This is a question I was asked, today, by a person who is very practical.
My blog has no practical purpose. It isn't even a rational response to what has happened to me.
So why am I wasting my time writing it?
It's very hard, to have been cast in a negative light in the public eye. It takes stamina for me to get up every morning. Since the raid on my clinic, I have headaches, backaches, joint aches--the usual physical manifestations of stress.
We are social creatures, even the most introverted among us. We want to be liked. We need respect and approval. I am no different. It helps me move through the day and take care of patients to have the respect of those around me. After an attack by a behemoth like the federal government, it feels as though that quantum of respect has dwindled.
I haven't lost the respect of everyone. There are my patients, and staff, and family, who seem to care--and this is lifesaving. But I have the nagging feeling that every person, however loyal, however old a friend, now harbors niggling doubts about me. Is she a criminal? Did she do something ugly, and shameful, and against the law? Maybe she did.
My blog is a way of having a conversation with myself about this discomfiting situation, and about who I am, really. How much has the fact of being a doctor added to a belief in my intrinsic worth? How much does a government raid, and its associated stigma, subtract from that? Could I survive even worse opprobrium? How can I walk around in public with the scarlet letter, shame, attached to my coat, deserved or not? Do I deserve it? Am I getting confused, because I don't know where the next attack might come from?
The blog is my psychological support, like the trusses underneath a bridge that steers me from one way of being to another. I write posts to remind myself that I'm the same person today as I was yesterday, and will be tomorrow. I write to remind myself of my integrity. Writing connects my outer self to my inner. Without such a connection, every one of us would falter in times of great distress. I will write in this blog until my story is finished being told, and I'm grateful for every person who reads it. I realize that it isn't great entertainment, in a country that prizes entertainment.
The people who read my blog are another reason I write. They act as a bulwark against the government. As long as I have witnesses, I feel I can endure whatever happens. As long as the government knows I have witnesses, it must be accountable for what it inflicts. We are all watching. I will not allow for there to be secrets. I will not settle with the prosecutor, or sign gag orders, or plea bargain. This is America, after all, and I am exercising freedom of speech. I thank my readers for helping to bulk up the walls of my defense.
I am like a medieval city, protected by the ramparts of my blog, its readers, and my two lawyers. The prosecutors and FBI agents are on the other side, along with the judge, the Patriot Act, the innumerable statutes that give prosecutors immunity from the Bill of Rights, and the many silent individuals who prefer in times of conflict not to take sides, or else to side with the favored team-- Goliath, the government, which must be appeased, because it has a lot of ammo.
My blog is my defense. I am not guilty. I have done nothing wrong. My life is being altered forever, by people who want to cash in on whistleblower fees, or who hope to advance their careers, or who think they can run over solo doctors and ruin them because it looks like easy pickins.
Well, it won't be easy--not if I can help it.
My blog has no practical purpose. It isn't even a rational response to what has happened to me.
So why am I wasting my time writing it?
It's very hard, to have been cast in a negative light in the public eye. It takes stamina for me to get up every morning. Since the raid on my clinic, I have headaches, backaches, joint aches--the usual physical manifestations of stress.
We are social creatures, even the most introverted among us. We want to be liked. We need respect and approval. I am no different. It helps me move through the day and take care of patients to have the respect of those around me. After an attack by a behemoth like the federal government, it feels as though that quantum of respect has dwindled.
I haven't lost the respect of everyone. There are my patients, and staff, and family, who seem to care--and this is lifesaving. But I have the nagging feeling that every person, however loyal, however old a friend, now harbors niggling doubts about me. Is she a criminal? Did she do something ugly, and shameful, and against the law? Maybe she did.
My blog is a way of having a conversation with myself about this discomfiting situation, and about who I am, really. How much has the fact of being a doctor added to a belief in my intrinsic worth? How much does a government raid, and its associated stigma, subtract from that? Could I survive even worse opprobrium? How can I walk around in public with the scarlet letter, shame, attached to my coat, deserved or not? Do I deserve it? Am I getting confused, because I don't know where the next attack might come from?
The blog is my psychological support, like the trusses underneath a bridge that steers me from one way of being to another. I write posts to remind myself that I'm the same person today as I was yesterday, and will be tomorrow. I write to remind myself of my integrity. Writing connects my outer self to my inner. Without such a connection, every one of us would falter in times of great distress. I will write in this blog until my story is finished being told, and I'm grateful for every person who reads it. I realize that it isn't great entertainment, in a country that prizes entertainment.
The people who read my blog are another reason I write. They act as a bulwark against the government. As long as I have witnesses, I feel I can endure whatever happens. As long as the government knows I have witnesses, it must be accountable for what it inflicts. We are all watching. I will not allow for there to be secrets. I will not settle with the prosecutor, or sign gag orders, or plea bargain. This is America, after all, and I am exercising freedom of speech. I thank my readers for helping to bulk up the walls of my defense.
I am like a medieval city, protected by the ramparts of my blog, its readers, and my two lawyers. The prosecutors and FBI agents are on the other side, along with the judge, the Patriot Act, the innumerable statutes that give prosecutors immunity from the Bill of Rights, and the many silent individuals who prefer in times of conflict not to take sides, or else to side with the favored team-- Goliath, the government, which must be appeased, because it has a lot of ammo.
My blog is my defense. I am not guilty. I have done nothing wrong. My life is being altered forever, by people who want to cash in on whistleblower fees, or who hope to advance their careers, or who think they can run over solo doctors and ruin them because it looks like easy pickins.
Well, it won't be easy--not if I can help it.
Interesting, a blog which is actually a journal that is public. What about the journals which are not public, though some people know of them. Many people, write journals, and do not want them to be public knowledge.
ReplyDeleteOur personal experiences with people, no matter whether it is a second or two at the store, or on the street, with a hello, or a physical relationship with another person, imply, infer, and at times actually dictate what others' think of us.
Some of our supposedly closet friends will fade into the background when they feel intimidated by authority figures, as in the Gov., though many of the idiots who work for the Gov. are just yes people who have no idea, and actually do not care what happens to people they pursue, and do not care why they are pursuing whomever.
Entitlement is the key to what most of these people think, as in no one else has the sense to be entitled as they are. In other words everyone who does not agree with them is an idiot, or moron.
Some of whom we think of as our closet friend are actually someone we need to run from, quickly, though most of us (humans) do not want to offend, even when we know someone is not truly telling us the truth, as in who is good for us, or not. Meaning if we are truly happy with someone, our close friend, or friends at times, may tell us we are wrong in our assessment of who we may, or may not be in love with.
What does all this have to do with the Feds? If we piss off too many people, those people can and do make life miserable for those that they perceive to be a threat to their existence.
It seems, in my opinion that men are much more apt to use extreme measures to screw over women who they perceive to have screwed them.
A woman scorned? Seems men are the weaker when it comes to being scorned. Much harder to deal with than women, as a woman may want to hurt a man, though a man wants to ruin what he may perceive to be the whole existence of the woman.
Problem is many men are just plain ignorant, as in where is the true brain of a man?
Women who act as if they are a man, as in they screw men the way men screw women, are not liked at all in the scope of things, equality is a farce.
Another take is the homosexual outlook, as in it used to be the women, or woman, keeping a secret, as in whose husband was or is screwing who. Now it is also the men who keep secrets of whose husband like BJ's or whatever from another man. In other words our very society and Freedom is at times under attack from who knows?
I hate it, though I do not like to use the word hate, that you are having to deal with the ignorance of our Federal Government. It is a Societal issue as well, as in who is telling who what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Education is not meant to be a Dictatorship, as in this is the only way...
I think the best we can do is always go on our own thoughts, not the thoughts of others, no matter how much we like them, or love them. I have seen too many people hurt by doing what others wanted them to do, as in a friend telling them they were in love with the wrong person.
Fate is not something that all people believe in, as also Taro cards. It is interesting to me that one, of the many, women, (woman) I have loved, truly, married a man her best friend thought was right for her, and the next thing I know is she dies in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Fl. after dinner in Cedar Key.. I guess that is why she was in my head for about five weeks before the plane went down. As in she was not really happy with who she married for the second time.
People may ask, if anyone reads this, what does it matter, or mean. It means that every person we meet, or speak to, or make love with, is part of and the continuum of life, as in we are all truly connected, always, no matter what our actual belief system may be.
What would be nice is that people would and will begin to get along without the need to hurt someone to feel better themselves....
You cannot go through life worried about pleasing everyone, though it's true that the more people you displease, the more trouble you may have on your plate. It's unfortunate, as I mentioned in a post, that envy and greed supersede the more dignified aspects of friendship. It's hard to be supportive of someone you envy. True friendship rises above petty annoyances and personal complexes. But it's not easy.
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