LOST HUMANITY?

LOST HUMANITY?

 

Like thousands of others, I watched the movie 2001 - a space odyssey, in 1968. And was awe struck, spellbound, and hopeful for a promising tomorrow. We were fighting the Vietnam War, and the news of casualties on both sides, sickened me. Especially since, as an Air Force Medic, I was taking care of many of our boys and girls - at Wilford Hall Hospital, Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas - who were seriously injured in the war.
The movie portrayed the hope for a better world just forty years ahead.  I prayed and looked forward to seeing that future. 
 
Now twenty years past that promising future, I find myself writing this article about a chaotic world of confusion and disarray, controlled by illogical and irrational politicians, religious and business leaders everywhere.  Rather than reaping the beauty and bounty of the world and universe around us, we are raping and destroying the very foundation of that which our lives depend on.  Once again, we are fighting wars in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Americas, while our people are senselessly killing each other in schools, malls, subways, and streets.  It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity - Albert Einstein.
 
No place is this irrationality more evident than (to those of us) in healthcare, which have to deal with the casualties of this insanity. The picture of a nurse in a Texas Hospital, last week, said it all.  She was crying while rushing an injured child to the OR, after the Uvalde massacre.
 
Yesterday, June 1st was the birthday of Marilyn Monroe (1926), the Hollywood actress of the forties and fifties.  Who died of an overdose in 1962.  She was an orphaned and abused child who had witnessed the inhumanity of man first hand.  Still, she tried to add some humility and happiness to this world by her acting.  Just before her death, she made this appeal: "What I really want to say: That what the world really needs is a real feeling of kinship. Everybody: stars, laborers, Negroes, Jews, Arabs. We are all brothers. Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe."  The published article did not make known her plea.
 
Many of us have since, and are now making the same plea. Pray that it will not fall on deaf ears!

Reza Ghadimi