Ordinary people do horrible things
when they think they can get away with them
Rough Draft / Under Construction
Aaron's Uncle Bob married into the family when he was 20.
When he was 19 he had come home from his freshman year at college saying they
hadn't taught him anything and he wasn't going back. He wanted to go into
business. His father was in business and helped him out. Uncle Bob got rich.
Twenty years later his wife was complaining to Aaron's mom about their
eldest son. He had come home from college after his freshman year saying he
wasn't going back. Aaron's mom said, "Sounds just
like his father."
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't his father do the same thing?"
There was a long pause after which Aaron's mom said, "Do you mean you've
forgotten that Bob quit college after his freshman year?"
"I think even Bob has forgotten."
Uncle Bob had homes in several cities, belonged to the best
country clubs in each of them and was used to thinking of himself in a certain
way. Quitting college wasn't one of the ways.
Dr. Sales was used to thinking of himself in a certain way
too, part of which was as a surgeon. There was no place in his mind where there
was recognition of the original attraction to that profession. If he had been asked
to testify under oath about why he had become a surgeon, no part of his
testimony would have revealed the desire to become the alpha male who got the nurses.
He would repeat the litany that people in medicine believe about themselves and
their colleagues - the desire to help people.
Watching him in his offices and in the hospital would be
enough to understand better, unless you were one of the people similarly indoctrinated. It's not that the
lust and the egos and politics are not noticed in medicine. But what they notice
does not get added to the tally. The evidence of their senses is
selectively sifted to eliminate that which does not support the way
they want to think.
Sales went to an all white Catholic high school where he
played football. When they played against black schools, he called them blue
gums, yet he did not think that was racist.
. . .
Under Construction
Persons, places, events, names and situations in this story are purely
fictional.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to their names or
histories,
is coincidental and unintentional.
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