Flotsam and Jetsam IV

The war in Iraq is employing psychological help for soldiers like no war in history. PTSD is now recognized in the field instead of years later. Massive amounts of material for research is being gathered. There are many decades' worth of research on the psychological aftermath of war with both soldiers and civilians.

I wonder: what if they came to find that war is psychologically unhealthy for everybody involved?

* * *

My newest coworker was ready to leave work at quitting time today, as was I. She's green, just out of college, with all kinds of theoretical knowledge and almost no practical experience. Everybody else was working feverishly to get work done before the weekend. My coworker asked if anybody would think badly of her for leaving while everybody else was working.

"Why should you feel guilty for having your work done on time?" I asked. "You've already seen how several of them stress themselves out, taking on more work than they have to and not managing their time. Don't worry about what others think. As long as your work is done you're blameless."

* * *

At a client's house today I looked through a book on her shelf. It was a series of pictures taken in a small Wisconsin town in the late 1800s. One picture captured me: a small child in a coffin, propped up against a wall.

I suppose they were more accepting of death back then. Diseases were less controlled. Medical treatment was less available and nowhere as sophisticated as we have now. Today we see death as an insult, a failure of medicine, a fault of something as small as a bacterium or virus that we didn't fight hard enough against, a liability of someone else too careless to consider our well being. Victory over death has become the only option, and we will not accept defeat.

Yet in not accepting death we can't make a graceful exit. So it's always tragic.

Too bad. Death is a reality that won't be overcome. I will die one day. In order to have a good end I will have to have lived well all along the way, today and today and today. So you see, it is in the thought of death that we define how to live. It would only be an insult had I not foreseen and planned for the conclusion, and the fault would be my own.