Woodpeckers and Guilt

This woodpecker was an unusual guest on the lawn, a couple of mornings ago. I can't remember ever seeing a woodpecker sitting on the grass, pulling out grubs.

But there it was.

It was "unusual" enough for me to pull out my camera to take a picture or two. Which-- in turn-- required getting fresh batteries for the camera, finding a good angle for the photo, waiting for the right moment and yadda, yadda... followed by offloading the images, choosing the decent ones, cropping and color correcting, formatting for blog use and yadda, yadda.

And so, old familiar feelings of guilt over "wasting time with something useless" when I could be doing "something more productive" with my life arose.

Which, in turn, led me down a rabbit hole of considering why we feel what we feel, and especially why we feel what we feel when we are experiencing negative feelings.

I enjoy nature photography. I enjoy observing the world around me, and then sharing what I see with others. I may not be the world's greatest conversationalist, but I am a passable story teller and illustrator, so I write and add pictures.

Now, I was not raised in an environment where I was made to feel that work-- by definition-- had to be "something you DON'T enjoy doing." Far from it. I was, however, raised in an environment that revolved around "duties (work) first, fun later." And if "duties" took ALL your time? Too bad. If we were to consider Aesop's fable about "The Ant and the Grasshopper," I have pretty much always been closer to the proverbial Ant... in spite of the fact that I am-- to a considerable extent-- a "slacker." These uneasily live side-by-side because my sense of responsibility and conscientiousness (the Ant) does battle with my desire to be "authentically me," which is more about BE-ing than DO-ing.

So I am sitting here, writing these words-- which takes (valuable work) time to do-- feeling like I am not being "suitably Ant-ish" because these words and pictures are (a) primarily for my own enjoyment, and (b) not income producing and (c) will "cost" me $30 because the time is NOT being used to generate income. And there's an attendant feeling of guilt; a sense that I am "wasting time with frivolities, again."

But don't many people photograph and write in their spare time? Or walk on the beach? Or paint? Or collect stamps or belly button lint?

Few things are truly as simple as they look-- especially when it comes to the human psyche.

I don't have any "spare" time. And therein can be found an answer, of sorts: Even though I am-- in many ways-- "an Ant," I have mostly been singularly unsuccessful at "Anting" because for most of my adult life I have made choices leading to a reality that doesn't have any "spare time."

Sure, I have "made my own way," and I "work from home in my sweats" but at what price? Yes, I may be living "authentically" and "on my own terms," but the ostensible "reward" has so often been that there's (metaphorically speaking) only a twenty-dollar bill between me and living on the street. It's not a question of when the electric bill gets paid, but a question of remembering the last time I wasn't worried whether the power would go off next week. A year? Five years? Ten years? Twenty years? And sometimes that's to close to "reality" to even consider a true metaphor...

One of the things I have been considering recently is the well-known saying "Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow" (which also happens to be the title of Marsha Sinetar's landmark book from 1989 ◄ highly recommended!) and its deeper implications. I have been doing that for almost two decades, so I have started wondering what (reality?) I am not seeing: I am doing one thing I love (beach combing), but dealing with an ever depleting resource. I am doing a second thing I love (being a rare postage stamp dealer) but am dealing with a hobby that's slowly "graying" and dying. I am doing a third thing I love (writing) which is notoriously hard to make a living at, and focusing on HSPs (who often believe things "should be free") so there has been very little there. I am doing a fourth thing I love (being creative, artistic and painting geometric designs-- Alchemy Stones), but art is a "luxury" which makes it something most people "do without" in hard economic times, such as these.

The question that arises is "How do you MAKE IT, when your passions may be authentic, but just aren't very popular, on a greater scale?"

Anyway, the woodpecker came to me in this unusual context (it's actually called a "Northern Flicker" and is one of the very few woodpeckers that does get some of its food from the ground) and made me pause and think. I'm a student of synchronicity and symbolism, so this surely had to "mean" something. So then I had to go look at the meaning of woodpeckers, as totem animals and animal spirit guides.

Of course, there was a huge amount of information to be had-- suffice it to say that Woodpecker has profound spiritual messages, many centering on returning to, and focusing on, our roots and our original creative ideas. Even Carl Jung observed that the woodpecker symbolizes "a return to the womb of creativity." Woodpeckers are also a symbol of determination-- they will peck away at seemingly impossible obstacles (like an oak tree trunk) till they reach their objective... against all odds. I have surely been doing that... if I had a dime for every time I've been told "Just give up and get a 'real' job-- what you're trying to do can't be done" I wouldn't be alluding to financial hardship here.

And yet? To get back to the "Ant and Grasshopper" analogy... the woodpecker embodies a little of both: the dogged determination and single-mindedness of the ant (hammering through impossible obstacles) and the "slacker"ways of the Grasshopper... it's narrow pointed beak and long tongue allows it to reach its objective with the least possible effort needed.

And the "guilt" bit? It is a fundamental truth of me that I will-- in general-- accomplish exactly what I need, and NO MORE. I feel extremely "driven" to "get by" yet lack any sort of ambition to accomplish much more than that. The guilt arises because-- UNlike the Ant-- I never have a "store room" to draw on, any kind of "reserve" when I just want to take a day to photograph and write about woodpeckers, or when I just want to do something "because I feel like it." Why? Because I feel like I am-- in essence-- endangering my own security when I pay attention to anything other than "the essential," hence a sense of guilt.

Now, if I could only find another passion that's a little more globally popular!

The Ridiculousness and Real Cost of Heath Care in America

After some 30+ years of living in this country (the US being "this country" and Denmark being "where I came from") I have come to the conclusion that one of the things that annoy me the most about living here is insurance.

Or rather... the cost of insurance-- and especially the cost of health insurance.

People talk a lot about the "standard of living" in the US, but how do you really measure the standard of "living?" Sure if you look at the median income, it's a pretty nice number, compared to a lot of places in the world. You can also look things like Gross National Product per capita, and things still look pretty nice. The problem with those metrics is that they are "just numbers" but don't really look at "where" people truly are.

Here's the thing... when you look at "what can you actually DO with your life once you've paid for the basic expenses of living" things kinda suck. And that's the fundamental truth of living in 21st century America-- we may look like we have a lot of money... but we also have to pay a monumental pile of expenses... and when you consider the equation from the angle of "how many units of basic lifestyle can I buy with an hour of averagely compensated work" things are not so good.

And then... things are complicated further by the fact that we have utterly unrealistic expectations about what we "should be able to get" with the money we do have... there's this odd sense of "entitlement" that we "should" be able to buy boats, McMansions, trips to Europe, $300 sneakers, flat screen TVs and redecorate our house every three years with the relatively tiny pile of actual disposable income we have left over, at the end of the day, after basic expenses. And that really doesn't work, in a functional sense... the only thing it "works" towards is creating a bunch of underlying anger and frustration about how we "never have enough."

But I am digressing.

Insurance.

It's "a job" around here to pay the bills... And I keep looking at just how many of these bills are about insurance. Health insurance, auto insurance, homeowners insurance, title insurance, life insurance... insurance, insurance, insurance.... we're up to our eyebrows in insurance because we all seem to be hanging by such a fragile string that unless we're "insuring" ourselves to the hilt, everything we have and believe in could all "go away" if the slightest mishap comes our way.

Top of my "annoyance" list is health insurance. Now, granted, I grew up in a part of the world that has socialized medicine... so perhaps my perspective is skewed. In this household, we have been paying $611.00 per month in health insurance premiums... all for the privilege of being "insured" but still having a... get ready for it... $6,000.00 deductible.

"On paper," what that adds up to is that no matter what, our "healthcare" costs us over $7,300.00 per year (the premiums)... before we even grab the first Kleenex to blow our noses. Now if we do need the services of a doctor or "something medical" (as most of us do, as we move into our 40's, 50's and beyond) we're still out-of-pocket for the next $6,000... meaning that our health, allowing for occasional mishaps and visits to the doctor + medications means we've spent $13,300 per year before we've derived any damn "benefit" from "being insured."

Of course, just because we "hit that mark" doesn't suddenly mean that "it's paid for." Now we get into all the technicalities of "co-payments" and "disallowed" items and so forth.

Now, a $6,000.00 deductible may sound like a HUGE amount... but it's really less than you think. Why? Because we live in this society where it's (a) assumed that "it'll be covered by insurance" and (b) everyone is incredibly litigious, which drives up the cost of malpractice insurance, which drives up medical costs... you can use that up that deductible in a hurry. For example, Sarah went to the doctor this spring ($180.00) which required some bloodwork and labs costing $1,270.00, of which the insurance company covered no more than an "administrative adjustment" of $127.00. That's pretty normal, in the real world.

But getting back to that out-of-pocket annual amount of $13,300.00 for our health... that amounts to $1,108.00 a month just for "breathing air" without being seriously sick. That's more than most people's rent. Or mortgage payment. Or all utilities and food, combined. And we haven't even covered the "other" kinds of insurance we're having to pay for... auto, home, life, etc.

Now, you might think we have a really crappy insurance plan... but based on a lot of research, along with the insistence from other people (medical and private) that "it's actually a really good plan," this seems to be pretty much "what to expect" in 21st century America... unless you're working for some large employer of the government and get medical as part of the package.

OK, so let me back up. I said "America." I don't mean "America." The United States. Our neighbors to the north in Canada don't really have these kinds of issues (at least not to such an extent) because they have a form of national health care. Although healthcare in Mexico is not fully nationalized, it is effectively of a quality and cost low enough that many US based health insurance providers actually require their customers living within reasonable distance of the Mexican border to go to Mexican hospitals for many procedures.

In the US, we're very proud of our national self-reliance... but that may also be our Achilles heel when it comes to public health. The entire nation was founded on a mistrust of government, so it is not surprising that the idea of socialized medicine is a "hot potato" in the US. And I harbor no delusions that this attitude will ever substantially change. And then there's the age-old argument "yeah, but you would have to pay it in taxes, anyway!"

We'll get back to that one...

For me, such a central part of where the healthcare debate in the US completely misses the mark is in the way the vast majority of dialogue is centered on the practical aspects of public health. From where I am sitting, the vast part of it actually looks more like a social and societal issue that gets swept under the rug most of the time.

In the US, we're very attached to the whole "equal rights" thing, and how everyone should have "equal access" and all that good stuff, and yet... when you have a "for profit" type of healthcare system (or, for that matter, any type of for profit system) you automatically create a sort of "meritocracy" in which service is more readily available to those of means and is dished out according to financial ability, rather than actual need. Bottom line-- which we really don't like to look at, as a free enterprise culture-- in a for-profit system there is really no (or little) money to be made from peddling services to poor people.

The other-- and subtler, but potentially more pervasive-- issue involves the subtext and implications that go with living in a culture that has no "safety net."

We may not think of this on a conscious level, but for many people in the US, "getting seriously ill" basically means "losing everything you have" or going into bankruptcy... same end effect, either way. That knowledge "lives" as a constant undercurrent in our society. Probably two-thirds of the population-- if faced with some kind of major medical event-- would find themselves "on the rocks."

"True," you might say, "but so what?"

Well, if your life is subtly but constantly influenced by an underlying fear that you're "not going to have enough" it is also going to fuel a constant drive to try to get "more" to compensate for this fear. That's simply human nature-- psychology 101. Of course, fear of "lack" drives the quest for "more," and the quest for "more" ultimately drives "greed" (subtle, or not so subtle)... and the failure to get "more" leads to an undercurrent of frustration and anger. And where does living in a perpetual state of subtle anger and frustration lead? On the "soft" end, to ulcers and anxiety (requiring healthcare!) and on the "hard" end to marginally abusive and violent tendencies.

No, I'm not talking about actual physical violence, I'm talking about about the violence and abuses inherent in extremely competitive workplaces where the actual "contest" for "more" and "overcoming our fears of not having enough" play out.

Now, let's get back to those taxes... and how "we'd have to pay for it, anyway." To some degree, true. Of course there would be taxes. But it would be less than we pay out of pocket, right now... because the cost of the "profit motive" would go away. Healthcare would be a "basic service" like police and fire.

Funny, how that works. We're "OK" with having firefighters be a "public service," but not our health.

Ever considered a conversation that goes "Well, Martha, the house is on fire but we couldn't afford the fire service insurance this month, so it'll have to burn down because we can't afford to pay the fire fighters to come out." Probably not. Yet... that's what we do with our health.

"Yeah, but the really GOOD people would no longer become doctors in a non-profit system... "

Mmm... really? I have some major philosophical issues with that line of thinking.

Maybe I'm being overly naive or idealistic here, but the fundamental fallacy behind that argument is that it assumes "doctors are only in it for the money." This assumes that people go to medical school not because they are actually interested in medicine and healing people... but only because they can "make $400,000 a year."

Two (major) things to consider:

One, if "the lure of big bucks" was actually a bit less, wouldn't we actually end up with more doctors who were genuinely interesting in healing people, rather than those mostly looking for wealth? In a sense, wouldn't the system be self-adjusting towards creating a pool of doctors who care more, rather than care less?

Two, if you were a physician who was part of a structured not-for-profit system... where-- for example--your malpractice insurance premiums would all but vanish, and the need to constantly market yourself and "run a business" largely dropped away... wouldn't you not only be able to focus more on "practicing medicine" and still actually be "relatively" well off since your drop in gross income is partially offset by a drop in operating expenses?

Meanwhile... on a more personal level... if I there was some kind of safety net between me and the potential for destitution, I wouldn't have this eternal knot of worry in my stomach. And if I wasn't out this monthly $1,108.00 I might not feel quite so much like no matter what we do, it never seems to be "enough."

What do YOU think? I know it's a complex debate-- but everyone seems to have an opinion. And if you live outside the USA... what's your take on "healthcare in America?"
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