Doctors and Orders

How do we stop history repeating itself?

Recently, I watched ‘Doctor Zhivago’ for the first time.

I’m not a ‘love story’ sort of person and I’d mistakenly written Dr Z off as this, thinking it would just be fumbles and tumbles in the snow.

But I do like Julie Christie, as both she and Julie London offer some much needed chic to the now shabby name we share.

I guess that’s how aspiration and popularity work, people see an elegance in a star and want that for their own unborn child. An uncommon name becomes celebrated by being widely used, before being done to death and trashed. I expect there was once a glamorous Sandra, Tracey or Jade too……all over used names of their own era.

Anyway, Doctor Zhivago, if you’ve not seen it (and I know I’m late to the party), is based on a novel by the same name by Boris Pasternak.

It’s basically, about a nice fella who just wants a quiet life, cracking on practising medicine and writing poetry. Instead, he gets caught up in all kinds of shenanigans because of people who don’t want a quiet life, namely those with political interests and ambitions. Love rears its head within this context.

After watching it, I read reviews and many were accusing the movie of trivialising the complexities of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. I couldn’t help think those reviews missed the point. Surely the takeaway was that many of the people involved didn’t know all the ins and outs of it all because they were used as pawns and felt themselves dragged along for the bumpy ride.

How things change eh?

Not!!!

I was left pondering how tragic it is that the human race never seems to learn. That wars and controlling bullies don’t go away.

In 2024, ordinary citizens with good hearts are still getting caught up in bullshit not of their making.

It saddens me that so many skilled, decent people are left patching up after the evil that men do.

Damn….I’m going all ‘Iron Maiden’.

Evil is so often marketed to us as the ‘lesser evil’. That concept in itself strikes me a little ludicrous. ‘Evil’ means morally bad, terrible. It’s like deciding which black is blacker.

Hang on…….THEY’RE BOTH BLACK, you daft cunt.

‘Lesser evil’ is how vaccinations are sold. Someone has to come a cropper for the bigger plan to work, right?

Spin the wheel, roll the dice and just cross your fingers it’s not you they screw over. Hope it’s some poor sod you don’t know and never have to think about.

Nice.

Anyway, suppose we go along with this notion of a ‘lesser’ evil, surely it would make sense that it would be the one we didn’t deliberately create ourselves?

One of the most profound things I ever read was about a rescued lamb. Some ‘do-gooder’ had bought it above price at market in order to save it from slaughter.

“It’s supply and demand, so you saving that lamb just tells the farmer that lambs sell well. He breeds more. So who does that help?”

Sniped some Smart Alec.

“It helps THIS LAMB, right now.”

The buyer replied.

Wow.

I got it.

Instantly.

When we constantly concern ourselves with the macro, the ‘big picture’, we neglect the micro. And the micro, the individual, the detail is so important. It’s where true humanity is scrutinised.

Whatever your views on animals, when we reduce human beings to sets of data, expressions of probability and mathematical equations for the purposes of justifying actions for the ‘greater good’, part of our humanity is destroyed, our empathy diminished.

This is particularly true when it comes to vaccines and wars.

If a person dies by contracting an illness/natural disaster, say by heart attack or earthquake, whilst this is regrettable, both are nature’s law. If a person dies after being injected with a dubious substance or dies on a battle field, those are manmade, completely avoidable tragedies.

Another thing of great importance to Omar Sharif’s Zhivago and Julie Christie’s Lara in the film, was community. Libraries and schools both featured.

Trouble was seeded, however, just as it is today, in those very places. The places where indoctrination masks as education.

How do we transcend the perennial problems of censorship and propaganda?

Can’t we present ideas without excluding all others?

Without saying “this is the truth”?

It may well be the truth, but truth must find its own stage, rise as cream, reveal itself.

If no-one ever told you grass was green, you’d still know, wouldn’t you?

Once communities start forming, there’s always someone appointing themselves leader, on a ‘Lord of the Flies’ trip. It’s the same struggle animals have. Always some up-and-coming silver back gorilla or lion wants to wade in and say “hey….my turn”.

But aren’t we better than animals?

Can’t we find a way of living without hierarchy?

Can’t we find a way of coexisting that doesn’t devalue others?

How do we solve these issues and secure a future for our children?

It’s the eternal clash between ‘roots up’ and ‘roots down’ problem solving.  Do you address the challenges of the world by toppling the ‘rulers’, getting rid of the problematic figures ‘in charge’?  Is it all about ‘them’, the ‘elite’, ‘baddies’, whatever you want to call em, or is it about you, as Michael Jackson would say, the ‘Man In The Mirror’?

As I see it, it’s about both, which is why I refuse to hand over my personal power to establishment via voting, whist also trying to be the best version of myself I can be.

For me it’s not about finding the ‘right’ leader or the ‘best’ party. It’s about recognising these very systems have for centuries caused chaos and distress.

I don’t have the answers. But I do know that the hope we place in leaders, politics, religions and monarchies has brought us nothing but pain and cost so many lives, pitted us against each other.

What can we do as lay people, now?

My list looks like this:

Resist authority peacefully.

Become informed.

Hone intuition.

Work on yourself.

Be your own leader.

We can’t change history, but if we all did this, think of the difference we could make.

How amazing to be able to talk about atrocities in the past tense to future generations and have them smile in the knowledge that humans finally learned their lessons and transcended the fear trap.

What a wonderful film that would make.

With or without a Julie. 😉

Thanks for reading. I now have more than 300 pieces on substack! If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more of my musings under the heading ‘musings’ on my home page.