Comfort Zone
Ministerial Meandering
Comfort zone?
This is, in one sense, a follow-on from last week’s MM, which presented the difficult options of choice. One obvious answer would be not to make one - and stay ‘fat, dumb, and happy’ in your comfort zone, thumb in bum and mind in neutral. Pink Floyd bassist, Roger Waters, wrote the song, ‘Comfortably Numb’ in 1977 when a doctor had to break into his hotel room to inject him with some tranquillizers so he could perform on stage that night. The song featured two amazing guitar solos by David Gilmour, who argued with Waters about the arrangement. It was the last time the two of them were able to work together constructively again.
There is a problem with being ‘comfortably numb’, in that life passes you by while you’re enjoying the buzz. Dr Hook and the Medicine Show released a song in 1975 called, ‘I got stoned and I missed it’, which had a similar message in that you don’t notice life passing you by when you are mind-numbed.
Both of these observations led me to the conclusion that my intention to ‘wander back to the asylum’ is not really an option - at least, not a constructive one.
Some people are quite willing to let life ‘happen to them’; others need to grab it, and give it a good shake. Any member of my family will tell you that if I get an idea in my head, it has to happen yesterday - tomorrow is already too late. This tendency to push boundaries and have no patience with snail-paced bureaucracy has led Sheila and me into some splendid arguments over the years. She seems to have the patience of Job - if not his serenity! I have neither. I thought I was getting a handle on my intolerance, but - honestly - I haven’t got time for it.
So, making things happen always pushes me out of my comfort zone and into challenge mode; if something is not as it should be - well then, it’s clearly my job to change it. Now some of you know from first hand experience of my tendency not to let things be, and that I fight for you as much as I fight for myself or family.
I have weighed into battle with our appalling Canadian medical system for several of you, both in hospital and with your GPs and Community Nurses. I have not always made myself popular doing so - but the end result has been that you got better service.
Years ago, Hannah had an acute slipped disc in her neck which could have paralyzed her permanently within a few days. Fortunately, I witnessed the event as we were living with her at the time. Her GP was totally useless and unable to understand the urgency of the situation, so I took her for an MRI that I paid for personally, from where she was shipped by 911 ambulance to the Royal Columbian for emergency neurosurgery. I’m not looking for accolades for this - it should have been obvious to any competent doctor what was going on and the need to act - fast.
I suppose what I’m saying is that nothing happens while you wait. Specifically, I am writing to our American brothers and sisters who are beginning to demonstrate that they are fed up with being pushed around by a malignant narcissist - although the psychiatric diagnosis suggests that such persons ‘still retain some capacity for guilt and loyalty.’ I do not think that pertains to Trump at all.
Therefore, I believe it is past time for those with any vestige of goodness and courage to coordinate and rise up - out of their comfort zones - and vehemently oppose the totalitarian regime of this evil and utterly corrupt man. That might mean taking up arms; that might mean civil war - but sitting still will get you nowhere. Except another Trump term, in which Congress will be entirely effete if it exists at all - and your wailing will be louder, but likely silenced by more bullets, incarceration, and deportation.
Philip+