This post might be "too complex and nuanced for a typical web audience."
The last couple of days have been filled with anger, for me.
One involves a situation beyond my control, but leaves me feeling vulnerable and cheated by a faceless bureaucracy. Of course it will get sorted out for my personal situation, but it only reinforces my adamant belief that health care should be a right for every single person, and not a classist privilege accessible only to those who manage to find a full-time job or can afford to pay for their own health care out of pocket. What does it say about our society, if you can only gain access to medicine and technology that will make/keep you healthy if you have the money to pay for it? Isn't it bad enough for the unemployed or under-employed that they make very little money? Must we punish them further, by telling them that they don't deserve to be healthy? That, in some cases, they deserve to die?
And people truly argue about this? Fail.
I've also been thinking a lot about people in positions of power.
If you are in a position of power, and you see that the people over whom you exert power - the sheep of your flock, if you will - are not doing what they're supposed to be doing, which of the following do you think is the proper response to make your flock more functional?
A) Blame them for not knowing better (and be sure to blame other people for not teaching them better, willfully ignoring your own position of power at the moment).
B) Mock them while surrounding yourself with people who agree with you.
C) Ostracize them by making them feel ashamed or guilty, so as not to taint your tiny Type A flock of "true sheep."
D) Complain about them and how they are the reason that the group is failing as a whole. Make sure to not actually speak to them, tell them what you think what went wrong, or perform any action items to rectify what went wrong.
E) Point out to them what went wrong, and ask them what you can do with your position of power to ensure that it does not happen again.
On a lighter note, a friend of mine recently told me that she thought my Internet alias was "My Stick Eeper." I've had this alias for 8 years, and I never thought about it that way. It's supposed to be "Mystic Keeper," by the way; huzzah for aliases created at age 14.
If people want to start calling me "The Stick," though, I am okay with that.
One involves a situation beyond my control, but leaves me feeling vulnerable and cheated by a faceless bureaucracy. Of course it will get sorted out for my personal situation, but it only reinforces my adamant belief that health care should be a right for every single person, and not a classist privilege accessible only to those who manage to find a full-time job or can afford to pay for their own health care out of pocket. What does it say about our society, if you can only gain access to medicine and technology that will make/keep you healthy if you have the money to pay for it? Isn't it bad enough for the unemployed or under-employed that they make very little money? Must we punish them further, by telling them that they don't deserve to be healthy? That, in some cases, they deserve to die?
And people truly argue about this? Fail.
I've also been thinking a lot about people in positions of power.
If you are in a position of power, and you see that the people over whom you exert power - the sheep of your flock, if you will - are not doing what they're supposed to be doing, which of the following do you think is the proper response to make your flock more functional?
A) Blame them for not knowing better (and be sure to blame other people for not teaching them better, willfully ignoring your own position of power at the moment).
B) Mock them while surrounding yourself with people who agree with you.
C) Ostracize them by making them feel ashamed or guilty, so as not to taint your tiny Type A flock of "true sheep."
D) Complain about them and how they are the reason that the group is failing as a whole. Make sure to not actually speak to them, tell them what you think what went wrong, or perform any action items to rectify what went wrong.
E) Point out to them what went wrong, and ask them what you can do with your position of power to ensure that it does not happen again.
On a lighter note, a friend of mine recently told me that she thought my Internet alias was "My Stick Eeper." I've had this alias for 8 years, and I never thought about it that way. It's supposed to be "Mystic Keeper," by the way; huzzah for aliases created at age 14.
If people want to start calling me "The Stick," though, I am okay with that.