Public prescription

We went to try to tag monarchs at Festge Park. We ate our lunch in the picnic shelter. The other side of the shelter was occupied by a loquatious man explaining to a woman how people failed to respect him and talked in "passive-aggressive" and other bad ways, even when he tried to correct them. I don't know if "psycho-babble" is the right term to describe it: "socio-babble" might be better. When he let her have a word in edgewise, the woman suggested alternative interpretations. I figured she was his therapist, meeting outdoors instead of in an office. He was, of course, using his "outdoor voice."

Not my circus, not my monkeys--it would have been presumptuous to offer my advice. I guess he'd been getting in touch with his sensitive side, when what he needed to do was get in touch with his inner John Wayne and shut up and not care what people said.

Maybe that advice would exacerbate other problems--another good reason for me to be silent. But for someone so concerned about other people's rudeness and unwillingness to listen, he was magnificently un-selfconscious.

I wonder if the Babylonians might have had a useful way to help him:

They have no physicians (in Babylon), but when a man is ill, they lay him in the public square, and the passers-by come up to him, and if they have ever had his disease themselves or have known any one who has suffered from it, they give him advice, recommending him to do whatever they found good in their own case, or in the case known to them; and no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence without asking him what his ailment is.

The internet serves part of that purpose now, but the one on one interactions might be useful for people with lesser issues. I know, some people have broken minds, or addictions they can't deal with. AVI has to deal with some of them. But some conditions need the aid more of a "life coach" than of a doctor. And yes, the Babylonians had plenty of doctors too.