Alike in Our Follies
David L. Katz, MD, MPH
CMO, Tangelo. Founder: Diet ID; True Health Initiative. Founding Director, Yale-Griffin PRC (1998-2019). Health Journalist. COVID Curmudgeon
"This reflected a very deep divide sown between their cultures. Whether by design of uncertain intent or unhappy happenstance none could say. Either way, there was enmity- or a lesser sentiment similarly inclined- between them. One outside both cultures could not have accounted for it. Such is likely always the way of peoples too much alike in their follies to acknowledge the folly of emphasizing the trivial differences dividing them."
Amen. Would that we might see ourselves by other, better, common light.
-fin
Dr. David L. Katz is a humanist, a published poet, and essayist, whose topics have included war, peace, and our common humanity. He has been recognized by colleagues as the "poet laureate of health promotion." Routinely using art to help illuminate science, he holds out hope that a similar light from without might banish the menacing shadows that crowd the opposing corners of our common box.
www.davidkatzmd.com
www.turnthetidefoundation.org
Author, Disease Proof
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Nuclear Engineer, bilingual English/Russian
10yDr. Katz, if you were thinking about Russia and the US when you wrote that, I heartily agree. Unfortunately most Americans are remarkably un-curious about the outside world, and very few know anything of Russian history or culture, much less the language. There is no real analog of Crimea here, but as NPR put it this morning, Texas electing Lyndon LaRouche, seceding, and inviting in the Mexican Army as peacekeepers is close. What proper president would stand for that? More than anything else Russia and American remind me of "Two brothers who are too much alike to get along."
Traditional Fine Artist Pet Portraits
10yLest we forget we all evolved from a common ancestor. We are all at the most 50th cousins of each other. We can easily see this in the genetic samples taken from people all over the world. We are much more closely related than you think.
at Open4Definition; Author "HealthCARING: A Reset for Health and Healthcare" book
10y* Insights spring from many sources even works of fiction like “reVision”. All too often, societies look to government and institutions for solutions to remedy what only culture can deliver. I agree with Dr. David Katz’s book excerpt that what divides us is often small or simply imagined differences. Everyone wishes to be healthy yet we fail too often to have an accurate view of our health behaviors much less a competing culture’s behavioral norms, practices and conventions. Be “Less” HealthCare-less, B. P.S. If I were writing the second book in the “reVision” trilogy I believe the opposing cultural archetypes would be “HealthCarers” versus “HealthCavers” [those who cave in or simply copy others]. What unintended adversaries would you choose? Finally, a takeaway from David’s Amazon linked “reVision” book review: “Where characters are vividly rendered and complex ideas distilled to stunningly simple clarities, Dickens meets Dawkins. As a clash of other worlds illuminates the better ways our world might be, Plato’s Republic meets Lord of the Rings.” Yours in healthcaring and with thanks to Dr. Katz, as always… *