The STORM

The other day, sitting by the window, I was gazing at the sunny outdoors, I noticed the bright light dimmed slowly and then precipitously to claim the twilight time in midday. Clouds overhead turned quickly from white to grey to mammatus black. The quiet breeze remained quiet no more. It started to blow. The leaves that had felt the stir were now in a state of panic as the branches of the trees roiled and rolled, swayed to the gusty wind that came upon so suddenly. Soon I could see the wind as the branches were forced to defoliate and the leaves swirled slapping against their brethren and onto walls and lampposts. It grew darker still and an eerie greenish hue circumscribed the neighborhood. Thunder advanced the agenda of this brewing storm. Lightening flashed its 5 mm bolts around the clouds arcing through the air ripping apart space and sending loud booming messages of what was to come. Soon large droplets crushed against the windowpane, splattering and flowing down to the pull of gravity. Then larger droplets still, arrived, each with more crushing strength and ferocity. The view was utter chaos. A few packets of unsustainable weighty hail pelted the ground dissolving on the warm grass, followed by more heavy rain. As the wind velocity increased so did the horizontal nature of the rain. Sheets upon sheets of linearities coalesced together hit without mercy, any and all natural and man-made objects. The drubbing continued for a while and as always, such trauma is never lasting, an hour later the wind soothed down, the rain became vertical and the trees breathed a sigh of relief. As quickly it came, so it moved east and away onto the ocean. The day turned from dark of the eve to light of midday again and the gathering of the clouds dissipated. A few stragglers of white puffy clouds, like the little ducklings walking behind mother duck pulled by the invisible tether followed suit, leaving behind the bright and clean beautiful hour. Such is the nature of storms. They come and go under the forces of nature, mostly announced via the weather stations but sometimes they popup without notice.

Life is like that. A bit of rain must fall in each life. It must, I say, because nature as life does not like monotony, stagnation and boredom. The clean and shine that follows is a new birth of ideas, demand and productivity. Humans are in a constant state of flux, moving and shaking the order of the current impulse. Those entrenched and stagnant in their ideation resist such change and are fearful of it. Those resilient, pliable, flexible with exposure of their minds to new thoughts disrupt the status quo and create a new worldview. Such change is what humanity needs.

Physicians are fighting such a storm these days, as entrenched profitable agencies well-endowed and improperly enriched create the chaos to resist the higher order of newness. Those firm and rigid physicians, unfortunately either lose heart, leave, get burned out or in some sad cases give up on life. These hardworking physicians who are forced by the nature of a few bureaucratic mindset ivory-tower-policy-makers, creating mandates, wear the badge of loss as they give up on life. Their whole meaning being to care for those in need is upended by needless hurdles. The pursuit of the storm makers on the other hand is to further enrich their enterprise to the detriment of all others. The dichotomy of purposes is like the storm, what creates the leaves swirling in the wind, lost in the sea of chaos and humility to an untimely exit. The resolute and flexible ones meanwhile plot their next strategy. Create new paradigms hatched from a conspiracy of multivariate thoughts. Once alignment of thoughts and process is nigh, execution is a mere action. Success arrives. “Fall down seven, get up eight,” is a reminder about resiliency and fight.

As Van Gogh said about storm aftermaths, "...there must be a little bit of air, a little bit of happiness, but chiefly to let the form be felt, to make the lines of the silhouette speak. But let the whole be sombre."

So, my dear friends, it is never too dark for too long. Neither is it torment forever. All of past is a memory. Choose the right memory to fight another day and get up and carry on to the next adventure.

My thoughts and prayers are for you and with you!!