The Arts, Sciences and Medicine: Finding our SOUL

The other day, I read an article written by a Dr. Robert Baker on “Medicine needs its soul back." And it got me thinking about the “soul.” After all what is soul? Like the mind, soul has no form or structure, but as humans we believe there is such a thing as soul. After all a former president seemed to have seen the “soul” of a former KGB agent. What he deciphered was only the front of the great red curtain. The stuff behind remained hidden. Yet we as humans are aware of this “essence” called the “soul.” The definition in the dictionary is no better in defining the soul: “the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal” or “the essence or embodiment of a specified quality.” We are again tempted into the world of ether. Yet we all feel and think there is such a thing, for all of us in one way or another has seen it. Mostly in the form of another human being. The Hebrew word neʹphesh or the Greek word psy·kheʹ are mentioned widely in the older testament. The term soul has been around since Socrates, Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, who all battled with the essence of human life. A pause is required to gather the moment into the basket of understanding, perhaps. Marcus Aurelius asked us to listen to our goodness within,’ “the very god that is seated in you, bringing your impulses under its control, scrutinizing your thoughts.’’ Perhaps he meant our “soul?”

It does in the final analysis mean being human. The soul of a human is what drives the desire of that human. But sometime the term is also taken literally as well. For instance, in Air traffic Control (ATC) lingo when one files a flight plan the question posed by the ATC in asking for the number of occupants in the aircraft is, “how many souls on board.” So the FAA takes the term quite literally as materiality.

But getting back to Dr. Baker’s question there is a larger point that he makes; “Searching for the Soul of Medicine” is like searching for the soul of all human beings. At least in the case of medicine, one might look at the physicians and their interaction with the patients. Unfortunately, as the current environment is dictating, a thick and almost impenetrable barrier has been created between the physician and the patient. The physician does not “see” the patient because his eyes are glued to the computer screen that is dictated by the Insurer mandates and the patient cannot in reality “see” the physician because of the insurer wants. Where once insuring was actuarial-based risk pools, now those have devolved into “stake-holder” and “share-holder” benefits all to the detriment of the patient. But that is another story for another day. Adam Smith remarked, “morality could be understood through the medium of sympathy,” but today the whole meaning is wrapped under the influence of peddling sympathy to deceive and obfuscate. The preaching of ‘do as I say’ has nothing to do with ‘do as I do.’

Meanwhile the society continues to creek and moan as the gears are greased by the soulless Victor Hugo’s Morlocks. There is a pause in the state of humanity these days. One can see it on the streets with “road rage” and “anger” belched out in large doses of expletives. It is rampant in the business world, where cronyism caters to wealth, in the scientific world where “studies” are done more for the self and not for the sake of enhancing science but for the sake of tenure and popularity, in law where the client is a means to an hourly pay and in the government where the individual is dragged for the sole purpose of extracting their earned livelihood and pursuing a higher salary and promotion. Many examples abound on all these events that unfold on a daily basis, but the best one is a judge who on presiding over a poor couple’s divorce simply said, “here sign this, the both of you. It’s a simple matter, you don’t have any assets, so no lawyers are involved.”

It appears that the world has also divided itself into camps of sorts. The battles are being fought not for survival but by the survival of a dying or dead ideology; socialism. Those not versed in history are indoctrinated and lulled into the virtues of “free things” and “free time” and “life of leisure” without effort. What they have failed to realize that history is full of such promises of the past that ended poorly. Even today there are examples in the South American continent of a failed state, milked on the potential future of freebies. In 3^rd century BC, Zeno of Citium’s “Stoics” held ‘four cardinal virtues;’ wisdom, justice, courage and temperance. None of them seem to apply today to the governors or the governed. Today’s “wisdom” is a panoply of whispers, “justice” is in the eye of the beholder or case law, “courage” is a mass riot and destruction of other’s property and “temperance” is guilty of absence.

About the soul, we turn to dissecting it again. Those ideologues of yesteryears and some today are the soulless monsters that promise the world to the masses and amass power to control the future for their own benefit. Hitler, Lenin, Marx, Mao, Castro, Chavez all come to mind as ideologues with the soulless trait of mind.

Losing one’s soul is the last vestige of reason in our current state of our humanity. If one loses that, which having makes us a species of benevolence and kindness, not having that makes us monsters. Remember Kermit Gosnell, MD a Philadelphia physician who was charged with multiple counts of murder. ( http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/15/gosnell-gets-life-in-prison-no-parole.html )

This man seems to embody a soulless human shell with a mind writ large with banal ideations. Unfortunately, there are too many more to count.

Why does our society seem to appear directionless and filled with anger so suddenly? Perhaps it is the lack of human contact? Perhaps it is the plethora of digital things that govern our daily lives? Perhaps the parents are equally interested about the next “like” as the child is and neither knows the travails of the other. Soon the “likes” don’t carry the day and depression sets in. Among physicians, depression is an epidemic. The doctors who have governed and honed their lives in the art of healing are now being told to spend 40-50% of their time answering meaningless questions on computer screens so they can get paid for services rendered rather than tend to their patients. The artful managers have positioned themselves right in the middle to control the flow of capital between the patient and physician. The third-party insurers now control the conduit via the managers and what costs $50 for an evaluation is now $200. And interestingly, $170 of that goes to the intermediaries. This has forced physicians to leave medicine in early retirement, others to seek help to fend off depression and still others to commit suicides. An analogy of the numbers of physician suicides suggest one year’s worth of a medical school graduates a year are lost to suicide. The patients too, walk like zombies from office to office and hospital to hospital in search of a meaning for their suffering, all the while the levers and gears of injudicious commerce move effortlessly, greased for full efficiency.

Where has the soul gone?

It still exists but in small pockets. The larger domain is riddled with soulless deformities. The soulless beings are anchored by their virtue-signaling and holier-than-thou proclamations, yet in that verbosity and displayed anger is the insecurity of one and the desire to be recognized. The fleeting 15-minute of fame, is fleeting. And once that fame evaporates depression sets in. The society as a whole continues to be harmed through the puppeteering by a few hypocrites. Strong words, these, but believe me the monsters exist in our midst. They will take from you what is most precious to you without a blink of an eye without remorse.

So where is the soul?

Find it within yourself. Nurture it. Feed it with goodness and kindness. Find that medium of sympathy and morality and you will find the peace and harmony that accompany them. In there you will find your soul. Live out virtuous lives worthy of a tale told by your progeny by a campfire of the future.