Role

I recently spoke with a group of medical students. At the end of our time together I was asked to state my core message to the students about their relationships with their patients. I encouraged them to not become their role.

We all must assume a role in an industrial society to make a living or to contribute to our community in some capacity: Doctor, mayor, nurse, teacher, etc.. The role is a tag to promote confidence and covey a message of legitimacy.

Some people, as they age in their roles, allow their personalities to fuse with their roles. They begin to behave in archetypal ways, imprinted upon them by media and example. Some become rigid and patriarchal. Some become duplicitous and corrupt. Some become haughty and condescending.

To remain genuine, vulnerable and human within your role is an extremely conscious and demanding process, as the repetitive functions of the role become more and more automatic and routine. The functions of the role often improve in speed and efficiency with this repetition. However, boredom and increasingly mindless efficiency have a corrosive effect on human enthusiasm and opennesss.

Treating each case or each human contact within a role as fresh, interesting and worthy of full concentration is terribly demanding. Practice is difficult. But, the reward to the person who remains alive within a role is life itself.

Military

The problem with the military mind is its lack of ability to see its narcissism. It can only see war as necessity to justify its oppression and brutality. Peace keeping, another term for oppression of demands for human and economic rights by the poor and undereducated, in the 21st century can be achieved without hundreds of thousands of exploited underclass citizens being amed with lethal weapons.

The military-industrial (corporate) complex needs to process these underclass men and women to control them, disable them or route them into underclass jobs after their service. If they were not controlled in this fashion, they might well form an army of revolution against the status quo.

This is the old reality behind armies and wars.

If wealth were not hoarded and passed on by the rich, there would be ample financial resources to spread peace, rather than just keep it. Schools, clean water, healthy housing and more could be afforded to the poorest of our brothers and sisters worldwide. Armies guard the rich at the expense of the poor. Armies, like the violence they perpetrate, are evil without exception.

Pseudo-science

I recently heard an award-winning writer, a pseudo scientist, on the radio. This man, whose educational and practical background is based in literature and lecturing, has based a wealthy career on sensationalizing natural science findings. The old geek-freak method of selling entertainment, couched in the pretense of sophisticated science presentation. Apparently Yale University is quite adept at turning out this brand of expert. Look at President Bush, for example.

Real science is difficult, like real practice. It takes time and dedication. The kind of time and dedication that precludes most serious scientists from becoming media celebrities.

Real practice is like real science. Dressing up in robes, burning lots of incense, collecting icons and altars, quoting from religious sources with sanctimony, these are all the trappings of pseudo practice. Real practice requires education, thought, quiet, planning, and discipline. Real practice takes place in every moment. Real practice cannot be sold, taught or promoted. It can simply be formulated and lived by each practitioner.