First, two headlines: “In New Ebola Outbreak, Health-Care Workers Come Under Attack,” * and “Libya: Five medical staff dead in latest attack on health facilities in Tripoli.” **
Second, something about electrical charges. Until someone can prove otherwise, I’m going with a neutrally “charged” or uncharged universe because all around me I experience a generally neutral physical world as un-likes attract and balance in a state of equilibrium. Atoms, we know, are electrically neutral. Of course, there are those occasional imbalances, some excess positive or negative charge, but the components of charge, like electrons and protons, run into their opposites eventually, and everything returns to balance after the electric “discharge.” Lightning evens things out. Across the universe, there seems to be a balance of charge so pervasive that we don’t have to worry about living in a universe that is a constant lightning strike.
Yet, I can’t deny that locally electric discharges are not only possible, but also common. That makes me think that regardless of the overall neutrality of the universe’s electric field, we’re always going to have lightning strikes, shocks when we touch a doorknob after we walk across a carpet, and hot wires ready to fry us. The state of localities is often a charged one.
The locality of every political world is a good example of constant disequilibrium—with some rare and temporary exceptions. The emotional world of humanity is also one of lightning strikes, even in what are apparently cloudless times. Static electricity awaits us, and just by moving, as in crossing a carpet to help someone, we prime ourselves to release the charge. Those who carry a positive charge in life meet inevitably those who carry a negative charge.
Have you noticed how many people wander around like moving negative charges. Maybe the universe as a whole is electrically neutral, but locally, the negative charges are always after the positive charges. Negative people do what they can to overwhelm positive people. It’s a tough world for the positives, but it’s the only world we have. If neutralizing positive excess by negativity resulted in an equilibrium, shocks would disappear everywhere. We might argue that positive people are also out to neutralize negative people. But, as the headlines and their stories indicate, for all the efforts of positive people, the negative ones keep appearing. Possibly, the presence of so much disequilibrium indicates that my belief in a neutral universe is wrong and that negative charges outnumber positive ones. Certainly, it seems to be that way with people. It’s difficult to stay positive with so many negative charges.
Health-care workers under attack? It’s the way of locality. I want to believe it’s not the way of the universe as a whole, but too many incidents provide evidence that in spite of efforts to neutralize imbalances, charitable, altruistic and positive people will always meet an overwhelming number of negative ones.
*Steers, Julia and Gabriele Steinhauser, Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2019. Online at https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-new-ebola-outbreak-heath-care-workers-come-under-attack-11555260780 Accessed September 28, 2019.
**World Health Organization, July 28, 2019. Online at https://www.who.int/emergencies/attacks-on-health-care/en/ Accessed September 28, 2019.
Second, something about electrical charges. Until someone can prove otherwise, I’m going with a neutrally “charged” or uncharged universe because all around me I experience a generally neutral physical world as un-likes attract and balance in a state of equilibrium. Atoms, we know, are electrically neutral. Of course, there are those occasional imbalances, some excess positive or negative charge, but the components of charge, like electrons and protons, run into their opposites eventually, and everything returns to balance after the electric “discharge.” Lightning evens things out. Across the universe, there seems to be a balance of charge so pervasive that we don’t have to worry about living in a universe that is a constant lightning strike.
Yet, I can’t deny that locally electric discharges are not only possible, but also common. That makes me think that regardless of the overall neutrality of the universe’s electric field, we’re always going to have lightning strikes, shocks when we touch a doorknob after we walk across a carpet, and hot wires ready to fry us. The state of localities is often a charged one.
The locality of every political world is a good example of constant disequilibrium—with some rare and temporary exceptions. The emotional world of humanity is also one of lightning strikes, even in what are apparently cloudless times. Static electricity awaits us, and just by moving, as in crossing a carpet to help someone, we prime ourselves to release the charge. Those who carry a positive charge in life meet inevitably those who carry a negative charge.
Have you noticed how many people wander around like moving negative charges. Maybe the universe as a whole is electrically neutral, but locally, the negative charges are always after the positive charges. Negative people do what they can to overwhelm positive people. It’s a tough world for the positives, but it’s the only world we have. If neutralizing positive excess by negativity resulted in an equilibrium, shocks would disappear everywhere. We might argue that positive people are also out to neutralize negative people. But, as the headlines and their stories indicate, for all the efforts of positive people, the negative ones keep appearing. Possibly, the presence of so much disequilibrium indicates that my belief in a neutral universe is wrong and that negative charges outnumber positive ones. Certainly, it seems to be that way with people. It’s difficult to stay positive with so many negative charges.
Health-care workers under attack? It’s the way of locality. I want to believe it’s not the way of the universe as a whole, but too many incidents provide evidence that in spite of efforts to neutralize imbalances, charitable, altruistic and positive people will always meet an overwhelming number of negative ones.
*Steers, Julia and Gabriele Steinhauser, Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2019. Online at https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-new-ebola-outbreak-heath-care-workers-come-under-attack-11555260780 Accessed September 28, 2019.
**World Health Organization, July 28, 2019. Online at https://www.who.int/emergencies/attacks-on-health-care/en/ Accessed September 28, 2019.
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