Worth Watching

I talked to someone on the telephone yesterday at length about how can we possibly account for the tragedy and evil in the world. Where is the meaning in our lives? Is there something beyond random chance at work?

As humans, we have a rich heritage of mythology, which has persisted through the ages and across diverse cultures. What are the lessons that we, as individuals and as the human race, can learn from this wisdom passed down in story form, and from the breadth of our history?

The person I was talking to has started on the process of discovering and asking their own questions quite recently. I could identify very strongly with their dismay in realising that the more they thought about "things" all it did was reveal more questions, rather than resulting in answers.

I find this talk by Jordan Peterson very helpful.
>> Jordan Peterson: The Nature of Evil
He is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto (formerly a professor at Harvard). He has obviously been thinking about these issues for much longer, and much more in depth, than I have.

I highly recommended watching this presentation. It is well worth taking the time to watch and think about some of the ideas he presents.

Plastic Bag Fiasco.

A large supermarket chain here in NZ decided to impose a 5c charge on plastic shopping bags. The charge lasted only 4 weeks in the Wellington area before it was down-graded to a "voluntary" charge due to customer complaints. Hmmph!!

Pathetic!!!! Cheap-arsed, narrow-minded, short-sighted, environment-buggering, complaining idiots!. Such a small, simple, tiny change and yet event this is too much to for some neanderthals apparently. Grrrrr. What makes it even more annoying is that the 5c charge actually works extremely well. Over the last 5 years there has been a 22% reduction in plastic bag use here in NZ. Compare this with the dramatic drop caused by the 5c charge".

"In the short time the compulsory scheme had been in place, participating supermarkets had reduced bag use by 50 per cent, or 40 million bags" Foodstuffs Wellington managing director Tony McNeil.

Reported in the New Zealand Herald.

Reducing plastic shopping bags is such a tiny change that it barely rates a mention in the environmental debate. But you would think that it might be an introductory area in which change was not that difficult to effect and perhaps might get people thinking more about the damage we are causing to our environment and the looming issue of climate change. But no, apparently even this is too much to ask.

Success.

Someone asked me today, "What do you do?"
This must be one of the most commonly asked questions between new acquaintances.

(No, I didn't draw it, wish I did. The artist is Bill Burg)

I am sure that sometimes the question is asked with genuine interest. But how often is it asked so that we can put each other into recognizable stereotypes.

Don't know about you, but I feel like there is more to me than my job. So next time I am in that "Nice to meet you" phase of a conversation I am going to try not to perpetuate this annoying habit we seem to have collectively developed, and talk about something else instead.
:)

Perpetual Perks

Here in NZ we are in the middle of our own mini-mini-mini parliamentary members' allowances scandal. While there are no shocks of UK proportion (there are not many moats in NZ that require cleaning I guess), there has been enough to keep the media happy for a few days.

The most interesting thing I heard from the radio show talk fest was the ongoing cost of ex-prime ministers to the Australian tax payers. (Kiwis do love to reference Australia when discussing their internal affairs). I had no idea that ex-prime ministers where eligible for such big bucks for the rest of their lives and was quite surprised to hear the figures, but apparently this information is available through Freedom of Information. The Herald Sun ran the article this week.

	John Howard's $1m splash on us JOHN Howard is costing taxpayers more in retirement than he did while running the country.

"Australia's five living former prime ministers submitted expenses tallying almost $3 million last year, the figures show."

The costs relate to running the offices of these fellows. Obviously they can't be expected to work from home like many other private individuals do, or fund the expenses of their offices themselves I suppose!

Yes I know that in the overall picture of the Australian tax-payers' budget this is a minuscule amount. But it seems to me that this is an extravagant, if not unwarranted, perk for those who have formerly been PM. Even if I could stretch my mind to think that our ex-prime ministers deserve some kind of pension, surely it should be a little more modest. Say, half the salary of the current prime minister at most. After all, I am working from the assumption that these men went into politics for the love not the money. Even if some may suspect that love to be of power rather than their country.

What do you think? Should receive ongoing financial support once they no longer work for the country? If so, what would be a reasonable sum to be available to them and should it be a life-long entitlement?

Well, given this ongoing cost, I don't think too many tax-paying Aussies will be wishing John Howard a long life - if they ever were!

A Win! (I suppose you could call this a boast).

It's been a busy week at work:

Swine flu, a big Measles outbreak, a patient with a bee sting in the mouth (the first time I have had to give adrenaline to a patient, and never mind the patients vital stats, I am sure mine own where off the chart while we waited for the ambulance to arrive), and of course the usual stream of patients who burst into tears and need much more than the time allotted to their appointment.

But, among the busyness I did have one very satisfying moment. A regular came in to see me, affectionately known as my "f***ing, f***ing, f***ing" patient (and that's just on the way down the corridor to my consulting room). He is a young guy but has had some adverse circumstances and is waiting for major orthopaedic surgery. But this week when he came in he looked fitter, healthier and happier than I had ever seen him before.

I asked him how things had been going. He animatedly told me that he was doing really well and that he had been aqua jogging at least 5 times per week for over a month and that he was loving it!

He raved about how good he was feeling and the changes that he was already noticing including losing 4kg, noticing his muscles "popping" out, and his double chin shrinking. He was just as enthusiastic about the social aspects, having met a lot of fellow aqua joggers. "It's just like Shortland St, everyone gets to know ya and says hi. They are giving me stick and saying they are going to put glue and Vaseline on my crutches when I go in after the surgery". He was clearly loving it!

I asked him what made him think of taking up aqua jogging. He looked at me a bit confused and said "You did. You told me I should."

O yeah, so I did. And yes I felt a little sheepish about not remembering giving him this advice.

But then I am frequently telling so many of my patients about the benefits of exercise. And I do try to give a few suggestions of exercise that would be appropriate for them. Most of the time I know my advice falls on deaf ears and I feel like a broken down record repeating the same message.

So it was such a buzz to hear that, against all odds, this tough, blue-collar, kiwi bloke had followed my advice to take up aqua jogging and that it had made a big difference in his life.

Now that's enough to keep me feeling positive about my job for at least another 6 months.

By the way, he didn't swear or complain once through the whole consultation, and that in it's self is practically a miracle.
:)

The Run!

Yesterday I ran a half marathon. The weather forecast was so bad that I nearly chickened out. But I am so glad that I didn't!

It was a freezing morning. As we lined up in the starting shoot it actually started to hail. "Eye of the Tiger" was playing quite loudly over the speakers. But then it started to rain, and the music changed down in tempo to "Chariots of Fire".

Now hail is exciting. Do you remember running outside to play in it as a child? Hail bounces off you leaving you unscathed, especially as most us were wearing sufficient clothing to avoid the little red stings it will leave on bare flesh (I was very glad to be wearing my trusty running visor). The crowd reacted to the hail with an almost frenzied excitement. Perfect strangers turned to each other and shared nervous grins and said "We must be mad!". The crowd bobbed up and down to the music, bouncily jogging on the spot to keep warm.

But rain is not exciting. It does not bounce cheerily off you. It seeps into your clothing, dribbles into your ears and makes your gloves useless at keeping your fingers warm. The mood of the crowd dampened and the bouncing changed to shuffling. Fortunately some perceptive organizer changed to music back to "Eye of the Tiger" just before the starting time but that elated feeling was gone - at least for me.

The first 17 minute where dreadful. I was cold, my breathing labored and my fingers numb. I felt disproportionately cross at having to dodge the cheeky walkers who had started too far forward in the line up. It all seemed too much. Impossible. I felt a bit disorientated and had no idea how far we had run.

Then suddenly, I kid you not, the drizzle stopped, the sun emerged, glorious in its winter yellow, and ahead I noticed the 3km mark as if highlighted by a sun ray! As we whizzed past it, at just a few seconds over 18 minutes, I finally realized "I can do this"! I felt 10kg lighter, my breathing settled and I started to look around and notice the other runners padding along with me.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my friend and I fell into a nice and easy 10kmph pace together. We had never jogged together, and I had expected her to be way ahead.

I said "No matter what time we do this in, we will have done better than all the people who slept in this morning". She heartily agreed. As did another runner who fell into step with us for a short while and was our 3rd musketeer for a few hundred meters. And we started to feel like we were not mad. In fact, surely we were the sane ones and those missing out on this exhilarating run where the crazy ones.

5km: the drink station was manned by the Kaiapoi Neighborhood watch crew. So I go to say hi and be cheered on by a few familiar faces.
10km: we pulled out our energy gels (fortunately brought along - considering the 10km drink station was out of Leppin!)
12km: ipod on, not too loud, so that I could still hear the occasional remarks from my friend and reply appropriately. (She had her headphones in already so I was not breaking any running-mates-codes).
A few songs of Gavin Degraw, and a bit of Britney helped me keep to good form for a while, but soon after the 15km mark I started to feel heavy, some hip-pain and quite tired. A quick switch to Greydon Square, and ahh, that feels better. A beat I can run to and words I can think to. The next 4km slid past without me hardly noticing.
19km: a quick sip at the drink station, I turned up the volume on the ipod and spurted ahead.

I finished feeling strong and very, very pleased with myself. Friends cheering from the sidelines gave an extra boost.

Yes I still had some unburnt energy which would be unthinkable to a more competitive runner. But really for me, an enjoyable run with a friend (and avoiding too much post race stiffness) is much more important than shaving a few minutes of my personal best.