Blaming the Victim

 I don't know why I feel the need to write to tell you I can't write or that I don't have any pictures to share.  I shouldn't.  I should just not post.  But long ago, I decided/realized/learned that if you want people to come to your blog, you needed to post every day.  I no longer know whether people come to the blog or not, and that is spooky.  I could be posting to no one, or maybe only to bots.  Surely some A.I. companies are stealing my stuff. . . so at least there's that.  

Maybe I have had a light case of Covid.  When we don't feel well now, that is the first thing that pops into our minds, isn't it?  Covid?  Long, short, or recurrent?  Health news is making me sick.  When I was in college oh-so long ago, I learned that the people who suffered from psychosomatic illnesses most frequently were first year medical students.  I'll bet the general public has surpassed them now.  Almost every doctor I know warns against going to the doctor.  

"If you go to the barber. . . ."

I've mentioned here several times that doctors commit suicide more often than any other profession.  They die at home most often, too, not in hospitals.  They know how gruesome those long hospital experiments will be, so they choose to check out on their own.  I'm guessing it is because they have a medical condition other than depression.  I mean, yea. . . a debilitating medical condition would cause depression.  Sure.  What I am saying is that the depression doesn't precede the physical illness.  But I'm just guessing about that.  

The fact is, however, that physicians don't live as long as the general population.  Surprising, eh?  

The fact, however, is that. . . . 

Grammar is a tricky business.  Now we call those things "common usage."  That saves the day.  

I will confess here, however, that I think I am suffering from depression.  I have always enjoyed a rather sweet melancholy, but this is not like that.  It is sometimes debilitating.  

Long Covid, maybe?  Surely.  

I've been reading the health news even though I try to quit it.  Being overweight is now a symptom of some underlying disease and can be treated with drugs.  And just like any drug treatment, there are side effects.  As we get older, we get fatter.  That is a statistical truth.  

I remembered something while reading the health news today.  Young ecosystems are better able to withstand environmental pressure than are older ones.  Ecosystems are born, grow, get old, and die.  They are replaced by new ones.  

I also remembered Susan Sontag's book, "Illness As a Metaphor."  There is a connection in there somewhere.  

Maybe everything is.  I wanted to explain to someone that Judaism is a religion and that Israel is a country, though they share some common ground.  Then I thought, wait a minute, a country is much like a religion, isn't it?  They are both basically belief systems.  A country is just a belief system with geographical boundaries.  

Again, like ecosystems. . . . 

I've jumped the rails, I think.  

There used to be places called Insane Asylums.  Now there's a metaphor!  An asylum is a place of refuge.  Insane Asylums were anything but.  

I am amazed, I must admit. . . . 

I must admit I am amazed. . . at how much people want to live, even under the most horrid conditions.  I look at the human conditions and wonder. 

I've only ever wanted to live well, even when I was so much poorer than you.  

I think I still have whatever ails me.  Covid?  Surely something worse.  It's probably something I've done.  

That's the kernel of Sontag's book--blaming the victim.