Hwk 17

I think this unit will help us think deeply about a very important concept which is shared throughout the world, yet not looked into deeply enough. We all connect to illness in dying one way or another. We have all been through a phase many times where our bodies suffer from sickness; some of us have also experienced close encounters with death or had relations with people who have passed on. Many times throughout my life my body has been through a state of sickness, and I have had one or two close encounters with death, but I feel as if it is only then that I am aware about the physicality of my body. When I am not in the state of sickness or I haven’t recently had a close encounter with death I go along with my life as if taking my physicality for granted. I feel that this applies to others as well. Many of us only have concern about our physical being when we are sick, when our body is not functioning properly, or when we have a close encounter with death.

On the topic of illness and dying I would like to point out that I have never attended a funeral and I don’t think I will be attending one in my whole life. This has to do with my religion and my culture. One question that keeps coming up in my mind is how do our social practices of illness and death compare to those of other societies? Do we all follow the general concept? Or has each society built their own set of norms which they strictly follow? In our culture we usually come across the scene of the doctor and the patient who is on their death bed. I would like to know is this the same with all societies? I personally feel that this idea of a doctor treating a patient is confusing. We are taking a risk with our health when we hand ourselves over to a doctor. This shows how we lack information on illness and death; this is why we turn to a higher educated individual. Shouldn’t we know how to care for ourselves by now? We always refer to others to help ourselves…why can’t we do something on our own for once? Or just accept the fact that we are going to die soon. The doctor won’t be able to do much except tell his/her patient about their problem and how long they have to live. In my opinion the whole doctor idea is a waste of time…the doctor isn’t handing out a magic pill that will keep us alive forever…but we act as if this is the case.

Each religion and culture has a certain set of rules they follow and believe in which are carried out through the time of illness and dying. Some believe in reincarnation, some believe in herbal remedies instead of prescription drugs, some don’t believe in anything at all. I feel like I keep jumping from one place to another, but this is because this is the first time I am actually taking time out to think about a topic which can relate to all of us but it isn’t given much concern at all. When many of us think about illness and death we have a certain scene that pops up into our mind, but I feel that we need to do better than come up with a scene. We need to figure out the why’s and the how’s…I am personally interested because I have never been close to a person that was very sick or had his/her days numbered; well I guess we all have our days numbered….but I mean specifically having their days numbered to a few months, weeks or even days in some cases.