Thread by @imaracingmom

Today's thread:

"If you're feeling helpless, help someone"

Today, my daily goals of listening to music and to a TED talk collided. After a day reflecting on people from opposing sides, it fit my mood in a poetic way.

ted.com/talks/morley_w…

War, I don't know why it's a 3 letter word, because it's worse than any 4 letter word I know. War isn't just machine guns and tanks. War is about power struggles. The political scene is a war. How to deal with Covid is a war. We've had a drug war for years a war against smoking.

As a society, we've perverted what it means to win. The win has become more important than the mission. People suffer and die because of our wars. In the end, as a society, war is destroying us. We're getting out of touch with how to love our neighbors because we're too busy...

judging them and telling them how to live. We're forgetting compassion, being supportive, and how to accept people who aren't the same as us. We've become so focused on differences, we've forgotten how much we have in common.

My heart is so heavy.

Many of us have experienced first hand some of the hardships life can throw at a person. Other's haven't. I hope those who haven't take the time to try to put themselves in others shoes and try to understand how unfair and hard life can be.

I have know hardship. Pain has spent a lot of time knocking at my door. Years ago, it became too much and I tried to cloak myself with a bubble that tries to show me life is nothing but unicorns and rainbows. I know, it's not reality, but it was safe.

Advocacy for things that are important first attempts to burst that bubble. I'm forced to see and experience war. A place were people are ugly to each other and cruel. A place where it becomes the purpose of some to win at all costs.

I keep trying to look the other way. I'm keep trying to make excuses for people, to ignore the possibility that same people may just be evil and greedy. I keep hoping they're just misinformed or misguided. But it's time to accept the cold hard fact that those who...

aren't willing to have a conversation, to hear the thoughts of others, who don't believe there can / should / or could be a middle ground are people who really aren't as caring about others as much as they could be or claim to be.

I came across this paper and skimmed through it quickly. My first reaction was if people are being treated this way, it's awful. And then the unicorn army invaded my brain and I discounted it.

academic.oup.com/ntr/article/23…

Yesterday, the paper was brought to my attention again. I promised to try to be more open minded about what might be going in in our scientific community and read it again.

IT. MADE. ME. SICK.

Peer pressure belongs in high school. We're supposed to be a free people, able to think for ourselves and pursue our interests. The nerd in me immediately thinks "explore new worlds". How is it then, that some people who would like to do so are expected to "toe the line"...

and only explore what others choose for them to explore and only find certain types of results. This is not science, it is not truth, and it certainly isn't freedom.

Our lives are full of decisions we make based on the knowledge we're given. What happens when others take...

control of the knowledge and only let us know what they want us to know? What happens when we're not free to learn what we want to learn? Can we make good decisions? Can we formulate good policies?

I have been upset for weeks over a tweet that now seems to be deleted. Someone was exploring options for their future. They had an interest. Their question to the world: "If I do XYZ, will I be committing career suicide?".

That person was concerned that if they pursue...

knowledge in a topic of interest to them, a topic that just might help make the world a better place, they might effect their ability to work in their choses field and provide support for their family.

Every time I think of this, I get angry. I feel sick.

It's ok to disagree with each other. It's not ok to be ugly about it. It's not ok to try to bully others to do things your way.

Today, I got to partake in a conversation. People from various countries and walks of life. It was a great conversation!

From small town folks like me, to big city folk. From people who didn't graduate from high school to people with PhD's. We all have various views on things. What was really cool is no one got ugly.

No name calling, no finger pointing, no accusations of being a shill for something or another. It was even ok to say if a person agrees or disagrees.

I wish more conversations between people of a variety of views would happen like this one!!!!!

I really don't like this whole "tribe" thing and wars between tribes. For a long time I've been harping that we need to #ChangeTheConversation between Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates, Public Health, Tobacco Control, and Industry Stakeholders.

But like it or not, we have tribes. I belong to the THR tribe. And I hate that we're at war with the TC/PH tribe. I hate that all too often, winning the war is more important than what the war was originally about, and that's people who smoke.

While we fight our war, more people are getting sick and dying. Too many funerals are happening years before they were supposed to. Too many hearts are broken. Today would have been my Mom's 82nd birthday. My heart hurts today thinking of her and how she died.

At the end of today's wonderful conversation with that group of people from all walks of life, the person who initiated the conversation thanked everyone. Thanked everyone for their efforts to help people live better lives.

They expressed gratitude for being part of the public health team. The way they expressed it came across to me that they looked at all of us as being on the same team, members of the same tribe.

I read the words again. And then I cried...

Could we really be making progress? Are we having days were the 2 tribes are finding ways to work together and getting back to saving the lives of people who smoke?

My heart suddenly filled with hope.

I think a bunch of people took a big step today towards the middle ground.

I hope the person in the middle of taking steps towards their future found today a day to worry less about "career suicide" and more about finding the path for them and a bright future.

I admire and respect this person and others like them very much. Good people with good hearts. Others should not have the power to hold their career over their heads because they want to "explore strange new worlds".

~The End