Adjustment Reactions
I have been very active in the Cyber Flu Community for over two years now, compared to most that makes me an Old Timer. What a long strange trip it's been.
I have never denied being rather naïve and idealistic, in fact, I take a certain amount of pride in being so, after all, it takes quite a lot of work to remain naïve in this world of ours, to say nothing of idealistic. I've always believed that I could pretty much do anything I set myself to, maybe I couldn't do it perfectly, or elegantly, or gracefully, but 99.8% of the time I could do it.
Thurber's cartoon caption below describes me rather well, lacking in anything that would recommend me except sheer force of will, determination, and enough presumption to supply a busload of folk.
"It's a naïve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption." Cartoon caption in New Yorker 27 March 1937, James Thurber
I started this journey to learn all that I could to assist me in helping my family survive what I was certain would be a pandemic the likes of which we haven't seen since the Great Mortality in the 14th century. I relentlessly drove myself until I knew all that I was capable of all that was available.
I feel I accomplished the original goal and have since taken on the new goal of facilitator and educator (see presumption above). There is probably an encyclopedia's worth of information scattered around the Flubie haunts, from great to downright dangerously wrong, and given my obsessive nature I have read the vast majority.
One of my favorite movies is The Fifth Element; it's campy, darkly humorous, and yet deals with good vs. evil, perfection, love, devotion to cause, sacrifice, and insurmountable odds that in the end are overcome. Of course, it doesn't hurt that it has Bruce Willis as the star, along with Milla Jovovich and Chris Tucker, each I enjoy, but for vastly different reasons.
There is a scene towards the end of the movie where Leeloo (Jovovich) looks up human war on the starship's computer and as the information streams past she becomes so overwhelmed by the horror of what she sees and reads that she literally shuts down, so great the shock to her psyche.
I have often found myself feeling like what I imagine Leeloo felt standing at the computer screen, sometimes the horror of what I read or contemplate overwhelms my ability to dispassionately view and analyze the potential scope of human tragedy.
In psychology that is known as an adjustment reaction. I have been through so many in my time in the Cyber Flu Community that I have lost count of how many times my reality has been challenged, my sanity assaulted, my dedication to cause tested. That's why I admitted to being naïve at the beginning of this entry; even though I have lived many a year, and spent nine years as a sworn, uniformed police officer for a small city, nothing in all of my previous experiences, in all my years, has mentally prepared me for what may well be coming our way.
If I experience this emotional difficulty despite my time, experiences, and knowledge, what will people experience when they attempt to rapidly ramp up on the issues? Will we have legions of stupefied Leeloos? Assumptions run that we will. Accepted wisdom states we fear what we don't understand and yet as we try to understand the threat of a potential PanFlu our fears are fed steroids. I have had more than one occasion when I wondered if someone's apocalyptic musings were nothing more than a peak at what Freud and Jung labeled as projection, as frequently, I have wondered if that was nothing more than my own psychological machinations kicking in.
Could it be projection that is behind the topic of this post, I fear the public's adjustment reactions because my own are sometimes less than helpful or productive?
When I reach this point in a thought line, no longer a line but a circular loop, I throw up my hands in defeat and pick up my current book of fiction, an adjustment reaction in and of itself.
The only thing I know for sure is there is a lot to learn, do, and bring in, and who knows how long we will have to do so at our leisure. If people have to combat being overwhelmed they will be just that much worse off. To address this there are several projects being feverishly worked on to condense some of the "Best Available Information" from around the net in general and the Flubiehood specifically. The sound reasons behind these projects is to help prevent people from going into informational overload, provide them with vetted information, and provide it in an easily understood format.
The projects speak to a maturing of the Flubiehood, as personal goals have been realized time has been afforded to think outside our own realities. I have high hopes (hopefully not naïve and idealistic) that these projects will go a long way to alleviate, or at least lessen, people's adjustment reactions as they come to the issue of a moderate to severe PanFlu event.
As an example of just one of these efforts here is an Influenza Pandemic Preparation and Response - A Citizen's Guide, a downloadable guide hosted by FluWiki. I recommend any who haven't already done so to download it, read it, and forward the information to any and all you feel would benefit. It is copyright free and we are encouraged to disseminate it far and wide, as long as it is done freely of course.
SZ
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