I remember well the summer of 87 when I worked at the regional hospital, and going back now it all the things I had intuitive hunches on makes a lot of sense...

Around that time there was so much that was shaping up that I'd like to write a book on it, but for now this will be about one aspect:** inviting weakness ** The summer was dry and hot, so the trails of blood leading up to the emergency intake accrued, after a few weeks they converged in a fountain- like pattern. Normally there would be a bloke from a workshop or building site walking calmly there with a mate to be sure it went well, or even alone, not a worry in the world puffing on a cigarette, just going back to getting stitched up once again.

Sometimes there would be an arm or leg chopped off of course, we got those in yellow or red boxes along with the same coloured plastic bags from the operation theater floor, chucked them down a hole into the incinerator, then hauled the ashes off into an ordinary container.

That required a certain technique, tip it, duck and rotate in order not to get covered in ashes haha!

No one complained about shit, things were real. Also very real in catastrophic ways of course, once I passed the emergency bay right when a local diver was declared dead, and then by his daughter outside right when she got the news... And that was after they had all struggled for an hour to free him, he got his arm stuck in a suction pipe down below...

But it was also the summer when the bug people of the government started discussing all of this BS of offering trauma psychology to anyone running into any problem, I remember that discussion well, anyone sane saw that as inviting weakness and dependence on something outside of oneself!

Of course there is real trauma, and I hope someone took care of that daughter of the diver, it is likely that that happened, but in a natural way.

This was around when many of us youngsters also saw one thing: feelings and emotions creeping into what should be the rational domains only, but it was harder to pinpoint and discuss this since it was quite vague.

I remember deciding against the whole trauma psych thing, but also that it was already not too easy to even talk openly about it, it was yet another thing that the Good State was about to offer to its citizens hahaha...

Doing a year in the army a while later was another chapter, although the goal of that collective venture was and is batshit insane then at least the day to day stuff was rational, sane and had no room for inviting weakness in!

I do think that giving power away and inviting weakness is more of a higher order thing, there are so many factors that is part of it, but this is what I felt like writing about for now :-)