We the People

Health and Disease

Dictionaries define health as the absence of disease, but that''s wishful thinking, for diseases typically begin asymptomatically. You don't know you have them. You might feel fine, but you can't say there''s no cancer, occlusion, infection etc. lurking beneath the surface. If something pops up, you might describe it, name it, even fix it, but until you see it, you can't know if it''s there. So, feeling fine isn't adequate. It''s actually much worse than that. If you're feeling fine while others are suffering, you're either ignorant, or apathetic. And most people are suffering, so either option qualifies as a disease. The same can be said if you're feeling fine while our ecosystem unravels or our government provides less than liberty and justice for all, the same when elected officials, lawyers, educators, therapists, clergy, commanding officers, police officers, and others betray the very principles of their professions. But except for the chronically depressed, we all have our good days. How does that happen? How do we have good days when so many are suffering, when our kids'' futures look so bleak? We simply ignore the suffering. But that's sick by any definition. We might call it Empathy Deficiency Syndrome. Health, therefore, as the absence of disease, is a myth.

Our Connection and Interdependence

We''re all sick, either because our bodies are broken or are minds are. We live as independent islands, entire in ourselves. If I'm not hurting, I feel good. Your problems are not mine, and vice versa. But that's not true. We''re all connected (Donne). COVID proved that. Infection anywhere threatens everywhere. The same can be said of environmental, economic, and political threats. And all threats are inter-related, and translate to health threats: "Medicine is a social science and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale" (Virchow).

On Unity and Dependence

"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another . . ." (Declaration of Independence). That''s never necessary, never even possible, for the bands, political and otherwise, that connect one people to all, and all people to each other, and each person to all organisms, are insoluble. To have a shot at anything resembling health, we must ratify a new Declaration of Dependence: Significant others make others insignificant. The family that matters is the One we all belong to. To have a shot at health, we must build this family. This book''s the blueprint.