Thursday 21 June 2001

Pic of the day: One day I may be stark raving mad ...

Health care to die for

I see him almost every day in the city where I work. I don't know who he is, but he seems like a parody, created to mock me. Everything I do, he does better. Or rather, worse.

I have unruly hair at times, which does not want to lie down just because I comb it for a couple minutes. This guy's hair looks like it hasn't seen a comb for months at least. I often wear the same clothes day after day, as long as they don't get stains. This guy does not have that restriction. I avoid ironing my clothes unless absolutely necessary. His clothes look like he has slept in them for weeks. I almost daily take a stroll along the main (car-free) street, looking at the people and the shop windows. This guy walks up and down the main street at high speed. Back and forth, back and forth. In the afternoon when I go to the bus station to take the bus home, he is there too. Walking at high speed in and out of the bus station and the international bookstore where I use to stop. As if sent by a higher power to remind me of something, he is where I am. (Exept at work, so far.) I sometimes catch myself humming a snatch of song. This guy snickers incessantly to himself. Today he was actually speaking out loud ... except it made no sense. Perhaps because therewasnopausebetweenwords. The man is clearly insane. But not more than enough to remind me that it could have been me.

It doesn't take a lot, you know. Slipping on a banana peel and hitting my head. Having a small stroke. A particularly nasty virus infection. Or simply the ravages of time. The mad walker looks just a few years older than me. He may not even be that. As the English saying goes: "There, but for the grace of God, go I." (Though in the end, God alone knows who will have found more mercy of us two.)

It is a sobering thought, that one day I may be stark raving mad. And nobody will lift a finger. Nobody will care. As long as we all can live a comfortable life, it does not matter to us that others are driven like restless clouds blown by winds we cannot see, chased hither and yon like sheep stalked by a predator invisible to earthly sight.

***

It has become a fixture of the news for the last several years. Perhaps it was so before too, only I did not see the pattern. Psychotic patients are let loose in society, then they kill someone, and everybody think it is just too bad. Now, mind you, most psychotic patients are a risk to no one except at worst themselves. It is such a diverse group, so to say "the killer was a psychiatric patient" is kind of like saying "the killer was a Muslim". Certainly a few of them are dangerous, and the vast majority not. But I would expect, at a time when we have almost forgotten that we sent men to the moon ... we should be able to make a good guess at who to release and who to keep locked up until further improvement.

Earlier in the week there was such a case in the news again. The local physician had asked that the man be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He arrived there, was sent home, and killed the woman he lived with. Then he was sent to hospital again.

I see the upcoming election is mostly about tax breaks, this year.