We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
A big reader friend told me at lunch yesterday that she had had the depressing realization last weekend that she will never be able to read all the books she wants to read in her lifetime.
She is a very active, adventurous person whose appetite for new experiences equals her appetite for new knowledge. Rather than depressing, I found her comment uplifting. We'd like to die, maybe, dropping a half-read book onto our chest. Is there a library in heaven?
She gets a couple of things wrong though. Freud did not invent Psychatry. It's been around for a long time. An American founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Benjamin Rush, was a Psychiatrist and a leader in the movement towards the humane care of the mentally ill. Another thing she gets wrong is to equate Psychoanalysis with Psychiatry. Psychodynamic ideas are one useful tool in Psychiatry, but just one of the tools in the toolbox.
Humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize animals,and to spiritualize them too. Students of animals try very hard to resist those natural inclinations. Animals lack personalities, self-awareness, etc. Those of a species are identical robots, maybe, until you get to the apes.
Family heirloom furniture - mahogany and mahogany-looking "antiques", handed down for a couple of generations, have declined in value over recent decades to the point where you have to pay somebody to take it away. Even the high-quality stuff from 1850-20th C.
American antique or semi-antique (ie "old") "country-style" furniture still retains some modest value, but it is not usually brown.
There is no market for "brown furniture" anymore, and the experts say that your kids will never want it either - even if they ever have room for it. If you want or need to de-clutter your home or homes, the best deal might be to donate it to a charity rather than paying $600 for somebody to take it away.
Today's precious thing is tomorrow's junk. I still like some brown antiques if over 200 years old, but a room usually can't handle more than one.
The half-life of medical knowledge is approximated at seven years. That means that half of what you think you know about health, illness, and medical practice today will be obsolete in seven years.
It will be replaced by new better science of which, in turn, half will be obsolete seven years later. That's how it works. Skepticism about current knowledge is always appropriate. The cholesterol panic is just the most recent, dramatic example. Big mistake. Not all docs have got the memo yet. "Never mind."
Eat those eggs and bacon and sausages like you always wanted to, and skip the darn oatmeal unless it's all you can afford. And imagine that, in seven years, Mr. Science will tell you to eat candy and Dunkin Donuts for breakfast.
Our tummies might be smarter than today's science. Who knows? I love deep-fat fried donuts (not at Dunkin) and French Toast. Doesn't everybody?
Sugared foods are delicious treats. Cheap and abundant carbs (converted to sugars during digestion) are a blessing for mankind. Historically, only the rich and royalty could be fat. Now, the poor are wealthy enough to get fat while it is the prosperous who tend to be physically fit and trim. The social part has flipped: plebians are fatter, patricians trimmer. It is sociologically interesting.
It is also medically interesting that carbs, including sugars, alter your insulin metabolism. Of course they do, but these issues are only of academic interest unless you have a desire to lose fat.
Is your doctor a commodified technician, or is it a relationship? I was trained that the physician relationship was key to everything we do. Foundational. Oftentimes, when seeing endless streams of patients in charity clinics, we as young docs needed to be reminded about how important we were to them. We were reminded of our priestly role in peoples' lives, that they talked about us and thought about us far more than we did about them.
Today, many of our doctors are impersonal to us, or invisible. You have no relationship with the anesthesiologist (unless her or she lives next door), the pathologist, the Infectious Disease consultant, the radiologist, etc. However, we do have important relationships with our hands-on docs; our Gynecologists, Internists, Pediatricians, even your Orthopedic Surgeon. Certainly Psychiatrists, who are not literally hands-on but are certainly intimate relationships.
You can have it, but it will cost you. In my field of medicine, I am a hold-out against the commodification of medical care and treatment. For me, the relationship is the key, and, in the old priestly way, relationships with my patients also sustain me and educate me in my work. That is the non-monetary reward.
So to all of you patients out there, remember to thank your docs this year. A grateful holiday card is sufficient. A holiday Cheesecake is not necessary.
And Happy Holiday Season to all. This family is heading to the north woods for snow and cold fun for a while, and our holiday festivities. God bless you all.
Have trouble identifying the point at which you have had enough food to live on? Tend to eat as if in a race, too fast or more greedily than most other people? Tempted to eat impulsively between meals? Feel that you have to clean your plate without thinking, or without sensing satiety? Want a dessert even when you are full or over-full (not counting Thanksgiving)? Occasionally conceal your eating habits out of shame? Feel bad about yourself when you know you have eaten more than you need?
These are the main signs of the fairly-common "binge eating disorder." You do not have to pathologize it - it could also be called a "bad habit," or, from a moral standpoint, "gluttony," one of the Christian 7 deadlies. A First World problem, but not as much as you would think: there is more overweight among the "poor" around the world these days than among the more prosperous. BED people eat as if on an anti-starvation feeding mission rather than at a social occasion with food as an enhancement.
Like many so-called "disorders," it is mainly medically-defined as such for insurance purposes but it is a real pattern of impulsivity or compulsivity, often manifest in many areas of functioning. If it's a problem, it is easily addressed. There are pills for it.
Grandmothers have known forever that many personality traits and styles run in families. If it is true that around 40% of basic personality traits can be attributed to genetics, the old advice to check out the parents of a person you are considering marrying makes good sense.
They offer "easy," "intermediate," and "difficult" hiking tours. The "difficult" entails 8 hrs of hiking daily, with steep inclines. Cool way to earn your evening whiskey and haggis.
I follow orders from distant galaxies, from the President, from my dead mother. The orders come from a barking dog. The TV. Email
That’s the low-grade stuff. I’m probably somewhat paranoid, a little on guard and on edge, at all times. Perhaps once a week (the tea invitation and the cocktail party) I experience paranoia severe enough that I make a note of it in my journal.
To varying degrees and for varying and not well-understood reasons, these kids, even if quite bright, do not fit in well in most settings. Their behavior and demeanor make others uneasy. While many people do not fit in well, "spectrum" people have qualitatively different challenges. It's in their hard-wiring. Many or most would like to function as normally as possible, so programs like the above offer some hope.
Like many young people, I was charmed by Buber's book as a late teen. As I mature, I learned that relationships are far from binary and that all exist on some spectrum of intimacy, from zero to the excessive. Really, how many people does anybody want to be emotionally intimate with?
David Brooks somehow tries to connect the Buber view with the politics of today and produces pure silliness. "Thous at every level"? Please, enough with the sanctimony. This is politics, which is war at every level.
The half-life of medical knowledge 
Is your doctor a commodified technician, or is it a relationship? I was trained that the physician relationship was key to everything we do. Foundational. Oftentimes, when seeing endless streams of patients in charity clinics, we as young docs needed to be reminded about how important we were to them. We were reminded of our priestly role in peoples' lives, that they talked about us and thought about us far more than we did about them.