You Can’t Talk About What You Wonder About - Grasshopper

It’s too easy to blame it on a politically correct culture, but there are some things that are just not said that are often wondered about. I find that to be a bankrupting of creativity.

What do you wonder about but can’t say aloud? I’ll bet that others are wondering the same thing. You both suffer in silence.

 

As silly as this sounds, “I wonder if the moon is really made of green cheese” led to actions that validated that it wasn’t. Prior to the 1960s, it was the incurious that kept us out of the space program.

 

Here’s something I wonder about. I watch my fair share of cable news and since all the cable news channels have an older audience, there are products advertised incessantly for ailments that older people have. That’s just fishing where the fish are and a great strategy on the part of the drug manufacturers who manufacture diseases.

 

My personal favorites are “Fibromyalgia” and “Restless Leg Syndrome.” These are just names assigned to some symptoms that have been around forever and a new disease name was made up. Then the drug manufacturers miraculously came up with a remedy for these “new” diseases.

 

Watch the ads and listen for the number of times “your doctor or “my doctor” is mentioned. It’s at least 3 times in 60 seconds. What’s going on here? If your legs twitch, you may suspect that you have “Restless Leg Syndrome” and visit your doctor. You wonder if you have (RLS) and ask him or her if you should be taking the new wonder drug you see on TV. Your doctor hasn’t a clue about restless leg syndrome other than what he or she has heard from the pharmaceutical representative that visits their office with samples.

 

I recognize that you may go to a heart specialist or a kidney specialist, but have you ever noticed that there are no Fibromyalgia specialists?

 

Of course when I wonder aloud about this, many think I’m anti-medicine. I’m not. I’m anti-pulling the wool over my eyes in the name of health care and drug profits.

 

I encourage you to wonder aloud more often. It can begin a dialogue that reveals that the emperor really is naked and you are being sold a bill of goods.

 

All the best,

John