Its been a long time since I've blabbered. Don't get me wrong, I do blabber off blog, I meant on anythingwise!
Okay, I don't know how to start this blog, there's a lot I want to say and I don't know if I can bring out all that or even some in a theme... I'll jump straight into it and see how it turns out raw. Lets just say that the theme is something that has made my short-temper.
Way back in 1996, I made a statement, as a biomedical engineer, to my moron-- and crook-- of a boss, something to the effect that "these days, some doctors just want to make money". Maybe, I didn't know he was a crook yet! He came back sharp and said "there's nothing wrong in doctors making money". To this day, I don't know what to make of it. In my statement "these days, some doctors just want to make money", my stress is basically on *just* and *doctors*. Just making money means ignoring patients which is the primary job. The best doctor who ignores patients is worse than the doctors who failed to make it through their exams. A lot of people, including doctors, seem to be illiterate of the fact that medicine was a noble profession, much like teaching. I told this to someone today and he said that all teachers take tuitions outside class and make money. Not that I don't know there are teachers that just make money. I even know of some who force their students to not only come to their classes outside, but also to bring many other students, failing which... they will fail. But this is where I have a problem. You pay hefty sums for your son's tuition and you brand all teachers as those who make money teaching outside of class! You want your son to compete, you tutor them outside, its not just the teacher with all the wrong. Worse yet, when I said "not everyone", he went on "some of those who don't take tuition are the leftovers". Hah! I know teachers that won't have it any other way. There are others who teach for the passion of teaching, regardless of whether there's money. I'd love to do that myself.
Another argument I hear for doctors after money is that engineers make money, so why shouldn't a doctor? I told this last person who threw that in my face: "Do you bow down in front of your engineer out of respect?" If you've been to some villages, there are people who treat some doctors like God. They can hardly pay for their medication, leave alone paying the doctor's charges. These are doctors who have made, and kept, the profession noble. OTOH, I heard of a doctor on one of my biomedical engineer's jobs that forced a sole child to somehow buy a water-bed for his hospitalized father because the patient had rashes on his back. The "doc" emotionally blackmailed the kid into believing that his father will be more comfortable in a water-bed. In a couple of days the young patient died... the doc knew this and thought he'd make money off it! Such docs, I'm told, are recovering their huge medical college fees. Well, how "noble".
There are two things I want to divert into here; one, nobility and another, money. Although these are professions which are noble by their very nature of work, I believe all professions can find nobility in their own ways. Any decent job done without taking money becomes noble. If an engineer who built your house or an architect who designed it didn't take any money, I'm sure you'd call it a noble act. Isn't that why money or alms given to a homeless are a noble action? But, contrast this with doctors or teachers. If they just do their regular job with regular money in a regular way, those still are noble things. In which case, I submit, that the noble doctors and teachers become more ignoble, when they start charging hefty sums for routine things and so on, than if engineers do the same.
Continuing on the money front, things done without charging money become noble by the very act. About this, I've seen lot of people having trouble. These are the people who are convinced that there is not more than a handful of people like that. Even among them, they believe are people who are stinking rich. One of them, I recall, is my jackass of a manager in my first software days. Enter Linux/ GNU. Any Microsoft hater knows Linux. And any Linux lover knows that its not about 'free' but about 'freedom'. However, I want to focus on free...free as in without charging money. My manager asked me why would anyone write an OS for free? And how would anyone trust them to support. Well, he failed the argument when I asked him if he got support from MS ever? I also asked him to have an opinion, not even an argument, only if he is paying for his Microsoft OS on his PC! He did shut up.
These category of people who make up a large portion of the world know the language of money and money alone. They wouldn't believe you if you said that anyone would give away all the wealth to charity. An example someone like Warren Buffet who made money all his life. Instead, they think that people who give their money away are those who don't have their own offspring! On a related note, these are just basic things in the world, far be it then for them to ever understand the concept of saMnyAsa. Well, so much for them who see a world of money, people who want to make money any which way in any profession, noble or not, no charity anywhere, and no one to trust since all are cheaters. Moreover, they have accepted it as today's world and even call it fair. Sorry, I don't agree.
PS: I too have seen cheaters every once in a while all my life and have been seeing a lot of them in the past few years on a regular basis. And then there are also a bunch of liars which I always voice against. But still, I would not have it any other way with my life. I'd still trust people to do the right thing till they cheat me. Even today, I paid the paint shop upfront because there was load shedding and he couldn't mix the paint till a couple of hours. I told him my brother would pick up the paint later. Most people won't do this and instead call me stupid. I like it this way. Life's simple.
