On Your Own
A few hours after I posted my recent entry about state spending on mental health care, mostly with regard to Texas, I got to thinking that I might have added one of my all-time favorite quotes, from the monolog with which the late, great character actor, M. Emmet Walsh, opens the Coen Brothers film, "Blood Simple." Off the top of my head it goes:
"In Russia people stick together and help each other. That's the idea anyway. But what I know is Texas, and in Texas you're on your own."
This seems to give a rationale, then, for spending so little on mental health care in the Lone Star state. It's the nature of things there. But then I got to asking myself, how far is that from the way I feel about things? And I realized that it's not far, which is maybe why that Walsh line always resonates so strongly.
Isn't that one of the main reasons why I moved myself and my family from the city to the country so many years ago? As much as anything, I wanted to be strictly on my own. I wanted to live in a house that I had designed and built with my own two hands (and some big C-clamps), and I did that. I wanted to be my own fuel company, and until this year I was. I wanted to be my own water company, and I did that. I wanted to be my own electric company, but I could not get myself together enough to do that. I wanted to be my own grocery but found it surprising how many little things kept getting in the way of that. And I dreamed of conducting myself so that I would never need health care outside of my own devices. I wanted to believe that that was possible.
But the truth is that the longer you keep on living, the less possible that becomes, and the chances are that sooner or later you have to ask for help, like going to a hospital. Thus, when I developed a hernia six or seven years ago, taking care of it at home, largely by ignoring it, my favorite method of self-treatment, was not an option, because the growing bulge of a section of one's intestines as it tries to push right through the abdominal wall is way too visible for comfort, and it is even life-threatening.
Shelter, fuel, water, food, and all those other things are one thing, but a person's health is so crucial that it always has the last word, and in today's world keeping it in commission can get very expensive and complicated, including quickly jumping beyond the ordinary person's means.
That's why it's wrong to cut aid to treat for aberrations of the mind, which is a health condition as dire as situations involving the heart, the lungs, the liver, and any other organ, maybe even more so because often it involves the well-being of other people. And meanwhile government is not a venue for small-minded people to set their biases into action, in regard to any kind of health care. But people don't take that in consideration nearly enough, as long as they themselves are healthy.
And that is also why Texas, for one, is running the real risk of being seen, sooner or later, as being a state full of crazy people.
"In Russia people stick together and help each other. That's the idea anyway. But what I know is Texas, and in Texas you're on your own."
This seems to give a rationale, then, for spending so little on mental health care in the Lone Star state. It's the nature of things there. But then I got to asking myself, how far is that from the way I feel about things? And I realized that it's not far, which is maybe why that Walsh line always resonates so strongly.
Isn't that one of the main reasons why I moved myself and my family from the city to the country so many years ago? As much as anything, I wanted to be strictly on my own. I wanted to live in a house that I had designed and built with my own two hands (and some big C-clamps), and I did that. I wanted to be my own fuel company, and until this year I was. I wanted to be my own water company, and I did that. I wanted to be my own electric company, but I could not get myself together enough to do that. I wanted to be my own grocery but found it surprising how many little things kept getting in the way of that. And I dreamed of conducting myself so that I would never need health care outside of my own devices. I wanted to believe that that was possible.
But the truth is that the longer you keep on living, the less possible that becomes, and the chances are that sooner or later you have to ask for help, like going to a hospital. Thus, when I developed a hernia six or seven years ago, taking care of it at home, largely by ignoring it, my favorite method of self-treatment, was not an option, because the growing bulge of a section of one's intestines as it tries to push right through the abdominal wall is way too visible for comfort, and it is even life-threatening.
Shelter, fuel, water, food, and all those other things are one thing, but a person's health is so crucial that it always has the last word, and in today's world keeping it in commission can get very expensive and complicated, including quickly jumping beyond the ordinary person's means.
That's why it's wrong to cut aid to treat for aberrations of the mind, which is a health condition as dire as situations involving the heart, the lungs, the liver, and any other organ, maybe even more so because often it involves the well-being of other people. And meanwhile government is not a venue for small-minded people to set their biases into action, in regard to any kind of health care. But people don't take that in consideration nearly enough, as long as they themselves are healthy.
And that is also why Texas, for one, is running the real risk of being seen, sooner or later, as being a state full of crazy people.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 11:10 AM
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