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November 27 - December 3, 2022
Since my life was not just my own, then my death was not just my own.
Life is not just inside people; it passes through people.
The capacities that people need in order to operate as free adults develop when we are small.3 The skills that we will apply to become unique human beings are created during the first five years of life, as the brain grows to nearly its full size. As infants and toddlers interact with other people,4 will and speech and thought emerge. We learn as very small children, if we ever learn, to recover from disappointment and to delay pleasure. Abundant research shows what allows these capacities to develop: relationships, play, and choices.
The paradox of freedom is that no one is free without help. Freedom might be solitary, but freedom requires solidarity. An adult who has learned to be free in solitude benefited from solidarity as a child. Freedom is thus a loan paid out and paid back over generations. Children need intense and thoughtful attention during those first five years.7 This special time cannot be given by children to children, nor by adults to adults. Children can only borrow this special kind of time from adults. They can pay back the loan only later, when they themselves are grown, to the children who are yet to
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The truth takes work. Facts do not often line up with what we believe, want to believe, or are led to believe. Facts are what we apprehend when we place ourselves at the right distance between our emotions and the world around us.
Solitude and solidarity need to be rebalanced. One reason that we are too lonely in this country is that we do not know how to talk about what ails us. If being a patient did not occasion anxieties about money and status, we would be more likely to get treated and get well. If we all had access to doctors and nurses whom we trusted, we would find it easier not just to get by but also to get along.
We should regard health care as a right, take medical and local knowledge seriously, make time for young children, and put doctors in charge.
To be free we need our health, and for our health we need one another.
