hrm

Had a super ethically challenging day yesterday, including:

One heated discussion with my professor over the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy's mandates, existing physiotherapy practice and legislation.
A very tense and argumentative exchange over the way to live your life, home-wrecking another couple's relationship, the definition of true love, physical vs. emotional abuse, my complete lack of understanding in utilitarian ways, and my flawed deontological way of life as a result of one exception.
Also included watching District 9 which was both disturbing as it was I don't fully understand it and am waiting for someone to write an essay on it and post the commentary online.

I do recognize my many shortcomings when it comes to ethical thinking and a philosophical frame of mind, but I'm having trouble shifting. Doris and Jia pointed out that it might be because of ignorant stupidity rather than well-trained thought, and I recognized the fact that generally a lot of deontological thinkers have a bad rep for being a. stupid and b. stubborn. I now am forced to reflect whether I think black and white because I think it's righteous, whether it's just a nice framework to work your life around and simplify context, or whether I truly truly believe in it with all my heart.

Like a Starbucks caramel macchiato heated to 170 degrees half-sweet with sugar free half-caf two shots non-fat no-whip with cinnamon sprinkles, it's a tall order.

***

I wrote a poem in first year that I submitted to The Gateway for a poetry contest but it didn't win. It probably had too simple a message, but I really enjoy it even today because of its direct message. As you guessed, it is a message on the vantage point with which you view the world, and is kind of applicable to my day yesterday:



one

Yesterday you looked me in the eye
And asked why I ate the blue ones last.
I replied, "I don't eat the blue ones last,
I eat all the other colours first."

You looked at me, and
shook your head,
unbelieving.

"That doesn't even make sense."

I giggled, thinking
perception
is all it really is.

Then you turned your back,
and ate the rest of your Skittles.

clinic pt. 6

A very interesting case came through neuro today that I'd really like to share. An elderly individual with a sclerotic right internal carotid artery came in today for a routine stent and angioplasty. The procedure seems to be going fine - the stent is put in place and the plasty works out well to alleviate the 75% blockage, so he finishes up and the nurses begin their assessments.

Immediately it's evident that something is not right. The patient displays left side paralysis of the arm and is showing facial asymmetry. Speech is slurred, probably due to paralysis of facial muscles. Immediately the doctor begins doing some perfusion tests to see if there are any arteries that have been occluded - the ultrasound done prior to the stent and plasty showed the sclerotic plaque to be soft with no calcification and it's possible that while stenting/plasty-ing, some fat could have broken off, evaded the filter wire and embolized in a smaller artery.

After injecting contrast in various areas, it doesn't appear apparent that there is any blockade. It is very clear though that the patient is stroking, so an MR and a CT scan are both ordered, the former for its detail and the latter in case the patient is hemorrhaging.

The story has a happy ending though. Patient went down to the ABACUS for an MR and the nurses down their ran their screening protocols and the patient went from being paralytic to simply showing hemiparesis. Within an hour he was squeezing away and speaking normally so it was simply a transient ischemic attack. It is still worrisome to note that most TIAs will eventually lead to a full stroke, so while this patient is safe for today, his future is at stake. I guess when we're doing interventions we often forget complications are always at hand, especially when the patient has gone back to his room and we don't see what eventually happens to them because we are just involved in a minute but integral part of their care.

In an separate note, it often makes you wonder as to how important these elective procedures are in the grand scheme of things. My friend Shane suggested an interesting article written by the ever-controversial professed utilitarian Peter Singer, who writes about the need to ration health care; spoken like a true economist. Read the article by clicking on the image below:

The article is extremely provoking and obviously offers some ethical dilemmas but his logic is interesting, even if he is abrasive and frustrating. While I've moved strongly towards thinking deontologically, my utilitarian past still nudges me in the ribs and I sometimes find myself thinking about where he's coming from and if it's actually valid. Keep your eye out for the prostitute joke, it's hilarious.

have time, will travel

I just finished watching S. Darko, the sequel to 2001's cult classic Donnie Darko. While Donnie Darko featured Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore and the younger, less mature versions of zomg Seth Rogen and Ashley Tisdale (omg really?!), this time around it's Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) from Gossip Girl and Nathan Scott (James Lafferty) from One Tree Hill holding fort.

Look, I love movies about time travel, I'm a total sucker for them. There's just something so mysterious about wormholes and relativity, physics and the chance to do something all over again. I mean look at all these movies: Butterfly Effect, Click, Donnie Darko, Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban, Primer, The Jacket, Star Trek - time travel is their one commonality. Why is Time Traveller's Wife my favourite book? ZOMG I'm onto something!

What interests me the most about time travel is what I was talking to Ian a few days ago when he was talking to me and Jen about the upcoming Terminator movie. Apparently John Connor has to go back in time to when his dad was a kid to create an alternate reality. Basically Ian and I were discussing the two theories of time travel:

1. You can go back in time, but events are predetermined. Anything you do has no effect because everything that comes in the future has been predecided. There is no free will, a philosophical position known as determinism. In Time Traveller's Wife, there's this part where Henry comes from the future and is in the position to determine whether his father will walk in on him and himself naked, but no matter what he does, the door will always be unlocked and his father will always open the door. In the same way, he is never able to change the car crash that kills his mother, even if he tries to stop it.

2. You can go back in time and create an alternate path for events to follow. Basically, if an event happened, you could theoretically go back and change things so that it wouldn't happen. Most of the successful movies have gone with this theory. In this new path, there are consequences, but at least you can change what you didn't wish to happen.

So I think I'm going to start an entire time travel movie marathon now.

anc(h)o(u)rage

I have this thing that I do where I sometimes sit on the bus or in the car (it's usually when I'm in a vehicle, it facilitates this process I think) and I think about what is right and what is wrong. I think about utility, which means what is good feels good and seems good and what is bad feels bad and seems bad. Then I think about deontology, which means that there's a rule that, if violated, means you've done bad, and if not violated, you've done good. I sit there and wonder sometimes how something so pleasurable like eating five gazillion Kit Kat Chunkys can be so right to a utilitarian, yet so wrong to a deontologist. At the same time, I remember reading about a kid who needed to eat like a gazillion calories a day because he was born three months premature, and so I suppose in a utility sense eating five gazillion Kit Kat Chunkys could be very wrong, and could be considered either wrong or right to a deontologist (gluttony vs. thou shalt not kill?).

I was on the bus today (see!) and reading The Shack, and I thought about utilitarianism vs. deontology. There's this part where Sarayu tells the protaganist that by deciding what is right is judging by your standards and not by God's. I remember having a conversation with Pastor Damien recently, who had this talk with someone he knew who said: "How can God judge what is wrong or right? I should be able to judge." Pastor Damien then responded with, "Well, I'm going to take this gun and put it to your head and shoot you," to which the person frantically replied, "No! That's wrong!" Pastor Damien explained that if people are able to decide for themselves what is wrong and what is right, then he should be given the right to decide if killing the guy was right or wrong.

So who judges?

I suppose God judges.

See, I have a problem with that. Before you attack me, let me just backtrack and say that I feel like God is just a rule. I am not ready to accept the terms of his limitations yet, and I don't feel like my relationship with him is strong enough for him to break the bonds that surround my heart. I feel a strong attachment to those things I like and feel are good things - I feel that I am a good person by nature and so I won't overstep those boundaries anyways, but I'm sure in God's eyes I am no perfect individual and am probably going to Hell. At the same time, I also understand the need for rules, because without rules any Hitler or Stalin can go traipsing about thinking they're right. Definitions need to be made to clarify what is right and what is wrong.

So here is where I stand. I believe in God, but I don't give myself to him entirely. I don't believe in utility. I do, however, believe that a deontological viewpoint can be the only way I can perceive the world and live by it, but unfortunately this view does not include Christianity within its set. I do find Emmanuel Kant's words very attractive in that I think I could live with a categorical imperative, which is that you make a rule and ask if it could be applied to all of humanity, and if it can be done so without violating something very ethical, then it is a good rule.

I can live with being a Kantian, but I don't think all Kantians are going to Heaven. While I still know that God has a chance and that I am learning to embrace God slowly, I know that this Kantian isn't going to Heaven anytime (soon).

just be yourself

I have this issue with the self, which I think is the hardest thing to learn about. As you may well have figured out, I love metatheory (theory of oneself). Why is it so difficult for teenagers to be different from the cookie cutter mold? Why is that they all seem to follow the same trends, fixate on a certain person they idolize, and then carbon copy that look/behavior/identity? Adolescence is the time to emblazon your own identity upon yourself, but before you can do that, you need an identity first to know what it feels like, and what it means to be something you don't quite agree with. The best way to learn what you are is by knowing what you are not. (I never thought Vicky Cristina Barcelona would come in useful.)

One of the toughest things in life to do is carve your own identity, so that when people think about you, they only see you. Too many times I think of someone, only to have them remind me of someone else I know because they're so similar. Oscar Wilde once said, "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." Yet how difficult is it to stand your ground, even when everyone is psychologically influencing your actions? We are all inclined to fit in; it's natural, even evolutionary per se. We feel cohesion, magnetism, gravity to those in our group. Swarm dynamics.

The way I see it, you are supposed to feel dirty, outcast, abandoned when nobody agrees with you. I remember reading about normative reletavists in philosophy, and how they are philosophy's deranged. Philosophers argue that life is about taking a stand and not fitting in, and when people disagree, you show them why your view is better. It's a bit intrusive and belligerent if you ask me, but oftentimes we forget that sometimes it is better to speak up and show your side than to agree with the masses.

I have this rather unflattering characteristic of only seeing things in black and white. Something is always either/or, and rarely is it in between, unless it is my brain which is half man half awesome. When I'm around certain people, I dumb down certain characteristics of myself that I feel don't fit into the atmosphere because of this. I'd love to be really punny and dense around Mag, but I'm pretty certain she wouldn't appreciate it as much as the guys would. Likewise, if I spoke to my family with the soft voice I use to speak to Mag, I'm pretty sure they would think I was gay and possibly incestuous. That kind of thing. I am either punny/smart, gay/not gay. You cater to your audience, but then again sometimes you shouldn't, so that they get the fullest sense of who you are. Yesterday I gave not fitting in a try:

We were at dinner last night and there was a moment of silence where everyone in the group is scrambling for a topic of interest. I had this brilliant topic itching to be blurted out, the way you always want to talk about what you did on the weekend when you did something awesome like skydiving in Cameroon, but are having trouble finding a suitable point where you can interject without sounding like you're coming from left field. I remembered my audience, and most of the people around me are the baller type that enjoy the good life. I decided I didn't really care, because I really wanted to share a part of me, so I started describing this lunch I made which was amazingly epic but equally as disgusting. Pictorally, this is what The Chef's Speghattini looks like:



Put spaghettini at the bottom of a bowl, and cover it with a layer of shredded cheese (Monterey Jack & Cheddar is the best for this). Pour half your can (you warm it up first, of course) of Chef Boyardee ravioli on, then cover that in shredded cheese. Top with some more speghattini, and cover that with shredded cheese. Then put the rest of your Chef Boyardee on and cover that with shredded cheese. Pour yourself a nice big glass of apple juice and enjoy with your meal.

Overkill, probably. Delicious, fucking eh! Naturally, the reception wasn't all that friendly, and involved a lot of ridicule and humiliation. Honestly, I am happy I shared it with them, because now when they think of disgusting foods, they'll think of me and how cool it must be to be able to enjoy something as amazing as that.

***

Good Lord, Rush is fantastic.