Sooty Mangabey

"There is no room for complacency..." - from Evolutionary Analysis, 4th Ed. by Scott Freeman and Jon C. Herron

The quotation is taken completely out of context, and I found it awkwardly melodramatic in a textbook setting. Freeman was discussing the repercussions of HIV and its toll on human life. He says that we shouldn't be satisfied with the medical treatment of HIV/AIDS because it is still very prevalent. In fact, the life expectancy of Botswana went from 65 to 40 once HIV was introduced and is still declining (Freeman & Herron, 2007). So no, there is no room for complacency.

Maybe it's not melodramatic after all.

I, however, took it differently. What I realized from the reading was that progress, while positive, does not necessarily equate to success. As truistic as it sounds, only success can be success. So while we pander to ourselves about how much better we're getting or how we have been improving, it cannot be forgotten that these concepts, while under the guise of sycophantic praise, can be retrogressive in nature, at least in terms of attaining a goal.

There is no room for complacency if success is not reached.

My DAT is this Friday, and slowly I am realizing the difference between progress and success. School is in full swing, my dental application awaits just yonder, behind the horizon of "the test". Stress is inescapable, and while I think of myself as a relaxed person, my mental and emotional flexibility is constantly being tested even before the actual exam.

So maybe I was just looking for some words to thrust me into confidence, but somehow, even if it did seem like extra information I didn't need to know before something so monumentally important, reading for my Evolution quiz helped me study for my DAT. I took something completely out of context and meditated on it. A simple sentence that, if put into another context, could have such powerful significance, or, if you're reading an Evolution textbook for a class, mean next to nothing at all.

Maybe we just need to meditate on things more, even if the intentions of those statements are obvious or self-evident ("homo-evident").

Maybe we already know these things in our minds but forget their worth in the daily chaos of our lives.

Maybe we don't really need these little ditties and motivational lines to drive us because we are already driven.

Maybe we do. Maybe we need reminders. Maybe we need something beyond ourselves to succeed.

And maybe some days we are satisfied with our lives, happy to be living simply because it is life, reaching for our goals that we'll attain sometime in an impersonal future.

But, in my own experience at least, we must remember how crowded our lives can be, like a car that's moving your possessions from one residence to another.

And in this car, there is no more room for complacency.

Will Someone Please Call a Surgeon

So the hot topic right now is health care. I'm torn in my opinion of the reform, as you'll see. Obama's administration is proposing a major reform to the current "system" that insures millions of people in this fine and flawed country.

From what little I understand about the issue, what we have in right now is not really a true system. A system in the political sense means to me there are rules set by the government, and there is some governmental control. While there is an FDA and a number of complicated and specific laws in order to control health insurance, it doesn't seem too different than the way the government controls Wall Street. There are some rules to prevent one corporation taking over and to allow justice to prevail economically, but, as was the agenda of the Bush administration, the economy is rather laissez-faire.

That's how I view health insurance in America right now. The major health insurers have a huge say as to who or what gets insured, and they control coverage by how much people can pay. Companies provide health care for their employees to some extent, but this is barely enough to survive as healthily as possible. It is a travesty that millions of our citizens go uninsured and thus receive fewer benefits as their richer counterparts. It says in the Declaration of Independence that everyone deserves "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Life is an unalienable right, according to ol' Ben and Tommy.

That people are opposed to "socialistic" health care is appalling. Every citizen deserves an equal opportunity to the health benefits as the next citizen, regardless of race, class and gender. The current "system" that exists is denying these people of their rights, saying that they are not worth those health benefits, and in some cases, not worth living. If a person dies because he was uninsured while a person in the same circumstance is saved because he IS insured, because he can pay for it, is that not an inherent problem with the system? Whoever pays more lives longer, survival of the fittest? Are we animals, stuck in some Darwinian Twilight Zone where only the rich survive while the poor continue to die simply because they are poor?

Yeah, you say, that's just the way of things. To some extent, I agree. That's just life. It's unfair, but never has anyone preached to me the fairness of life. Never has anyone truly advocated "karma" in the Western sense of the word as a fair way of settling things. That's just life, that the weak don't survive.

But does it have to be?

I often oscillate between opinions as to whether we are animals or something better, and one of the arguments is empathy. Only humans are truly empathetic. Animal sympathy comes from an instinctual desire to insure survival. Human empathy revolves not only survival but happiness as well. We can want others to live happily, not only survive.

We can prevent poor people from dying because they are arguably trapped in a system that works against them, but as a people, Americans are largely against that. Reform means change. Most Americans aren't convinced we need the change, but we do. We need it to save potentially millions of people's lives because they can't afford to save themselves. And it's not like these people are far away, either. Sure African kids and Cambodian kids are dying and all that jazz, but the problem that exists is OUR people are dying. Moreover, we are LETTING them die.

That's why we need a health care reform, so that privatized insurance can stop pulling in billions of cash at the expense of the American people. I'm not saying that a public option, which is pretty much what Obama is going to establish, will be perfect, but I want to do something, to change something, that may be a step in the right direction, because if there is no reform, the standard of life in America will remain stagnant, not improving.

The public option will let people be covered by the government. In a sense, the government is paying for those who can't pay for themselves the health care. It's going to hurt the private insurers a lot. There's no denying it. They'll probably lose billions of dollars, but their lost equates to our health. A few people losing money so the majority, well actually, ALL the American people can live better is worth the change.

And this is where I'm torn. I'm planning to be a dentist. This change will mean the government will probably give me less money than private insurers would for my work. Health care reform will save millions of people, but in all likelihood, those in the medical field will be paid less.



So yeah, fuck health care reform.

Like a Lick of Ice Cream

There's no time like extra time.

I've postponed my DAT. Not because I wasn't ready, but rather, I want to be sure to be at the top of my game, not before I peak.

Lots of things are happening as summer winds down, but I am facing it...Mostly cuz the things that are happening aren't happening to me, so it's pretty easy.

I am going to make a list of the funniest people I know soon. It will be fun to write and I hope people don't care about it enough to care whether they are on the list or not.

School starts soon.

I'm eating ice cream. This is rare for me.

I'm listening to Thao Nguyen with the Get Down Stay Down. The CD is We Brave Bee Stings and All. It's transcendent. Folksy and upbeat.

Lots of things are happening.

The Power

Of compromise.

If tomorrow's practice test yields one more upsetting score, I am going to postpone my DAT.

DAT and Other Puns

Every pun of the acronym DAT has been used. Please don't present any more puns as if they are original.

I am scared as hell.

My test is next Thursday, and I don't know if I can do this. I am seriously considering postponing my test until September, but I don't know if this is because of nerves or whether I am seriously going to bomb the test.

I don't think I have ever been this mentally terrified in my life.

I need to figure out if it's just my nerves or not, because I refuse to play this game with myself. I am a very proficient mental opponent with myself. Some would call me equal to myself.

Which only reminds me of the Quantitative Reasoning section of my test.

And this blogging reminds me of the Reading Comprehension portion.

And my impending failure.

Save me.