Thoughts on Depression and Suicide

It's a few days after the sad death of Robin Williams, and along with all of the tributes, there is a lot of opinion flying around the interwebs about depression and suicide.  Having some firsthand knowledge of the topic, and never being a shrinking violet when it comes to giving my opinion, I held forth on Facebook and was surprised and pleased that it seemed to resonate with and help people.

For the person with clinical depression, there is no life circumstance that will protect them from it.  None of the things we aspire to in life will stop it.

The answer to the question "How could someone so (gifted/talented/intelligent/confident/competent/strong/seemingly happy) take their own life?" is that when driven by clinical depression, suicide is not a rational act.  Depression isn't just being extra sad.  It is a real mental illness that can make people imagine and believe the most horrible, irrational, outlandish lies about themselves, lies that everyone else knows to be lies.  Such a person can feel that they ought to die, and deserve to die, even painfully, as a gift to the world and restitution for the crime of having been born and lived.  Does that sound shocking to you?  Because that is the depth of irrational self-hatred to which depression can drive a person.  Severely depressed people can also be subjected to the chaotic short-circuiting of thoughts, resulting in what I can only describe as the feeling that one's mind is on fire.  Given that, it should be evident that suicide is not necessarily an act of weakness, selfishness or cowardice.  For some unfortunate people, simply being is itself at times unbearable.  People point out that suicide is a choice, and while that's true, it's not necessarily a choice made by a person in possession of their faculties.  I wonder if it ever is.

Society can help by understanding that mental illness is physical.  The brain is a physical organ that operates through chemical processes, and it is no more immune to malfunctions in those processes than is, say, the digestive tract.  A person with mental illness is no more defective, flawed or bad than is a person with ulcerative colitis.  But mental illness is the one physical illness that carries with it fear, stigma and judgment.

We would also do well to be a bit circumspect and humble in our opinions about anti-depressant medication if we have never personally had our lives and sanity saved by them.  They are not "happy pills" and they are not an escape for the weak.  For some, when prescribed and used properly, they erect a floor beneath their feet, a stop, a limit to keep their depression from spiraling out of control, and for them, they are a godsend.

Of course, I believe the best thing for any person is to be reconciled to their Creator and enjoying fellowship with him, through the redemption of our lord Jesus Christ.  I believe that much anxiety and depression is the result of unresolved guilt and unrepented sin, and the library has not been built that could adequately address the topic of the mind of the person whose soul is at enmity with God.  But mental illness is real.  And if we can make use of our God-given gifts and arts and intelligence to come up with ways to treat the physical problem of mental illness, we should.  And if we can stop seeing those afflicted with mental illness as being specially and frighteningly damaged, we should.

John 9:2-3  And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"  Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him."

"L" is for Language, the Sanitization of

Like any writer or reader of English, I love the English language.  The arcane, the archaic, the flawed, the illogical and the just plain weird.  The duplication and the inconsistencies.  The, uh, Anglo-Saxonisms.  The quirks.  You know, like how we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway.  Why do we call pineapple that which contains neither pine nor apple?  And if the plural of tooth is teeth, why is not the plural of booth "beeth?"

I love it, warts and all, so I dislike what I consider the sanitizing of it.  And by that, I don't mean removal of naughty words, but the homogenizing of it, the replacing of descriptive, recognizable words with bland substitutes.

I'll give you a couple of examples. 

"Unsung" by James Dietz

What does the word "mechanic" conjure for you? A member of an old and proud profession, someone who understands the language that engines speak, and can get a recalcitrant one to purr again? Or maybe the thousands of sailors and airmen who toiled with warplanes through the night in airfields and hangar bays to make sure their charges would perform the mission and bring their pilots back home?

Now, how about "technician?"  If you're like me, you think of a person in a lab coat holding a clipboard or laptop in a sterile environment, and not much else.

George Washington Young Surveyor by Hy Hinterman

What do you think of when you see or hear the word "surveyor?"  George Washington on a hilltop peering through a compass and helping to establish the boundaries of a new world?  Yes, it's an old and honored profession.  Say you're a surveyor and people get it.

So what comes to mind when you see the term "Geomatics Engineer?"  If you're drawing a blank or thinking of a three-letter acronym that begins with "W" and ends with "F," you're probably not alone.  Yes, that's what they're calling themselves now.

Words like "mechanic" and "surveyor" are evocative, rich in imagery.  They're interwoven with history and literature.  Technicians are certainly professionals worthy of esteem; they're just saddled with a moniker that's generic because it's an umbrella for so many different disciplines.  Words like "technician" and, Lord help us, "Geomatics Engineer" seem bland and noncommittal, of a world where everyone is special, and thus, no one is.

So why the changes?  Somehow, I doubt it's part of a sinister conspiracy to render English more vanilla.  Rather, in the case of "technician," it was probably a desire to change people's perception of mechanics as unskilled grease monkeys, to clean up the image, make it respectable.  Why, I don't know. I for one have always seen the profession of mechanic as highly skilled and eminently respectable and I have a lot of esteem for people that get their hands dirty.  There's probably also a feeling that "mechanic" belongs to the previous century and doesn't accurately reflect a time in which a mechanic spends more time reading diagnostic codes on a computer than turning wrenches, and likely went to a technical school to learn to do it.  I get it, it just leaves me flat.

As for surveying, I'm a Civil engineer, so I have far more than a passing familiarity with it (I've done a fair bit of it myself, and one-fourth of my professional engineering exam was on surveying) so I can tell you that it's like an iceberg; the gal or guy out there with the total station or GPS receiver on a tripod is just the tip that the public sees.  An enormous amount of surveying takes place in the office, researching maps and plats and corner records, writing legal descriptions and performing complex calculations.  And I guess that's the point, the desire for a term that more completely reflects the totality of what a surveyor does.  But it also seems like an attempt to gain more respect for a profession that for me, was never lacking in it in the first place (to me, surveyors are the "casual Fridays" of the engineering world, and who doesn't think engineering can use more of that?).  But if that is the purpose, why such a goofy name?  (The term "Civil" engineer comes from "civilian," meaning non-military.  It was bland from the cradle, but I will resist with all my energy any attempts to rename it Physical and Natural Environment Technician.)

With the well-intentioned but misguided replacement of both words, I think the result is the same.  If we did this for every hoary old less-than-encyclopedic name, what we'd end up with wouldn't be English at all, but a homogenous goo.  At that point, let's just get it over with and start speaking (shudder) Esperanza.

How about you?  Do you have any similar sanitizing pet peeves?  Do you know of a newer term that's an actual improvement over the old?  Or maybe you think I'm full of pre-processed bovine waste product?  Let me know.

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This Rat's Not Deserting a Sinking Ship. Just Yet.

I hear from various sources the clarion call to join other, sensible people in their exodus from the most insane state in the Union.  Every day, with every knuckleheaded politician elected and every nonsensical law passed, California seems more and more hell bent on driving business and ordinary people who would govern themselves with common sense out of the state.

And while I'd love to live closer to my parents and my brother's family, who several years ago fled to Texas, I'm resisting.  I'm heir to what was once a great state.  Arguably the most beautiful state, the most varied terrain and climate in the nation.  The rich identity and history of Bakersfield and Kern County are mine.  The mountains and lakes are mine.  Death Valley and the high deserts are mine.  The Central Coast, with its farms and forests and cool, cloudy beaches are mine.  Fresno, my home for twenty years, with it's vineyards and Nisei farmers and The ag, tech and aerospace industries are mine.  Disneyland is my kids' and Dodger Stadium (my "Happy Place," even when the Dodgers drop one) are mine.  It may be an insane asylum, but I'm not going to just hand it over to the inmates without a fight.

On the Need for Economic Literacy

March 26, 2010

Were I Grand Poobah of the United States, I'd require everyone to read a text and pass a test in basic free-market economics. Why?

To put to rest once and for all, economic myths like the one that sellers in a properly regulated capitalist system can set prices "arbitrarily." Or the closely related myth of "price gouging." Or the myth that the "market" is some cruel, impersonal force, rather than the sum total of the free choices of a population of free people.

So people would understand why price supports result in surplus of a commodity, price ceilings result in scarcity of a commodity and wage controls result in scarcity of jobs.

So that anyone who hasn't had the misfortune to live in a communist country or any other centrally-planned, command economy would know how backward, inefficient and wasteful they are, why they don't work, and why an army of a million government planners can never do what prices do automatically in a free market.

So people would understand that no collection of disinterested bureaucrats could ever regulate an industry as well as consumers when there is real competition. That in a competitive environment, the same company that resists or skirts government regulators will quickly fall in line when customer dissatisfaction affects their bottom line, or lose their business to companies that do. Why true competition in the insurance industry is the best thing that could happen to the healthcare consumer.

So that they would never again be led astray by the lies and promises of politicians and demagogues. So they would be able to figure out exactly why the current healthcare "reform" is so bad for the country, stop demonizing people who oppose it, and maybe even consider the better ideas that have so far been ignored.

There is an ever-increasing population of Americans who have never seen the tragic effects of Marxism, who don't realize it's not a new idea that needs to be tried, and who are easy prey for those who are trying to push us toward it. If that population reaches a certain critical mass, we're in trouble.

My recommendation for an interesting and readable text? Basic Economics, by Thomas Sowell.

Knowledge is power, and the truth will make you free.

The Ultimate Regulators

March 21, 2010

In her March 17 column, Ann Coulter said that if the hotel industry were regulated as heavily as the insurance industry, she would be explaining why the government doesn't need to mandate that hotels offer rooms with beds. If they didn't, they'd go out of business.

If insurance consumers had real choice, there wouldn't need to be government regulations against things like lifetime coverage caps or using pre-existing coverage clauses to fraudulently drop existing customers - insurance companies would quickly bow to the wishes of the consumer or quickly go out of business. All with no new gargantuan entitlements, thousands of new IRS employees or rationing of healthcare. In a free market, consumers are the ultimate regulators. With tools like consumer groups, a watchdog media and the internet, the American consumer is savvier and better informed than in any other time in history, and they are more interested and invested in their own protection than a Washington bureaucrat. And they don't cost the taxpayers anything.

Real Healthcare Reform

March 20, 2010

The healthcare legislation that the President and Congressional Democrat leadership are tying themselves in knots to cobble together out of parliamentary gymnastics, multi-billion dollar bribes, threats and coercion, union favors, back room bargaining, constant condescending preaching, demonization of opponents, outright lies, supplying fraudulent information and assumptions to the CBO, and for all we know, duct tape, chewing gum and bailing wire, all while not even fully knowing what is in it, is not about healthcare. It is a last-ditch attempt to salvage what was supposed to be the signature issue of the Obama presidency and realize a century-old dream of the left for the Federal government to be the lord, father figure and provider for every American. It is a Trojan horse that will lay the groundwork for further enormous expansions of government size, power, control and entitlements. It will give government unprecedented control over every aspect of our lives that could even remotely be tied to healthcare. (Like cigars? Rock climbing? Motorcycling?). It is opposed by a clear majority of Americans and has bipartisan opposition in Congress (no such bipartisan support exists for it). I humbly submit that if the issue were really the health of the American people, rather than a codification of the Left's hatred of private enterprise, Congress would immediately drop this multi-thousand page Frankenstein monstrosity into the dustbin of history and reform our health coverage system by doing four things, at zero cost to the taxpayer:

1. Eliminate the antitrust exemptions for the insurance companies, prohibitions on interstate purchasing and State mandates on coverage. If this single step happened, consumers would be able to choose exactly what type of coverage they wanted. Why should a retired man or post-menopausal woman, for example, be forced to purchase a plan that covers contraception and obstetrics? If you could choose, would you buy a plan that covers everthing down to doctor visits for sniffles, or would you cover only serious or catastrophic illness and use the savings as you see fit? You should be able to choose. Can you imagine if health insurance companies had to compete with hundreds of other companies in a marketplace similar to the one for car insurance? Consumers can regulate a consumer-product industry far better than government can. For a better-written and staggeringly commonsense take on this item, see the March 17, 2010 column at http://www.anncoulter.com/. Incidentally, the amount and form of compensation from a company to its employees, including whether or not a company provides or contributes to health insurance for them, should be subject to the mutual agreement of both and no one else, period.

2. Reform medical malpractice laws, not to eliminate lawsuits for actual malpractice as opponents claim, but to allow doctors to make decisions based on what is best for the patient, not to continually work in a combative, defensive state of protecting themselves and their employers from predatory litigation.

There is no such thing as a "right" to healthcare anymore than there is a "right" to be happy, although we have the right to pursue happiness. You do not have a lien on other people's wealth and labor to provide you with healthcare. However, we are a civilized and compassionate nation, and so most of us would not be willing for anyone to suffer because of a real inability to afford healthcare. If we as a nation believe that everyone should have healthcare, then this is my answer:

3. Provide a safety net for those people who truly cannot afford coverage (even under the vastly lower prices that would result from real, competitive, free market system) by providing tax credits or tailored vouchers toward the purchase of private insurance plans. Even if someone is receiving aid, that aid should not go straight from the government to the provider - the aid recipient should be the one to fork over the payment. This would get government out of the equation, force people receiving the government aid to be an active participant in making sure they get the best care for the taxpayers' dollar and eliminate the problem of ever-shrinking reimbursements to doctors and pharmacies for services to Medicare and Medicaid recipients. This safety net would also be how we provide for people suffering from pre-existing conditions. A single-payer system would insert government bureaucrats right into the very center of a highly personal transaction in which they have no business, constitutional or otherwise. Single-payer guarantees a lord/serf relationship between government and the governed. Europe has a long history of serfdom, only relatively recently changed, but it is the exact opposite of the American ideal and what America needs. America has a different history, character and set of founding ideals from Europe, and we need American solutions to our problems.

4. Require themselves and every other member of the Federal government to have whatever kind of healthcare coverage they mandate for the rest of us. The fact that they refuse to do this now speaks volumes.

These are representative of the kind of ideas GOP senators and representatives have been advocating for years now, but in this year's debate they were utterly stonewalled by the President and the newsmedia. I'm no expert on the issue and my expression of these ideas are admittedly simplistic, but at their core is a common-sense desire to reverse the trend of ever-expanding government size, reach and power that I believe is completely consistent with the founding ideals of our nation.

On Teacher Merit Pay

August 22, 2009

Merit pay for teachers sounds great, except that, unlike with, say, my job as an engineer, teachers don't really work on a level playing field. My wife, a 3rd grade teacher, is a perfect example. She's an excellent teacher; she is amazing in the classroom, and it's doubtful she'd suffer under any kind of merit pay system. She specializes in turning around low achievers, especially in math, and dealing with behavior problems and er, "challenging" parents who contribute little but complaints and think their little Johnny is only disruptive and disrespectful because he's a budding Einstein who isn't "challenged enough." So guess what students get placed in her class every year? Bingo. On the other hand, some teachers tend to get more high achievers and parents who are understanding and great helpers. (Kids in grade school are placed in their next class by their current teacher, subject to approval by the principal, and yes, politics and popularity contests enter into it, as does pressure from parents who go only by neighborhood gossip and superficial popularity and not the need to balance teachers' workload and match students to teachers based on several areas of compatibility).

Regarding using test data to evaluate teachers, my wife does very well with the challenges she's given and is known for her excellent test scores, but she has colleagues who get more of the high-achieving scorers in the first place, and as I mentioned, the process is not objective. But, while the current system of placing students would be unfair in a merit pay system, when it functions correctly (and not as a popularity contest), it accounts for different teacher strengths and teaching and discipline styles and the unique individual needs of students. Guaranteeing an equal distribution of high and low scoring students across classrooms, while ensuring fairness for teachers in a merit pay system, would not accomplish this.

Finally, and this is so self-evident it shouldn't even bear mentioning here, the teacher is just one link in the chain that comprises a student's education, albeit a vital one. A good teacher can overcome a lot in the way of student attitudes and abusive, neglectful, apathetic, self-absorbed, narcissistic parents (ask my wife about the time that the police arrested an abusive father outside the door to her kindergarten class), but they aren't always miracle workers.

I'm not saying pay shouldn't be based on merit, of course, but I'm not very confident that, given the government's usual ham-fisted way of accomplishing things, their version of merit pay would account for the complexities of the issue.

My wife has worked in union and non-union schools and is not a fan of the NEA or CTA, but this is one area in which many of my fellow conservatives could use some education of their own.

What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?

June 21, 2009

     I have some free advice for the young people out there, hard-won after 23 years of full and part-time work. If your parents' advice sounds to you like the adults in Charlie Brown cartoons (rent A Charlie Brown Christmas if necessary), maybe you'll listen to someone who isn't related to you and isn't always all up in your grille about cleaning your room.

     Get all the career counseling and aptitude testing your school has to offer. Do everything in your power to understand your personality, strengths, weaknesses, talents, aptitudes, etc. DO IT! Find out what you're most suited for, and don't just drift aimlessly into a job or career. For some of you, this is like telling you be sure to wear pants when you leave the house in the morning, but some people end up in a job or career by accident or default, sometimes through lack of focus or planning.  Don't ask me how I know.

     Once you figure out what kind of work will be enjoyable and fulfilling to you, focus your energies on achieving it. In Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki advises that the reasons usually given for going to college are all wrong. Don't go so that you can get a good-paying job, although that may be a happy by-product. Go to help you become the person you want to be. Figure out who you are and what you want to do, then if you go to college, go to equip yourself to be who you want to be. You may have to make some adjustments along the way, but that's OK. You'll be heading in the right direction.

     If you're in college working toward a technical degree, you may be tempted to neglect some of your more right-brained subject matter, and some schools make it easy to do so by, for example, backing off on the General Ed. requirements for say, engineering. But don't ignore the things that will make you a better, more well-rounded person. There's a reason Leonardo DaVinci was the archetypal Renaissance Man. It's better to be an engineer who appreciates Coltrane, Carvaggio and the use of base isolation units in the seismic design of multistory buildings than one who can talk about only the latter at a social gathering. Because I've yet to hear the latter come up at a social gathering of non-nerds.

     If you are able to go to college but you're not sure you want or need to go, my advice is to do it. Maybe not right now, but soon. In the same way that in 20 years you will probably be in a different place and frame of mind than you are right now as you're relaxing in the tattoo parlor getting that wicked sleeve filled in, be careful about limiting your choices 20 years down the road by how you're feeling right now. Believe your parents when they tell you that 20 years comes faster than you can imagine. I know a lot of people who learned the hard way that is a whole lot more difficult going to night school with a full-time job, spouse and 2 kids than it is when you're fresh out of high school and Mom and Dad are still footing most of the bills. Think about all this if you think you don't need college because you're going in a non-traditional direction. Take advantage of the cash cow that is your parents while you can. Just remember, someday you may be ponying up the money for their rest home. I'm not saying everyone should go to college or that you won't find happiness and fulfillment without it, only that if you're not sure, college can only open doors for you.

     Let's talk about the military for a moment. One of my few regrets in life is not having served in the military. I had planned a specific career in the military early on, but when my specific plans didn't pan out, I ended up not going that route at all. But I think I would be a better, more disciplined, more squared-away person today for it, had I done it. I probably would have finished college in a shorter amount of time and Uncle Sam would have paid for it. And I'd have that certain justifiable pride that my Dad and many of my friends enjoy that only comes through serving our country in its armed forces. Something to think about.

     Unless money is what is most important to you (in which case, helping you achieve happiness is probably a fool's errand), money will likely be the least important factor in your career choice. You've heard the saying "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life."  If you enjoy what you do, if it is not just a job but who you are, if you look forward to the day's work when you get up in the morning, then you will be happier than a lot of millionaires (there are a lot of happy millionaires out there, but the happiness and the millions are both just the results of doing what they love) and will adjust your lifestyle to fit your income. If the only thing that truly fulfills you is making art, then you will be happy living on ramen noodles in a 1,000 square foot studio on what seems like chicken feed, making art, and you'll be miserable in a 3,500 sq.ft. custom home making six figures in marketing, your desk at the office looking more and more like a coffin every day. And while benefits and job security are worthy considerations, life on earth is inherently insecure, and change is the only constant. Ask your parents what are the only 2 sure things in life.

     Finally, the best advice of all is found in Matthew 6:33.

     Godspeed, go forth and conquer, and if you make the big time, remember the little people like me. You may address autographs "To my really good friend Jerry, without whom I wouldn't be where I am today."

On Holocaust Denial

June 13, 2009

It comes up every once in awhile, usually in the wake of news events related to the Holocaust, such as last week's tragic and deplorable shooting of guard Stephen Johns at the DC Holocaust museum - deniers of the Holocaust coming out of the woodwork. In fact, the deranged and hate-filled murderer himself was a vehement denier. Another notable example was Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, prior to his visit to Columbia University in 2007, on the "need to be open to scientific questioning of events", including the Holocaust (scientific rigor being a hallmark of Holocaust deniers). But sane grownups know that the historical reality of the event is long settled. And I don't mean settled in the way that the consensus, based on theory, computer modeling, political pressure and religious fervor, is that global warming is settled. The scientific questioning of events Ahmadinejad asked for already happened, was very thorough, and the verdict was in, sixty-four years ago. The evidence was so far beyond what a person of the 1940's could wrap their mind around, that General Eisenhower was afraid that nobody would believe it, would believe that anything that horrible and bestial could have been perpetrated by humans against humans.  "Take pictures of everything," he reportedly said, "I mean everything, because one day some son of a bitch is going to say this never was." 

Ike was prescient in the matter. He foresaw the Holocaust deniers, and so he made sure that as many soldiers, officers, politicians, journalists and German townsfolk as possible viewed the sickening physical evidence firsthand, and gathered a mountain of horrifying and heartbreaking photographic and physical evidence along the way. This, before Photoshop was invented. Would that the deranged murderer, who was a WWII vet himself, had been one of the camp liberators. The mass graves and mounds of dead bodies and the emaciated, hollow-eyed living skeletons gave mute testimony. The large number of Jews today without parents or grandparents or great-grandparents give vocal testimony, as does the dwindling number of quiet, elderly people with tatooed numbers on their arms and horror seared upon their minds and souls.

The deniers are too late. But maybe we shouldn't wish them away.  People aren't going to stop believing the Holocaust happened because of their wild-eyed claims.  They'll stop believing it because it becomes blurred with time and distance and people stop talking about it.  But people are still talking about it because they are determined that the world never forget.  And in a satisfying irony, every time deniers make the news, it adds to the conversation.