Placebo.
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” ― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
“The power of suggestion makes some people sick and other people well.”
― Jack Gladney (White Noise)
“Weird.”
— Sarah (Conspiracy Sarah)
I’ve not written anything in what feels like quite a while. I’ve mostly been eating bon bons and fiddling with toe polish. Just kidding. I don’t even know wtf bon bons are and my toes are never painted.
I’ve been observing. Reading. Listening. And trying to process and make sense of the madness…which I suppose, by definition, is impossible. As I’ve mentioned before,
I do feel a significant urge to use my energy in a constructive way that feels helpful.
**Sigh**
This still presents a challenge, as there are plenty of folks still walking around in masks; regurgitating, albeit impressively powerful, yet utterly ridiculous, propaganda.
Things like, “The vaccines did what they were supposed to do. There are fewer people in the hospital and fewer people dying of covid.”
Yep. I just had that convo. With a woman getting ready to attend a Buteyko breath work conference that is requiring proof of vaccination ((🤯 I know)).
And she was like, “I get it…the leader of the retreat has an elderly mom in Arizona.” I feel like I don’t need to say anything else about the absurdity of this statement.
I find conversations of this nature increasingly exhausting and not particularly encouraging. And still they persist. For instance, just yesterday I had a friendly debate with a very intelligent, Harvard trained, attorney regarding cloth masks. And then surgical masks, (when the cloth mask argument became clearly un-win-able). Measures for which she is still attempting to make an argument for. The argument was weak (obviously), and the conversation was very short (because, logic); and because the argument is exactly as ridiculous as a cloth mask.
Anyway, I continue to spend a noticeable amount of time “catching people up” on things that I *feel* should not be debatable (or new) at this point. Which doesn’t exactly fuel optimism. But I am firmly rooted in the SUCK IT EVIL camp, so I’ll circle back around to optimism, bear with me.
First though… there are the big uglies.
Glaring out from the proscenium of these utterly ridiculous, mind boggling conversations (that I’ll just mention again, are still happening with concerning regularity).
It’s….a…..verrrrrryyyyy…………..slow………….. a….wak…..ennnn………innnnnggg.
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
— Orwell (1984)
→There’s the “BIG REVEAL” of Pfizer Bad (🥱) and OMG-Covid -didn’t-happen-from-a-pangolin-banging-a-bat-after-a-series-of-poor-late- night-decisions-in-Wuhan(😱),
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
— Shakespeare, (As You Like It)
→East Palestine(😶🌫️🫠), LOOK at the big ass balloon(😲) AND THE UFOs(🖖🏼), oh - and btw, CHINA BAD - like Russia….
“…the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.”
— Orwell (1984)
→And all of the tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists are like…get caught up mfs because you need to chug that pill down and move on to this next one.
“Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.”
“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
— Orwell (1984)
“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”
Orwell (1984)
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
— Orwell (1984)
The Re-Writing of Roald Dahl: Across his beloved children’s books, hundreds of the author’s words have been changed or entirely removed in a bid for ‘relevancy’
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aight. Enough doom and gloom. I am about to come with some optimistic shit for that ass.
As I have mentioned many times, in our studio we are seeing the negative effects of the bioweapons known as Covid-19 vaccines in real time. Not a day passes that I don’t hear about someone having a stroke, dying suddenly, or having a cancer that’s only just been discovered and completely taken over its host.
My sister in law’s mother has developed a rare, rapid form of Alzheimer’s AND breast cancer, Monday evening a client’s father in law passed away after surgery for a brand new heart issue, another client’s husband just had surgery for a glioblastoma at 46, the owner of the local skate shop died suddenly over the weekend, also a client just attended a funeral for a young coworker with “out of nowhere” pancreatic cancer, and another client’s aunt has been moved to hospice care for a glioblastoma. (*update, she died as I was writing this).
That’s this week. And it’s only Wednesday.
It is an exercise for me to resist the constant stream of evidence floating me into a deeply dark, fearful place. It’s hard not let my mind wade into the pool of strong probability that not all of my people will come out unscathed - or alive, on the other side of this war.
As I listen to my clients’ and friends’ experiences with the countermeasures bioweapon fallout of illness, disease, and death, I have become keenly aware of the pessimistic approach that our medical system takes. On the day that you receive the worst, scariest, most disorienting news of your life, you also get a series of worst case scenarios by way of statistics and averages.
Let’s look at glioblastoma, arguably among the worst of the worst case scenarios.
According to the National Brain Tumor Society, the five-year glioblastoma survival rate for patients is only 6.8 percent.
GBM's median survival rate for adults is 14.6 months, which can be devastating for patients and their loved ones.
Survival analysis is a branch of statistics for analyzing the expected duration of time until one event occurs, such as death in biological organisms and failure in mechanical systems. Survival analysis attempts to answer certain questions, such as what is the proportion of a population which will survive past a certain time? Of those that survive, at what rate will they die or fail?
Survival rate. The percentage of people who will be alive at a certain time after diagnosis. The “overall survival rate” is when it includes all people with a specific cancer type.
Survival rates can describe any given length of time. However, researchers usually give cancer statistics as a 5-year relative survival rate.
5-year relative survival rate. The percentage of people who will be alive 5 years after diagnosis. It does not include those who die from other diseases.
A five-year relative glioblastoma survival rate means that people who have that tumor are, on average, about 6.8% as likely as people who don't have that tumor to live for at least five years after being diagnosed. The average length of survival for glioblastoma patients is estimated to be only 12 to 18 months.
Sounds pretty grim. That’s the news for which there is no preparation, and it knocks the wind right out of your sails.
I’d like to share a personal story right now. Back in the early 2000s my dad got some news that wasn’t much better than what I’ve just been discussing. In an ironic twist of fate; my dermatologist dad removed a spot on his arm that was annoying him, but was nothing that seemed too concerning. The biopsy came back and it turned out that he had stage 4 melanoma. The 5-year survival rate for stage 4 melanoma is currently 15–20 percent; I’m pretty sure that it was even lower back then.
The first doctor that he saw gave him 6 months to live. When my dad asked the doc what he would do if it were him, he replied by asking my dad what he loved to do. My dad told him that he loved to sail. The doctor said that if it were him, he would buy a boat and go sail.
Let’s pause.
Through my own experience with the worst, coupled with my current experience with so many clients and friends, I have a fair amount of observational experience with how the worst goes down. Of course, as humans, we are already neurologically wired to focus on the worst. This is what has kept our species alive for thousands of years. And it’s important to be informed and aware of the worst. I think it’s always good to know what you are up against.
Unpause.
My dad was young, in his early 50s, and wasn’t ready to go. So he sought other opinions. He found a surgeon and oncologist that weren’t ready to send him sailing and, in their words, they “threw a Hail Mary”. My dad had a pretty radical surgery. They removed all of the lymph nodes from one side as well as his entire latissimus dorsi. They swung his pectoralis major around, took a large skin graft from his thigh, and sewed him up.
As my dad woke up, Dr. White said, “We threw the Hail Mary. And I think we got it.”
And then my dad lived for TEN more years. Not 6 months. TEN YEARS.
Of course there was recovery and treatment that followed that Hail Mary surgery. It certainly wasn’t for the faint of heart, by any stretch of the imagination, but his quality of life was quite good - til damn near the very end. He got to see three of his children get married, and got to love two beautiful grand babies that hung on his every word. He got to see their innocent faces light up on Christmas mornings. He was there the first time they swam in the ocean. He was the best Papa ever. He lived a lot of life on borrowed time that he was told he would never get.
The gratitude I have for Drs. Amin and White cannot be put into words. And…
My dad never believed that he had 6 months to live. Not for a moment. He actually didn’t even tell us about that dismal prognosis until much later. From the moment of impact of the worst…he knew that he would live.
Was that because he had a unique understanding of his disease and how it progresses? Or was it because he had doctors that fully believed that miracles are possible? Could it have been his deep faith? Or his supportive family that also fervently held on to the optimism of miracles? Perhaps the will to see his grandchildren?
I could go on, but it would be redundant. Likely it was all of the above, and then some. Maybe it was “just placebo”. This is always such an interesting statement to me…”just placebo”. Like somehow the incredible power of belief - and the power of the mind is a failure…
plə-sē′bō; noun
A substance that has positive effects as a result of a patient's perception that it is beneficial rather than as a result of a causative ingredient.
An inactive substance or preparation used as a control in an experiment or test to determine the effectiveness of a medicinal drug.
Something of no intrinsic remedial value that is used to appease or reassure another.
When receiving the worst news, why are we presented with the big uglies in disproportion to the miracles? Even with the statistically terrible odds of a 1% survival rate…there is ONE HUMAN out of 100 that beat the odds. What is the harm in providing that ONE story….alongside the plentiful statistics and data painting the scariest of possibilities? Stories like my dad’s - where the worst case didn’t happen?
Why do we not give hope?
I have been mulling over these thoughts for a bit now, and as I present my premise, the immediate response is, “Well, you don’t want to give someone false hope.”
Why the fuck not?????
Popular response: “They don’t want anyone to come back and sue them.”
Is that a thing? Are there many families suing because their loved one was optimistic but died anyway?
My dad was optimistic until his very last moment. His doctors contributed to this optimism. And he died anyway. Of melanoma. Despite his doctors’ flagrant optimism.
He died.
And not once have I been angry or felt slighted by these physicians and their perpetual optimism.
What if that first doctor had entertained a Hail Mary instead of telling him to buy a boat? Would he have lived another year? Would he have been able to see my babiest brother get married? Could he have seen all of my nieces and nephews come into this world? I’ll never know…
What would’ve happened if his circumstances were different and he had attached to his first prognosis? Would he have lived to see my two oldest boys come into this world?
Many physicians have seen how two patients of similar ages and with the same diagnosis, degree of illness, and treatment program experience vastly different results. One of the few apparent differences is that one patient is pessimistic and the other optimistic.
The cure of many diseases is unknown to physicians,” Plato concluded, “because they are ignorant of the whole. For the part can never be well unless the whole is well.”
The will to live — and the will to survive something like a cancer diagnosis — is strong if you have the right mindset and a positive attitude. This research — which confirms earlier, similar findings — suggests that people have a powerful will to live. And that will to live can literally prevent one’s death, at least until they’ve reached some ceremonial milestone in their life.
Sharing this story is my battle cry for hope and faith in this echo chamber of fear and despair.
“They” want us to be afraid.
“They” profit from our fear.
“They” need us to believe that we need something else- that we have no agency over our health. Our bodies are squarely in the doctors’ hands.
“They” rely on our underestimation of our own resilience.
“They” depend on it.
Human beings are infinitely amazing. Our immune systems are incredible networks that far exceed our understanding. Our ability to detox and rid our bodies of harmful things is vastly underrated.
Underrated and actively suppressed. Because if we realize the enormity of our potential, they are largely unnecessary.
And their power dissolves into the nothing that it is.
“The Nothing is spreading,” groaned the first. “It’s growing and growing, there’s more of it every day, if it’s possible to speak of more nothing. All the others fled from Howling Forest in time, but we didn’t want to leave our home. The Nothing caught us in our sleep and this is what it did to us.” “Is it very painful?” Atreyu asked. “No,” said the second bark troll, the one with the hole in his chest. “You don’t feel a thing. There’s just something missing. And once it gets hold of you, something more is missing every day. Soon there won’t be anything left of us.”
— Michael Ende (The Neverending Story)
Do not give in to the worst…do not succumb to The Nothing.
“She was the captain of her soul”
― William Faulkner, Light in August
The power of the human spirit is incredible. Wracked by fear, it can succumb. Girded by love, it is nearly boundless
Frank Herbert’s Litany Against Fear resonates:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
So much of what has passed and continues transpiring is built on deconstructing our belief in our selves, our immune systems, our capacity to heal, to love, our power. It’s all a narrative—an enchantment built on doubt and fear.
Thank you for dispelling some of that 🙏🏽❤️
Thank you for this post. I've heard countless stories of people who listen to the doctors "six months" suggestions, and convince their body to play along. And those who don't. The obvious comparison between this and beliefs in the inevitability of wef/davos/eet ze bugz/cbdc domination are clear, now that you've drawn the connection. A topic for much meditation. Thank you!