Week 49 (2024)
grief & chances in Hannah Coulter, human doctors, euthanasia & mending the healers, the pleasure of proximate people & shared tasks
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to read: books
- — In the same vein as All The Beauty In The World and All Things Move, two other books with a refreshing dose of awe, human tenderness, and a reminder of our collective need for visual beauty. (See also .)
to read: essays, articles, newsletters
The Pleasures Of Working Together —
, Hearth & Field — “We work hard and we play hard, and these are not so separate, and thus the play itself is deeper and richer.”(related: ’s When A Community Works Together, shared previously)
Even In The Ironbound — Stephen G. Adubato, Plough — “No need to “pencil in” an appointment three weeks from now, as was the usual case in the suburbs or in Manhattan. One could easily just bring a ball to the park to kick around with a friend, walk to the corner to get a beer, or chill outside while listening to one of the bands play music.”
(related: The Vital Pleasure Of Existing In Public, shared previously)
An Education In Thanksgiving — Rachel Alexander Cambre, Law & Liberty — “Hannah’s children fall prey to this siren song of progress, and they each end up in worse places. Influenced in part by university values, they chase prestige and status to varying degrees and find divorce and loneliness instead. But are their choices strictly a product of their higher education? Hannah’s self-reflections complicate the picture. She pushed her children to go to college, after all, because she ‘wanted them to have a better chance than [she] had.’ Later, conversations with her husband prompted her to reconsider whether wishing for a ‘better chance’ for them inadvertently disparaged the ‘chance’ she had.”
(related: ’s No You Cannot Have It All, ’s Somewhere In Chessington, Longing For Home, Hannah Coulter The Green Lady And Me, ’s Risking Rootedness, Grilling Man At The End Of History, The Ache For Home, shared previously)
Sorrow's Satisfaction — Colton Moore, Circe Institute —“Sometimes we find ourselves in excruciating circumstances where we actually long to remain sorrowful.”
- , Ekstasis — “the song that today
you play on repeat, grasping for its heart, hearing
for an instant a deeper beat
than your own heart, the footfalls of some lion
or hound or stray cat
following, hounding, pursuing, leading you forward
so windingly homeward.” Mending The Healers — Brewer Eberly, The New Atlantis — “The sheer volume of information, worry about matching into a good residency, power of the institutional and social hierarchies, and sneaking awareness of constant evaluation sustain a sort of learned helplessness. Trainees learn to follow orders without questioning them. Medicine is militaristic in this way… The womb of today’s medical school is not a healthy place to grow.”
In Defense Of Human Doctors — Brewer Eberly, Plough — “I notice it almost daily with my patients: in an age of chatter, silence has a particular intelligibility. I am continuously amazed at what patients will tell me after a period of silence – traumas they’ve never disclosed, vulnerable questions they’ve never asked – as if listening long, without a clicking keyboard to compete with, triggers the recognition of a moral friend with whom the patient’s hope of future healing might be shared.”
(related: more from Eberly here, here, here and here, shared previously)
Assisted Dying Isn't Freedom — Ashley Frawley, Compact — “But death in the comfortable and safe confines of bureaucratic process can be subject to rational calculation. In a world where the quality of our lives seems stubbornly resistant to improvement, death emerges as a new market.”
- , The Ruffian — “Questions of process to one side, the bedrock principle is that I don’t ever want to live under a state that facilitates the death of its own citizens.”
A Pattern Of Noncompliance — Alexander Raikin, The New Atlantis — “If this most “blatant” case of violating Canada’s criminal law on euthanasia did not trigger a criminal investigation, no wonder the compliance concerns that Huyer’s office identifies have received so little public attention. Meanwhile, out of sight, the number of concerns continued to rise.”
(related: The Cultural Roots Of Our Demographic Ennui, What Is Medicine For?, Bring Back Hippocrates, The Dark Kenosis Of Medical Education, and euthanasia/assisted suicide here, here, here, here, here and here, all shared previously)
to watch, listen to
Continuing On:
Genealogies Of Modernity — Decided to stop my listen through this series.
The Natural Womanhood Podcast with
& Cassondra Moriarty — Episode 8 — Why This Former Top IVF Doc Now Only Offers Restorative Reproductive Medicine: An Interview with Dr. Lauren RubalWoven Well Podcast with
— Episodes 17-18 — Client Story: Kadie & Ethan and Nurturing Intimacy While Practicing NFP & Beyond
(more resources on female embodiment in the Big Ol' Compilation)
to glean from: tip, product, resource
Picked up some evergreen tips along with our wreath, so I’m re-upping advice and inspiration for creating greenery arrangements here, as well as seasonal winter decor ideas from
.
Thanks for Tessa's piece; she is one of my favorite writers and her essays always leave me feeling thoughtful, refreshed, and more committed to my work. You curate an excellent reading list, but there simply is not enough time to dip into all of it. Also, love Maximilien Luce! Thanks for your work:)
Thanks for sharing Tessa's H&F piece, Haley! Another greaat thing to come out of the FPR conference. Glad you enjoyed it!