I was speaking with a business colleague yesterday. He lives in California. He said Hello from Covid California. We talked about how life had changed since the pandemic. He said he wasn't too excited about getting a vaccine. He thought a treatment was what was needed.
I said to him, you can wait forever, but a cure will never happen. The common cold is a coronavirus. Have "THEY" cured that? HIV is a virus- have we cured that? Cancer is not a virus, but we have been raising money to find the cure for many, many years. Are the treatments better, do people live longer, or are we still shouting Fuck Cancer?
The entire medical establishment and big pharma are not programmed for cures. They are programmed for treatments. The money is not in a cure. The money is always tied to the prolonging.
I started wondering about the word "cure" and how the origin might differ than the word secure. We seem to be obsessed with the ideas of cures and security. Kind of like Hopes (cure) and Fears (security). The word "cure" was in usage before "secure" by a couple hundred years. We had the cure before we were secure. We had hopes before fears. We had Obama, whose brand was hope, and now have Trump, whose brand is fear.
The word Cure comes from the Latin word cura, meaning "care, concern, trouble." Later, it came to mean "means of healing" and even later as " successful remedial treatment of a disease."
Let's not forget church and state. Cure is also related to the word Curate from the Latin curatus, past participle of curare, meaning " to take care of". Sure, that is what the church does. Churches or religions, offer hope as their drug of choice. But if the hope isn't selling, advertisers never fail to use good old fashioned fear as their motivator. Hell was not invented for fallen angels. Hell is the repository of our fears, the sweet home Alabama for our Mammons and Data.
Around 1743, the word cure also came to be associated with preparing for preservation by drying, salting etc. This is widely used in relation to fish, pork, etc. The fish and pork were not healed, they were preserved. They were not safe and secure, nor were they very hopeful, as they were already dead.
But they were given a new life, a second chance to please, preserved from the dangers of rotting, preserved for another time, blessed with an extended shelf life. We did not "cure" them, but improved their Best Before date.
Is there evidence of preserving humans with salt or brine? Many of us are working on a home pickling project, but there is little proof that a pickled man lasts any longer than a non-pickled man. In fact, pickling in that context, rarely leads to longer life. Neither does smoking, although many people smoke fish and meat for preservation purposes.
Please note that there is very little ancient connection of the word "cure" to the word "physician." More typically cure was connected to "conjurer." So is a cure more of a magic trick of smoke and mirrors? Call the doctor or the Witchdoctor? Which is witch? Are you a good witch or a bad witch?
Is this the demon seed of the rampant disbelief in science? Or is that more rooted in the old mama/daddy authority issues?
Did you know that the word "ill" is a contracted form of "evil"?
Johnny: Mother, I am feeling ill.
Mother: No Johnny, you are feeling evil. Learn the difference.
Is the virus evil, or is evil the virus? Which is witch? Is the cure worse than the disease? The word disease literally derives from dis- and ease, or the absence of ease. Perhaps we just need some more elbow room. Being quarantined in a small apartment can cause some dis-ease. We define Elbow Room as the adequate space to move or work in. (e.g. "the car has elbow room for four adults." ) Please cars were bigger at one time. In today's cars, 4 adults is not a good example of social distancing.
Somewhere in my memories of useless old aphorisms, is this: When you find yourself living in a shoe, move to a boot where you got more room.
There is an old country song written by Sara Carter of The Carter Family called 50 Miles of Elbow Room, that expresses the yearning for heaven, or to update it - perhaps just a bigger apartment. After all, times are tough, so we have to lower our expectations in 2020. "There'll be room to spare when we enter there. On the right hand, on the left hand, 50 miles of Elbow Room." Here is a nice version from Helen Carter, daughter of Maybelle Carter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm8rt5EqiV0
The word "secure" comes from before my time, or more exactly the 1530's. Secure means "without care, dreading no evil", from the Latin securus. Se cura, from se (free from) and cura (care) - see cure." Of persons, free from care, quiet easy", also in a bad sense, "careless, reckless."
Free from dis-ease. Full of ease. Soaking in ease. Easy Street. In regard to all things material girl in nature, secure means "tranquil; free from danger, safe, easy." Easy Breezy Beautiful Cover Girl. Bada-bing-bada-boom.
Security!! Security!! We must secure the perimeter! Are we free from the cure? Quick! Remove the mask, she can't breathe.
I believe security will be called. I don't believe they will discover a cure. There is too much money to be made in not finding a cure. We are happier being secure ( free from cure). We are looking for treatments. (from the word treat and mint, a minty treat) I remember my five year old daughter instructing me on the difference between a treat and a snack.
All is not lost, as I still have a strong belief system. I still believe in Bacon, and that is cured, although bacon can become an addiction, and that is hard to cure.
"By this time, I had read the same line in my book a couple hundred times." Haruki Murakami
Yup bacon para siempre.
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