notes from above ground

x

All this professionalism is taking a toll. I want to feel like a person. I know there’s a sense of self in there somewhere. What am I missing? Confidence? I don’t feel confident at all these days, and why should I? I’m at the bottom of the food chain. Subhuman.

I understand why they say you can be near-sighted about life. Since the weird year started, it feels like I’ve had my hand in front of my face, and all I can do is stare at it. When I look at it up close, I can see all the creases and blood vessels. And when I look at it for too long, I forget there’s a whole world on the other side of it, and I notice all kinds of interesting things about my hand. When I put my hand down, I see a lot of other stuff that suddenly matters way more than my hand. The world, for instance.

When you look at something for too long, it starts to feel sacred. The things you have to look at in the above ground (whiteboards, computer screens) don’t deserve to be sacred. Staring at a two-dimensional surface with stupid words on it all day is such a waste of human life. There are plenty of other things that we should be making sacred. Trees come to mind. I think they hold a lot of secrets, way more than whiteboards and computer screens. And they’re alive! And they help keep us alive by making oxygen and aspirin (why did we discover aspirin in a tree, by the way, and how? what do the trees know that we don’t?). There’s so much more going on with trees than with whiteboards and computers.

I don’t know if I’m on the right path. Do I really want to do this? Why am I doing this? None of this was part of the original plan.

I didn’t dream of becoming a doctor when I was a kid. I don’t think I’ve ever dreamed of it. I’ve had nightmares about it, definitely, but dreams? I can’t think of any.

I feel an identity crisis coming on. Actually, I think it’s already come on.

To its credit, this current path allows me to feel more genuinely connected to other people than I usually do. I’m witnessing suffering first-hand, and working to make the suffering go away. Doctoring is a “noble” profession (so they say), if only for all the difficulty involved. The question I have for myself is whether the difficulty is necessary or particularly meaningful. I have a hunch that it might be neither.

One of my mentors sometiems tries to convince me to stay the course by reminding me of how much "power" I'll have when I'm a doctor. What power is he talking about? The power to dispense drugs made by loser capitalist freaks? Who am I to accept that power, along with all of the other, weirder, baked-into-society powers that come with being a doctor? And who am I to think I should be the one to “fix” people’s bodies and minds?

Is this a quarter life crisis? If so, what am I supposed to do with it? Acknowledge that it happens to a lot of people and double down on the path, or listen to my incessant protesting and escape?

I need help right now. I need someone to grab me by the shoulders and shake me until I wake up from this dream I’m in. I’m a zombie whose reasoning faculties have been replaced with treatment algorithms, blindly following the path of most resistance because it’s what everybody else is doing.

I suppose admitting you have a problem is the first step. That was a lot of work, though. Are there really more steps than that?