Month: March 2017

Categories
personal

If only some other country built a Great Wall

Then we’d know how it works out


Still waiting on news with Alison so I thought I’d write yet another political post, which I have rarely done in the past but these are different times.

All this talk about a wall reminds me of something I told you years ago that I’ll retell now.

For thousands of years, China was invaded by the north by:

  • The Xiongnu (aka Attila the Hun) between 133 BC to 89 AD.
  • The Jurchen between 960–1279AD, and they won (!) ruling China for over a century.
  • The Manchus, who invaded from the north and controlled China for over three centuries, 1644 to 1912.

It goes on.

In any case, some bright-eyed fella hit on the idea to build a wall. And for the next 1,800 years, they did just that at the cost of $13 billion to $65 billion. Finishing it at 13,170 miles, which is over five times the distance from NYC to LA.

When it was done, they kept an eye on that wall.

Then in 1839, the Opium Wars started – in the south – by a buncha white dudes. It never entered China’s imagination that (a) white dudes from (b) the south might try to invade. Cause it never happened before.

And guess what, they had no significant army, no significant navy, and no firepower of any consequence for the task to come. Because when you spend all your scratch on something to fix yesterday’s problem, when tomorrow’s problem comes, you’re in a lotta trouble.

The builders of the wall never had the imagination to think they could be invaded from anywhere but the north, and the arrogance to think that if they couldn’t imagine it, no one else could.

China paid for their myopia: Once the new invaders came, they sliced the country up into a buncha little colonies that only started to be sorted out a hundred years  – and millions of dead Chinese – later, with WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam war, and whatever this insanity is with North Korea.

It’s still being sorted out as China pushes into the South China Sea.

My point is that China trained itself to respond to yesterday’s threat with yesterday’s technology, blowing out its funds while doing it.

A great wall was easily defeated in 1839. 178 years later, a fool is going to try the same thing again, expecting a different result.

 

\’

Location: a white couch
Mood: impatient
Music: Do you believe in what you see

Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
Blogarama - Observations Blogs

Categories
personal

Button, Button

Our experience on Obamacare


When I was a kid in the 80s, they brought back The Twilight Zone.

One of the stories, called Button, Button, taught me a valuable lesson about empathy; so much so that it stayed with me for some 30 years.

It was about a couple that was given a box by a stranger. On the box was a button. If they pressed the button, they’d get $200,000 but someone – whom they didn’t know – would die.

After a lotta struggle, the wife ultimately pushes the button. The next day, the stranger returns, gives them $200,000 and takes the box back.

When they ask what happens next, the stranger says that he’ll give the box, and the same offer, to someone else – someone that they don’t know.

No one’s asked me but I’m sure people are wondering: “What are you doing with all the money you’ve raised?” It’s only fair I answer it.

Originally, we weren’t sure how much our original insurance was going to pay towards Alison’s treatment. Her cancer was on the aggressive side of aggressive. The only “lucky” thing about our situation was that we were already on the platinum level of Obamacare, which essentially meant that we pay 10% and insurance pays 90%.

It has been a godsend to us. At last count, Alison’s 2016 cost of care was around $2.8 million dollars. Without the Affordable Care Act, the kid and I would be bankrupt and Alison would be dead. It’s that simple.

But we’re not and she’s not, thanks to the ACA and everyone’s generosity.

With what’s left of our money, we’re paying for normal expenses – mortgage, food, bills – some experimental drugs, physical and occupational therapy, and exploring future options, like a potential cancer vaccine in Germany.

Mainly, though, we’re saving up to see what happens with the ACA. So we’re watching the news daily to see what unfolds.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about #Trump Regrets and how so many people are regretting voting for Trump because they realize that things like their meals and lives are jeopardy.

Yet, it’s hard for me to feel very sorry for them.

It’s like the box. They knew someone would suffer. That someone – like Alison – might die. And they were ok with that, until they realized that the person that would die might be them.

Her: What will they do if they lose their insurance?
Me: They’ll die the same way they lived: Never knowing that when you save someone else, you save yourself. It’s a shame for a million reasons.

\’

Location: about to start some more PT
Mood: fighting the schadenfreude
Music: Give my love to the future of the humankind

Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
Blogarama - Observations Blogs

Categories
personal

Dead reckoning

Fools and fanatics


Going back to my maritime analogy, when the nights were cloudy and sailors didn’t have stars to figure out where they were going, they used deductive reasoning to essentially say:

If I know I was there on Tuesday traveling X knots per hour, and today is Wednesday, then I must be here.

They didn’t call this deductive reasoning, though, they called it deductive reckoning, which was shortened to ded reckoning, which morphed into dead reckoning.

And it’s apt cause the problem with dead reckoning is accumulating error: If I’m wrong about any assumption, that error is magnified the further you travel in time and space. You think you’re heading to safe shores and instead you’re adrift, thousands of miles off course.

We got good news last Monday that was taken away from us on Friday – the doc missed something. Our good news never ends up being good for very long.

So we’re back to trying to figure out what to do next.

Which means that I stay up at night, thinking of all our possible pasts, trying to determine the cascading consequences of my actions. Or inaction.

This fella named Bertrand Russell said that, “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

Not that I’m so wise, but it’s come to this, where I’m envious of fools and their ability to sleep. But that’s for me to deal with.

Her: Are you ok?
Me: Of course. You’re home. The kid is walking. And I had a gyro for lunch. What else could a fella want?
Her: (teasing) Me to be cancer free?
Me: Well, there is that.

 

 

Many thanks again to my friends Ricky and Kathy, who – with their friends and mine – managed to raise $12,000 for Alison with their dinner fundraiser.

Thank goodness for the good souls.

\’

Location: off to the gym to try and forget for a bit
Mood: tired
Music: Thank goodness for the good souls that make life better

Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
Blogarama - Observations Blogs

Categories
personal

Dear Son… 002: Wait and wish

The Stanford marshmallow experiment

Father and son

Dear Son;

As I write this, you are almost sixteen months old. I still feel guilty that your Grandma McCarthy has been taking the most care of you because I am still focused on your mama.

So many people write me asking about her these days. They’re waiting for some news. We are as well. We wait to see if we have more monsters to fight. We wait and wish.

For now, we pretend we’re a normal family raising you.

On that note, I learned something in college that stayed with me all these years called The Stanford marshmallow experiment.

In it, several scientists found a simple 15-minute test given to 3-5 year olds that later turned out to be the single biggest determinant of a child’s success in the world – more than IQ, education, wealth, or anything else.

The test went like this:

  1. A child was led into a room, empty of everything but their favorite food, like a marshmallow, on a table.
  2. The child was told that he or she could have the marshmallow now OR
  3. Wait 15 minutes and they could have two of them.

The children were tracked for several years and the researchers found that those that waited that extra 15 minutes did better at pretty much everything, versus the ones that would simply eat the marshmallow as soon as the researchers left.

A book I love called The Count of Monte Cristo ends with this line:

All human wisdom is contained in these two words – “Wait and Hope”

I wish so many things for you. Suppose all fathers do. But what I wish most for you is not wealth, intelligence, health, or any of these things.

What I wish for you is that you are patient and optimistic. If you are these two things, all those other things will follow and so much more.

This writer named Bernard Malamud once said that, Life is a tragedy full of joy.

If all human wisdom is contained in the verbs: Wait and Hope, then the essence of life is contained in the nouns: Tragedy and Joy.

Tragedy will come, that you can count on. I wish it weren’t so. After all, it’s the nature of the world to whittle you down to nothingness.

But joy always comes again, I promise. You just have to be patient.

We have so much tragedy, yes. But we also have so much joy because we have you. You are our greatest joy.

Always wait and hope. Because joy always comes again.

Love,

Pop

Dear Son… 001
Dear Son… 002: Wait and wish
Dear Son… 003: Rain happens
Dear Son… 004: Understanding is gold
Dear Son… 005: Language is telepathy

Location: Still at home, waiting.
Mood: anxious but patient
Music: Just sit down, take it slowly. You’re still young, that’s your fault

Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
Blogarama - Observations Blogs