The Puzzled Self, by Elon Richman

I saw a movie recently called The Night Train To Lisbon. In it there was a powerful line:

"When we visit a place or we're with someone, we leave a piece of ourselves that can always be returned to and rediscovered."

Keeping that in mind.

Jonah and I walk home from an enticing and satisfying dinner at Big Kahuna Burger and look up at the Soroka skyline beside us.



“And there’s Soroka looking as beautiful as ever,” he says.

I laugh and turn to him “Beautiful? I mean the lights make it look impressive but I don’t think beautiful is the right descriptor.”

He replies, “I think it’s beautiful that human beings would invest that [gestures toward the hospital] much energy, time and resources into the health and well being of each other.”

I hope I never forget that.

I hope I never forget that there is an everlasting balance between the soul and brain of medicine. That at times we view the body as a machine and at times as a person. At times it is a vessel of knowledge, and at times it is a knowledgeable vessel.

But it is always both.

And I hope I remember that I’m leaving pieces of myself wherever I go. They’re reminders of who I once was as well as gifts for those who will carry me with them.

We’ve spoken recently of class trust and bonding, the idea that within all of us lies the capability to receive a piece of another and hold it forever. It’s up to the individual to decide how much responsibility to accept. We’ve even acted on that trust with poking and maneuvering of sharp needles in the dermis of our neighbors.

           

         

                                     

Yet receiving another is just a step closer to self-realization. What is the process by which we accept others? How do we reflect another’s piece back to them? How do we see ourselves in another?

Through self-reflection and self-observation we can begin the undertaking of amending the mental framework by which we give and receive. Not that any person is faulted in their judgment, but acceptance is a lifelong journey that those of us studying global health have the privilege to explore more deeply. It’s the vast diversity of human existence that makes us hungry.

And acceptance IS important; it’s impossible to know one’s self without knowing and exploring others. The doctor is a teacher, and by this very notion should understand more than any not just the fundamental machinery of the body, but the additional enigma that is the human experience.

Time is infinite, but it allows for specificity, and now is as good a time as any for us to begin realizing what it means to give, accept and trust.

I continue walking home after marinating on Jonah’s insight and stand before the expansive skies of Abraham’s Negev. It’s dark, and a feeling of semi-fiction makes me question the brilliant stars, “What will I remember? What will I forget? How can I be the man, the doctor, that needs to assist in repairing the world?”

Funny, they say there’s no sea in Be’er Sheva, yet the winds echo the crashing of ocean waves. And with them comes an answer:

Try your best.

-Elon Richman, August blogger of the month