. Like the wilderness medicine elective at UColorado.
Me too.

 

[Nasrudin]

Psychiatry will adapt to the end times. Or at least I will. The coming existential fight against the machines will require optimal human performance. Particularly as technology and virtual realities become contextual with physical reality. The human consciousness will need observers and manipulators as always.

I leave the patching of wounds and the mechanics of human exoskeletons and machined bodies to the appropriate engineers.

I think I'll be more interested in running voight-kampff exams on infiltrating androids and analyzing/profiling/predicting strategy of skynet or other AI human extermination plots.

 

[pageantry]

Psychiatry will adapt to the end times. Or at least I will. The coming existential fight against the machines will require optimal human performance. Particularly as technology and virtual realities become contextual with physical reality. The human consciousness will need observers and manipulators as always.

I leave the patching of wounds and the mechanics of human exoskeletons and machined bodies to the appropriate engineers.

I think I'll be more interested in running voight-kampff exams on infiltrating androids and analyzing/profiling/predicting strategy of skynet or other AI human extermination plots.

I can't tell if you're taking this less... Or MORE seriously than I am, but I'm pretty much with you by default. I hope.

Personally, I think the movement to incorporate psychedelics into traditional psychiatry will gain more and more traction (whoop whoop to MAPS for officially applying for breakthrough therapy status, Phase 3) and become recognized as the profession's saving grace as it moves from a paternalistic approach to one which is both inclusive and expansive.

In this way, it may be possible for colonial excesses to finally be forgiven, the healing of consciousness, relinquishment of greed. One world, Michael Jackson, friendship is magic, etc...

 

[DrMidlife]

The year before I started med school I had a fairly serious conversation with a software industry co-worker, who telecommutes from a rural area where she and her husband have built a fully self-sustaining farm, about what it will be like to be an itinerant physician in the end times. How much territory could I reasonably cover on foot, shelf life of antibiotics and is electricity required for their manufacture, should she be vaccinating her non-herd livestock now pending unavailability, is there a better specialty than FM to prepare, etc.

It's all very Book of Eli but I could picture it.

 

[pageantry]

The year before I started med school I had a fairly serious conversation with a software industry co-worker, who telecommutes from a rural area where she and her husband have built a fully self-sustaining farm, about what it will be like to be an itinerant physician in the end times. How much territory could I reasonably cover on foot, shelf life of antibiotics and is electricity required for their manufacture, should she be vaccinating her non-herd livestock now pending unavailability, is there a better specialty than FM to prepare, etc.

It's all very Book of Eli but I could picture it.

FIRST of all, we should pretty much assume that superbugs will wipe out 90% of humanity anyway. Consider psychic combat?

Second, yeah, probably specialize in FM and then move to a Native reservation to learn the secrets of changa before Paul Stamets corners the market on everlasting life.

Third, buy a Sawyer filtration system. Those things are gold.

 

[Nasrudin]

I can't tell if you're taking this less... Or MORE seriously than I am, but I'm pretty much with you by default. I hope.

Personally, I think the movement to incorporate psychedelics into traditional psychiatry will gain more and more traction (whoop whoop to MAPS for officially applying for breakthrough therapy status, Phase 3) and become recognized as the profession's saving grace as it moves from a paternalistic approach to one which is both inclusive and expansive.

In this way, it may be possible for colonial excesses to finally be forgiven, the healing of consciousness, relinquishment of greed. One world, Michael Jackson, friendship is magic, etc...

Haha.

The psychedelic space is not the purvey of psychiatry. Or medicine. Or the shaman entrepreneur. It is an agency independent of our struggle in a particular time or space. An open channel to the cosmic. I use it personally. Plan on exploring it to the fullest. May involve recommending if in a particular setting or if I can evolve a performance oriented private practice.

But. Like most people who don't manage psychotic violence or risk of self harm, you don't understand that these are unrelated phenomenon. Public psychiatry is tasked with being paternal by society. If you can't get comfortable with this premise don't go into psychiatry. You can do the other things your tendencies or interests track from any number of positions in our current social/professional structure.

There is already a darkness growing that the public psychiatrist is actively engaged in managing. The Corporate prison system is the largest holding area for mentally ill patients and additionally is actively engaged in creating mental illness. Seroquel getting passed out like candy. Pharmaceutical crowd control.

 

[pageantry]

Haha.

The psychedelic space is not the purvey of psychiatry. Or medicine. Or the shaman entrepreneur. It is an agency independent of our struggle in a particular time or space. An open channel to the cosmic. I use it personally. Plan on exploring it to the fullest. May involve recommending if in a particular setting or if I can evolve a performance oriented private practice.

But. Like most people who don't manage psychotic violence or risk of self harm, you don't understand that these are unrelated phenomenon. Public psychiatry is tasked with being paternal by society. If you can't get comfortable with this premise don't go into psychiatry. You can do the other things your tendencies or interests track from any number of positions in our current social/professional structure.

There is already a darkness growing that the public psychiatrist is actively engaged in managing. The Corporate prison system is the largest holding area for mentally ill patients and additionally is actively engaged in creating mental illness. Seroquel getting passed out like candy. Pharmaceutical crowd control.

Well now this is serious and interesting. Are you opposed to the MDMA and psilocybin studies being carried out at Johns Hopkins, NYU, UCLA, and in Colorado (elsewhere too, I think?), or Columbia's work with ibogaine and ketamine? I'm not saying that psychedelics should take over for appropriate treatment of schizophrenia, for instance. Obviously not, one would think.

And I agree with you that there is a huge need in public psychiatry, but as a member of communities that bear the brunt of that "crowd control" I'm not convinced that this the the healthiest perspective for patient OR practitioner. You don't see other options?

 

[Nasrudin]

Well now this is serious and interesting. Are you opposed to the MDMA and psilocybin studies being carried out at Johns Hopkins, NYU, UCLA, and in Colorado (elsewhere too, I think?), or Columbia's work with ibogaine and ketamine? I'm not saying that psychedelics should take over for appropriate treatment of schizophrenia, for instance. Obviously not, one would think.

And I agree with you that there is a huge need in public psychiatry, but as a member of communities that bear the brunt of that "crowd control" I'm not convinced that this the the healthiest perspective for patient OR practitioner. You don't see other options?

I love the expansive nature of your thread. I dig your perspective.

Of course I'm enthusiastic about the research and justification for the use of these substances for neurotic or addictive processes. Or for trauma, PTSD, depression, anxiety. But this will not rescue the psychiatrist from his/her role in admitting people against their will to treat them for psychosis. Nor should it. This is a common mishmashed idea in countercultural notions. Until psychotic delusional guy hear's ventrilloquistic AH from the mouths of little girls and infuses psychotic elaborations of his Elijah Muhammad indoctrination with hyperreligious justification for smashing their heads in. Then you get paternal than mf'er, Not troubling yourself with his belief system, that you are a creation of Yakub a black scientist from 6000 years ago who created your race and that you are keeping him imprisoned in a psych ward for being a black man in America, and hold him down with the help of security and inject him with large doses of an antipsychotic. Regularly. You don't waffle around in vague leftist notions of paternalism. Or you don't do this job. That simple.

There's absolutely nothing healthy about a genocidal prison system that reinforces racial war, poverty, and violence. Nor is there anything healthy about working within that system or with the blurred lines for goals of treatment that are found there.

 

[pageantry]

I love the expansive nature of your thread. I dig your perspective.

Of course I'm enthusiastic about the research and justification for the use of these substances for neurotic or addictive processes. Or for trauma, PTSD, depression, anxiety. But this will not rescue the psychiatrist from his/her role in admitting people against their will to treat them for psychosis. Nor should it. This is a common mishmashed idea in countercultural notions. Until psychotic delusional guy hear's ventrilloquistic AH from the mouths of little girls and infuses psychotic elaborations of his Elijah Muhammad indoctrination with hyperreligious justification for smashing their heads in. Then you get paternal than mf'er, Not troubling yourself with his belief system, that you are a creation of Yakub a black scientist from 6000 years ago who created your race and that you are keeping him imprisoned in a psych ward for being a black man in America, and hold him down with the help of security and inject him with large doses of an antipsychotic. Regularly. You don't waffle around in vague leftist notions of paternalism. Or you don't do this job. That simple.

There's absolutely nothing healthy about a genocidal prison system that reinforces racial war, poverty, and violence. Nor is there anything healthy about working within that system or with the blurred lines for goals of treatment that are found there.

Right on. I don't think we disagree. I have had the opportunity to spend an unusual amount of time in psychiatric hospitals serving schizophrenic gang members (who yeah totally pls do tie 'em down for a mo'. I am slight.) But I've also had the chance to work closely with the kind of psychiatrists-to-the-rich-and-famous who work in psychedelic research. One of the two guys who runs the NYU psilocybin study is also the head of the acute ward at Bellevue (or was, last I heard.) Takes all kinds.

But it sounds like you're saying there are no other options in working in psychiatry with the truly poor and disenfranchised besides degradation? What about the impoverished trans women (I'm thinking of several people I know personally), whose psychiatrists are the reason they're able to rest in self-expression? I mean, these are people who are often first misdiagnosed as borderline, so we're talking self-harm galore. Yet they come away empowered. It feels like... There's got to be something there, some positive direction our society is heading? Especially since trans issues are something our society has, interestingly, elected to focus on.

P.S. It's a huge relief to get to be expansive with someone. Are you sure you wouldn't like to hear about my biggest challenge? What about how I'll contribute to your diversity??

 

[----------12c]

I know everyone gets upset about the possibility of declining reimbursements in socialized medicine. But personally I'm more concerned with whose backs will be first against the wall when climate change forces the coming class war. Who's with me? Amirite?

Anyone else thinking about thirty years from now? I'll be in my sixties but that's still plenty young enough to patch up the resistance fighters from the depths of the burning rain forests.

That said, I'm so much more interested in psychiatry than trauma surg. What oh what to do. ADVICE PLZ?


P.S. It's been a long secondaries season.

Start looting lol

 

[Nasrudin]

Right on. I don't think we disagree. I have had the opportunity to spend an unusual amount of time in psychiatric hospitals serving schizophrenic gang members (who yeah totally pls do tie 'em down for a mo'. I am slight.) But I've also had the chance to work closely with the kind of psychiatrists-to-the-rich-and-famous who work in psychedelic research. One of the two guys who runs the NYU psilocybin study is also the head of the acute ward at Bellevue (or was, last I heard.) Takes all kinds.

But it sounds like you're saying there are no other options in working in psychiatry with the truly poor and disenfranchised besides degradation? What about the impoverished trans women (I'm thinking of several people I know personally), whose psychiatrists are the reason they're able to rest in self-expression? I mean, these are people who are often first misdiagnosed as borderline, so we're talking self-harm galore. Yet they come away empowered. It feels like... There's got to be something there, some positive direction our society is heading? Especially since trans issues are something our society has, interestingly, elected to focus on.

P.S. It's a huge relief to get to be expansive with someone. Are you sure you wouldn't like to hear about my biggest challenge? What about how I'll contribute to your diversity??

Well I'm not sure what you mean exactly. But if im guessing right you're wondering is there is some venue of creativity in public psychiatry. And I never meant to imply that degradation occurs, at least not with intention.

What is happening, from my perspective, is that the new healthcare legislation has further entrenched the insurance industry which is now dictating completely how health care gets delivered. And care for chronically mentally ill patients has been largely been disincentivized. Public clinics are hanging on by strings. And no thought was given to the effect on clinicians and to the quality of their interactions with patients with all of the monstrous reems of paperwork that must be filled out to comply with or get paid for this and that.

So chronically mentally ill patients are loosing options. And the quality of their options are getting worse. Hospital stays have become quick interventions with poor dispo plans or even options for discharge.

I'm sure there are public psychiatrists doing amazing research on these treatments. Or doing high quality care with subpopulations you mention. There may be islands of well funded, creative, comprehensive clinics. But I certainly don't know what it takes financially for them to exist. But my feel for the daily bureaucratic war fare to get the bills paid on inpatient units and the clinic I work in (which has been loosing money for years) tells me that the future for public psychiatry is bleak.

There's not a lot of room for creativity and innovations. And we're a thousand miles from these agents being offered en masse via the public payment and delivery system.

I don't know where I'm going to cut a path through all this. But I'm leveraged to the hilt to make it happen in my middle aged arrival to the attending workforce. So whatever I'm doing I'll have to maximize my income.

Premed applications are an idealistic time.

Stay golden.

 

[pageantry]

My current idealism exists at levels put on this planet to make everyone else feel better about their own.

Come to my higher vibration, dammit.

*is depressed*

 

[Law2Doc]

The year before I started med school I had a fairly serious conversation with a software industry co-worker, who telecommutes from a rural area where she and her husband have built a fully self-sustaining farm, about what it will be like to be an itinerant physician in the end times. How much territory could I reasonably cover on foot, shelf life of antibiotics and is electricity required for their manufacture, should she be vaccinating her non-herd livestock now pending unavailability, is there a better specialty than FM to prepare, etc.

It's all very Book of Eli but I could picture it.

The people with self sustaining farms are the ones with targets on their heads once food supplies run short. Those of us who have nothing sustainable will become the looters, not the lootees. So that's just bad thinking on their part. Psychiatry provides less value in a post apocalyptic world where antisocial behavior actually provides a survival benefit. FM is as good a field as any, but honestly without technology or meds any person with basic medic skills probably suffices.

 

[Goro]

So will OMT!

Psychiatry will adapt to the end times. Or at least I will. The coming existential fight against the machines will require optimal human performance. Particularly as technology and virtual realities become contextual with physical reality. The human consciousness will need observers and manipulators as always.

I leave the patching of wounds and the mechanics of human exoskeletons and machined bodies to the appropriate engineers.

I think I'll be more interested in running voight-kampff exams on infiltrating androids and analyzing/profiling/predicting strategy of skynet or other AI human extermination plots.

 

[pageantry]

Yaaaaas to OMT. I heal with my hands by god! Hands and a scalpel torn from the jagged metal of the remnants of civilization. You know, when necessary.

Or for zombies.

 

[Nasrudin]

Bet you didn't know country music could be psychedelic. It's the sort of stuff that reminds me. Everything is gonna be alright. Even the fire in the sky at the End Times.

Like that for my young friend Felix. Who follows my stupid posts.

Pageantry, Imma get back to you soon. Hope you're having fun!

 

[pageantry]

The Guatemalan cacao shaman says there will be a massive irreversible planetary shift in consciousness on September 27th or 28th. And I have the runs. So... yes.

 

[pageantry]

No but really, guys, seriously. End of the world skills (for those of us who want to be eaten last/spared the emperor's desert prison planet) are definitely going to include: setting bones, removed bullets/stitching wounds, delivering babies, purifying water and DISTILLING VODKA. So @Nasrudin, there you go. New hobby.

 

[Nasrudin]

No but really, guys, seriously. End of the world skills (for those of us who want to be eaten last/spared the emperor's desert prison planet) are definitely going to include: setting bones, removed bullets/stitching wounds, delivering babies, purifying water and DISTILLING VODKA. So @Nasrudin, there you go. New hobby.

I have a goal of becoming proficient in the use of firearms. And working my way to a home assault rifle kit that is legal but able to be converted to full automatic when the groups of thugs start roaming Mad Max like through the streets. Learning to hunt and prepare game meat as well.

I can stitch wounds, set bones, and deliver babies at a level of proficiency already that will suffice in times less amenable to law suits, and menacing acronymed institutions that will be comic absurdity in The End.

You know... these end times. There are some upsides.

 

[Nasrudin]

Also. The real difference will be access to medicines. The level of ability to repair vessels and and complex anatomy will be rare enough skill, and not worth going through surgical training just as preparation.

 

[Nasrudin]

You know another interesting thing. I wonder if THE END comes later, like a few hundred years from now. And then the whole thing crashes. Books would be like ancient scrolls. Very valuable items. Medical manuals should be in our END TIME kits.

 

[pageantry]

I have a goal of becoming proficient in the use of firearms. And working my way to a home assault rifle kit that is legal but able to be converted to full automatic when the groups of thugs start roaming Mad Max like through the streets. Learning to hunt and prepare game meat as well.

I can stitch wounds, set bones, and deliver babies at a level of proficiency already that will suffice in times less amenable to law suits, and menacing acronymed institutions that will be comic absurdity in The End.

You know... these end times. There are some upsides.

Yeah, an automatic weapon will be kiiiiiind of useful. Bow-hunting and a working knowledge of Krav Maga might be more sustainable. Especially if you can also play a small instrument and teach meditation techniques. Also recommend starting a seed and spore bank. What we're looking for, here, are the raw means, not the assets.

What I think most people don't appreciate about post-apocalyptic earth is how BORING it will be: Tell us again about Monet's Water Lillies! -Oh no, not those again, let's have a Rembrandt. -But we heard about the Anatomy Lesson last time! *scuffle breaks out*

^referencing the Anatomy Lesson means this post is still SDN appropriate.

 

[pageantry]

You know another interesting thing. I wonder if THE END comes later, like a few hundred years from now. And then the whole thing crashes. Books would be like ancient scrolls. Very valuable items. Medical manuals should be in our END TIME kits.

Medical manuals
Foraging guides
Civil engineering texts
Pre-mutant nudie magazines

 

[Nasrudin]

haha. Stop. You're giving me a mind crush. You make these thoughts seem so matter of fact normal. And with your flare and humor it's less the realm of cynicism and other hated mind states on the sdn. Conceived of as "negative" in vague sense.

Pre-mutant nudie mag's! hahahaha.

We may have divide these pursuits up and form sensate clusters to prepare properly.

I got the firearms, hunting, foraging and plant knowledge.

But...my one disagreement....is that it will be boring. I think the opposite. Is there any better peak experience with innumerable flow states than surviving in an unknown. Also, look at what you described...hilariously...people talking and telling stories.

You have to go on a yoga or psychedelic retreat for that to happen in this world.

 

[Nasrudin]

Also mutant porn. Now that I think about it. I'm not sure i wouldn't be into it.

Also, I have post-apocalyptic hopes, that masturbation will be less the purvey or private machine melded shame. And more like, Nice...look and those 2 going at it. I think ill watch for a little bit.

 

[Nasrudin]

Have you heard of "Sex At Dawn." Christopher Ryan and his colleague. It's a thesis about the nature of sexual relating in pre-civilization human hunter gatherer units.

Sorry. I just realized I'm treating this thread like we're texting.

oh well. deal with it sdn.

 

[pageantry]

You have to go on a yoga or psychedelic retreat for that to happen in this world.

And what kind of lunatic does that.

What you're not taking into account is that--for us, pre-Event, the idea of having to *struggle* a little, like *flex muscles* for justifiable reasons, sounds super sexy. But when the entire planet is surfing a constant cocktail of adrenaline and cortisol (wait...) the capacity to introduce a new thought IS (uh I mean will be) the psychedelic experience.

P.S. Speaking of, better fix that PKD deficiency in yr diet. The collected stories are out cheap in precious paperback now.

 

[pageantry]

Also mutant porn. Now that I think about it. I'm not sure i wouldn't be into it.

Also, I have post-apocalyptic hopes, that masturbation will be less the purvey or private machine melded shame. And more like, Nice...look and those 2 going at it. I think ill watch for a little bit.

Tsst tst tst with your semi-normal physiological needs. You're going to get my happy place shut down.

 

[Nasrudin]

Well, it's not that I think it would be lovely. I'm just not certain that it would be terrible and round the clock frightening. Or that my definition of happiness--flow state--would be more or less opportune under novel circumstance. Unless our camp of nerds is under constant threat of being raped and killed. Or we're starving.

OK. I will carry the burden of appropriateness so as not to compromise the other, equally scintillating items of conversation.

 

[pageantry]

Well, it's not that I think it would be lovely. I'm just not certain that it would be terrible and round the clock frightening. Or that my definition of happiness--flow state--would be more or less opportune under novel circumstance. Unless our camp of nerds is under constant threat of being raped and killed. Or we're starving.

OK. I will carry the burden of appropriateness so as not to compromise the other, equally scintillating items of conversation.

I really think it all depends on whether E-day is a product of weapons (nuclear, bio, or chemical?) or economics. I mean, are people surviving? In what form? Do we still have the same basic population density but with new physiological needs? Is the pay off of this particular novel that it is we survivors, in fact, who are the new predators? Can we get a bioethicist in our camp?

Really makes you think. *thinky face*

 

[Nasrudin]

And what kind of lunatic does that.

What you're not taking into account is that--for us, pre-Event, the idea of having to *struggle* a little, like *flex muscles* for justifiable reasons, sounds super sexy. But when the entire planet is surfing a constant cocktail of adrenaline and cortisol (wait...) the capacity to introduce a new thought IS (uh I mean will be) the psychedelic experience.

P.S. Speaking of, better fix that PKD deficiency in yr diet. The collected stories are out cheap in precious paperback now.

^^^ idk what this means. Which is funny. Because I'm usually getting the confused looks.

 

[DrMidlife]

Re Sex at Dawn I love the idea that bonobos are chimps minus the dinguses. But finding yourself in an dingus-free community doesn't come for the asking.

This is just like talking about Ecotopia. Some people see the changed sexual rules and dream of that world. Others see the changed social contract and dream of that world.

(Edit: SDN replaced a-hole with dingus. Clever.)

 

[pageantry]

^^^ idk what this means. Which is funny. Because I'm usually getting the confused looks.

Philip K Dick. Don't worry I can share.

 

[pageantry]

Re Sex at Dawn I love the idea that bonobos are chimps minus the dinguses. But finding yourself in an dingus-free community doesn't come for the asking.

This is just like talking about Ecotopia. Some people see the changed sexual rules and dream of that world. Others see the changed social contract and dream of that world.

(Edit: SDN replaced a-hole with dingus. Clever.)

I think the main thing to keep in mind is that when we're all running around rebuilding our catastrophically different visions of society, our butts are going to look tee-riffic.

 

[Nasrudin]

I really think it all depends on whether E-day is a product of weapons (nuclear, bio, or chemical?) or economics. I mean, are people surviving? In what form? Do we still have the same basic population density but with new physiological needs? Is the pay off of this particular novel that it is we survivors, in fact, who are the new predators? Can we get a bioethicist in our camp?

Really makes you think. *thinky face*

Yeah. It's an awesome thing to think about. It's my favorite genre of fiction.

 

[Nasrudin]

Phillip Dick!! Bonobos. Utopia vs dystopia in the post appocalypse. This thread has reached levels of awesome I hadn't thought possible.

I really love the bonobo vs chimp cultural model discussion. And thinking about the implication for our human cultural lineage. Huge implications for E-day as well.

 

[Nasrudin]

I'm also intrigued by the notion of morphic resonance (Rupert Sheldrake) and its implications for human culture as a possible epigenetic phenomenon. And what the role of psychedelics have played in in shaping the path of human culture and genetics.

I don't venture as far out as Terrance McKenna, but I think, minus some absurdities and poetic license he was onto something prophetic.

 

[pageantry]

I'm also intrigued by the notion of morphic resonance (Rupert Sheldrake) and its implications for human culture as a possible epigenetic phenomenon. And what the role of psychedelics have played in in shaping the path of human culture and genetics.

I don't venture as far out as Terrance McKenna, but I think, minus some absurdities and poetic license he was onto something prophetic.

I don't know about Sheldrake unless this is related to Fourier series/infinitely mutable sine wave formations? Which I also barely know about because I met a physicist smoking a spliff on top of a volcano yesterday. Things to do while you're doing...

One interesting aspect of many plant teachers is that those who use them in conscious settings for long (or sometimes short) periods of time find that they can quickly access deep psychedelic states with very low levels of trigger. The mind seems to *want* to rewire to a psychedelic level of pattern recognition and neural interconnectedness.

And, we see evidence of neural regeneration in psilocybin users, which is pretty good news for the suicidal level of cortisol we normally do our darnedest to maintain in this society.

 

[pageantry]

As an aside, my number one fear about medical school is that it will make my life less interesting.

But I believe that the skills and degree *can* do the opposite.

This thread is kind of testing that theory out.

 

[DrMidlife]

I saw the chimp vs bonobo struggle every day in industry. When the dingus realizes the powerful tool that is bad behavior. When the meek buy into and stabilize that system. When the salt of the earth check out, roll their eyes, "here we go again" and go back to their cubicle to get their job done so they can get out of work in time to go see that band they used to be in. Maybe play a set tonight.

Sometimes the dingus was a fresh hire. Too often the meek were executives (useful for dinguses to have unimaginative meek in do-nothing positions to facilitate the bad behavior).

The world changed for me that day in Bio 101 when the topic was elephant seals. How the only elephant seal males that get to mate are huge. And they get ALL the girls.

 

[pageantry]

I saw the chimp vs bonobo struggle every day in industry. When the dingus realizes the powerful tool that is bad behavior. When the meek buy into and stabilize that system. When the salt of the earth check out, roll their eyes, "here we go again" and go back to their cubicle to get their job done so they can get out of work in time to go see that band they used to be in. Maybe play a set tonight.

Sometimes the dingus was a fresh hire. Too often the meek were executives (useful for dinguses to have unimaginative meek in do-nothing positions to facilitate the bad behavior).

The world changed for me that day in Bio 101 when the topic was elephant seals. How the only elephant seal males that get to mate are huge. And they get ALL the girls.

A) Liz Phair just elevated this thread so hard.
B) Whenever things get too glum, I'm reminded of my favorite blonde joke:

Two blondes are on either side of a river. First blonde yells over, "Hey! How do you get to the other side?" Second blonde yells back, "You ARE on the other side."

 

[DrMidlife]

Three blondes are hiking in the woods. They see some tracks. First blonde says "I think those are rabbit tracks." Second blonde says "No those are bear tracks." Third blonde says "You two don't know anything those are deer tracks." And they're still arguing when the train hits 'em.

(Full disclosure I'm blonde since birth. No blondes were harmed in the creation of this joke.)

 

[pageantry]

Your metaphysical blonde joke is less reassuring.
Here, let me link you to what I'm listening to right now. Whatever it means to the medical field today, it makes my heart explode when I remember that the raga was created as medicine.

Edit: Dangit, why embedding gotta be so tough... Hang on...

 

[Nasrudin]

You guys don't know. This is like remote 8 way mind sex for me. Have you seen sense8? I hope. Otherwise I'm not just inappropriate--that lasted an hour--I'm creepy as well. You should watch it--Netflix. F'n amazing.

Love the song. Those jokes! And this scitar.

Spacing me properly.