Unconventional

It is 1:25 in the morning. I'm up, awake and, well, writing. The Yogi Tea hasn't kicked in, and my heart is heavy. I've taken some knocks today, not the first time in my life, nor, assuredly the last. How's your belief system? Is it conventional, or not? More pertinent, with regard to taking it on the chin, is it the belief system of the people closest to you? No need to answer. As one of my teachers once said, we are not obliged to answer questions of the soul.

While I'm not carrying around a copy of Mary Baker Eddy's "Science And Health With Key To The Scriptures," or daily in a Christian Science Reading Room, I can't bring myself to believe in disease the way most of my friends and family believe in disease. From my childhood experiences, in and out of the context of Christian Science, I cannot give into what I perceive as error. On the other hand, when my children were young, I took them to a board certified pediatrician. I'd be the first to appear at the door of the E.R., after being injured in some disaster or other. Well ... maybe not the first.

That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.  -John Stuart Mill

     Here's the thing. I cannot argue with anyone over my refusal to go and get the baseline tests for diseases I don't believe in by people I don't trust in a system that has nothing to offer. A family member has characterized that as "irresponsible." I accepted the label, because I can never change her mind. She respects Western medicine, allopathic medicine. 
     We are also reaching impasse concerning my housing arrangements. Without going into detail, I'll just say that, for a lifetime, I do not believe in the segregation of the elderly into community housing exclusively for people our age. I am appalled by our view of aging and the aged culture ... in Western culture. The issue in my family has become whether I will move back into "senior housing," to be closer to a certain contingent of my family. All I can say is, I wish I could see it as a move forward, rather than a move back to that which is so distasteful to me. I do not believe in poverty housing, either; the entire notion of marginalizing people sickens me.

     So ... how's by you? I'm pretty sure there are other elders out there, who, like me, cannot fathom or follow conventional thinking. Meanwhile, my job seems to be to lead myself, where others do not venture.