A year or so ago I took the 5 personality traits assessment—Dr.
Jordan Peterson’s version, at UnderstandMyself.com, to learn about myself. Mr. Spherical Model took it
too, so we could understand each other better.
word cloud on openness, screen shot from here |
I think I’m pretty self-aware, but there were some surprises.
One was that I am moderately low in neuroticism. The words don’t mean exactly
the everyday meanings. In this case, it doesn’t mean I’m free from anxiety and
worry (people who know me well would say, “obviously”). But it does mean I tend
to be positive and hopeful. And I measured nearly average in
extroversion, rather than extremely low, which I would have expected. I’m a classic
introvert, but I’m not shy, so I guess that’s how this comes out.
The other surprise, because I am clearly conservative in many
senses of the word, is that I am extremely high in openness. Higher than all
but a few in a hundred.
My assessment tells me: “The closest synonym for openness is
creativity,” which I am in some limited ways, I think. But there’s also this
that doesn’t seem to fit me: “High levels of openness are, furthermore, necessary
for entrepreneurial success, and often prove useful at the top of hierarchies,
even in very conservative occupations such as banking, accounting and law,
which need creative people in leadership positions to provide new vision and
direction.”
I don’t prefer to be at the top of a hierarchy; I don’t want
to be low either. I prefer to be independent when possible. I guess a whole combination
of other personality things come into play. I am willing to restructure when needed, and lead when I must.
But I do notice one thing about my openness: I don’t dismiss
very many ideas out of hand. I explore ideas. I like working with the abstract.
I like making connections that maybe aren’t obvious to others.
One of the places openness has shown up in my life is in
healthcare. I’ve experienced a lot of, shall we say, disappointing healthcare
during my lifetime. I’m, right now, in good health, but it’s a razor edge. If I
eat a wrong thing; if I fail to get enough sleep; if I breathe in some pollen,
mold, perfume, or whatever; if the weather suddenly changes—then I’m no longer
fully functional. No little errors or vices allowed.
Moses raises the brass serpent image found here |
I’ve come to this relatively good health after a series of
doctors have made pretty bad errors. That has left me less than trusting of
standard medicine, and surprisingly open to trying things that are
non-standard. I don’t want to talk about what those are; I don’t want the
conversation to be about any of those particular things. The point is, because
I’ve been open to some “weird” things, I’m pretty healthy—and mostly quite a
lot healthier than people my age. Low blood pressure, not overweight, good
skin, healthy heart, low cholesterol.
I think of it as something like the Bible story during Moses’s
time, when there were poisonous snakes (fiery serpents, Numbers 21:6-9[i]).
The people were told to look up at the staff prepared by Moses as God directed—a
pole with a brass serpent on it, now a symbol for healing medicine. People who didn't look refused because of the simpleness; such a thing couldn’t possibly help.
They didn’t want to be duped.
There’s another story in the Old Testament, 2 Kings 5. A Syrian
called Naaman came to the prophet Elisha for healing. Elisha didn’t even come out to see him
personally but sent a message telling him to bathe in the River Jordan seven
times. He couldn’t understand how that could help, and he wasn’t going to do it.
But his servant said, essentially, “If you’d been told to do something great,
you’d have done it, right?” Yes. If he couldn't get a direct immediate healing, then he ought to have been asked to do something important, something of consequence. Anyway, Naaman was humble enough to be persuaded, did
the simple thing that didn’t seem to make sense, and was healed.
Naaman washes in Jordan seven times screenshot from video Naaman and Elisha, found here |
I don’t want to miss out on something because of too much skepticism.
I don’t want to say, “That would never work,” as though I already know
everything, just because I can’t yet see how it could work.
Last week I had a brief interaction online with someone who
I surmise was very low in openness. This happened when a friend read the story about a study that showed hydroxychloroquine was not working and could even be
harming patients. As others have pointed out since, there were a lot of problems with that study,
which I had questions about immediately based on what I’d read. But my
friend had said, “So much for that idea,” giving up hope for that treatment
possibility.
One of the obvious things about the study was that it didn’t
combine hydroxychloroquine with both Zithromax and zinc. Zinc didn’t come into
it at all. So I shared the video I mentioned April 6th of a NY doctor who had treated
around 700 patients, all successfully, using the three in combination.
That doctor was interviewed by Rudy Giuliani. Someone responded to my comment that we couldn’t possibly believe that doctor, because Giuliani is a shrill for
President Trump, totally partisan. Giuliani is the former Mayor of New York
City. He has plenty of connections there. He has an online podcast on which he
interviews people. He interviewed Dr. Vladimir Zelenko. I do not know the doctor’s
political affiliation; since he is in NYC, I could guess with 80% accuracy that
he votes Democrat. Who knows? It didn’t come up. It wasn’t relevant. They were
talking about his data, how he got it, what he’d seen in his actual patients,
how he came to combine the three things.
I was simply trying to engender hope. So I responded to the
comment that there was other good news. I shared the story about Dr. Robin Armstrong, who had very good success treating residents of a nursing home in
Galveston.
This commenter, whom I don’t know, came back and said we can't believe that, because Dr. Armstrong is a Republican activist. He is, in fact, a
former state committeeman, which the Dallas news report mentioned, even though it
wasn’t relevant to the story. He’s not a Republican doctor; he’s a doctor who
happens to be a Republican. Did I find that the story was good news because he
was a Republican?
I did happen to know who Dr. Armstrong was; I have heard him
speak several times in person, and I find him calm, reasonable, and believable as a person. But I would have found the story to be good news even
if he had been a doctor I’d never heard of before.
I don’t ask the political affiliation of my doctors before I
decide whether to accept their advice.
Which is what I then told that commenter. He came back at me
as the one who had made this political by only providing stories that were
spewed by partisan hacks.
Really? I made it partisan? I’ve collected other good news
stories. But I did not further comment. This person was not willing to allow me
to be hopeful about a treatment unless he approved first. I don’t need to
submit to that.
It happens that I had become aware of—and hopeful about—hydroxychloroquine
prior to any mention of it by the president. I had been writing about it March 19th, the day the president first mentioned it in his daily
press conference. There were stories out of France and South Korea about its
use. What we’re getting since is additional trial and error. Clinical trials are
underway. I’m still hopeful about the hydroxychloroquine used in combination
with both zinc and Z-pac. And there are other promising treatments being
developed as well.
Back in March I read a story about how, during the 1918 flu
pandemic, patients were treated outside when possible, and these patients
seemed to heal quicker. There’s speculation about why: cleaner air, sunshine,
some combination. The story speculated that maybe there’s something useful here
for this current pandemic. Some comments following the article called it quackery, and called the
author’s credentials into question. Other comments were supportive. Several said
when they shared it on Facebook, it was removed. There’s a notice above the
article that the publisher doesn’t fact check, and sends me to cdc.gov for accurate
coronavirus info. Nevertheless, I tucked that story away as something hopeful to wait and see if
more information might come out.
Camp
Brooks emergency open-air hospital in Boston, 1918 influenza. National Archives photo, included in this story |
Last week, there was an announcement of studies showing that
sunlight killed the coronavirus. Exposure to sunlight for a minute or two was
enough.
It’s not like sunshine as a disinfectant is a new idea. It’s
been around long enough to be a useful metaphor for curing corruption of all
sorts.
April 23, 2020 daily briefing, announcement about heat, humidity and sunlight affecting SARS-CoV-2 screenshot found here |
Anyway, this good news came up in the daily press briefing.
Following the doctors’ explanation about this study and other things (heat and
humidity also help against the virus), the President follows up with
encouraging words. And, because he is who he is and says unscripted things, he
uses the word “disinfectant,” talking about the possibility of using UV rays
(sunlight) to treat Covid-19 in the lungs. Result: internet and media explosion.
I heard the briefing live; I was very pleased to know that
leaving something in the sun for a few minutes was enough to kill off the
virus. Yay! And when the President spoke, about using UV light inside, my
thought was, “That’s an out-of-the-box idea,” but not necessarily a loony one.
I was open to wait and see.
Dr. Birx, the expert we’re listening to for all things
Covid-19, seemed unaware, but a few days earlier Aytu BioScience issued a press release about its work on using UV light in the lungs to treat Covid-19. It is my assumption that this press release info had made its way into the
President’s consciousness, but not Dr. Birx’s. And not the media’s.
Healight, explanation video on UVA treatment possibility. screenshot from here |
I haven’t seen whether President Trump has done a
personality assessment. But I would guess that he is very high in openness.
Reports from those who have talked with him personally are that he listens intently; he is
curious and takes in as much information as he can get. After that, he
confidently makes a decision about what actions to take.
There was nothing in what President Trump said that wasn’t
related to UV rays as a disinfectant. Take a look at the transcript.[ii]
If you heard “disinfectant” and thought only of Lysol and Clorox, and “inject”
and thought only of a needle—not that light the dentist “injects” into your
mouth to cure the material used in your filling, or not the scope the gastroenterologist
“injects” to view your intestines during a colonoscopy—that is your failure to see things in more
than one limited way.
Maybe the media tends to be low on the openness scale. That’s
unfortunate, since curiosity and desire to learn ought to be hallmarks of that
profession. Maybe it’s purposeful misunderstanding out of malice.
Nevertheless, I look forward to the possibility of learning
whether researchers have success in treating this and other internal infections
with UV light.
I am open to hope.
I’m hopeful that an effective treatment—or several—will be
found sooner, rather than later.
I’m hopeful that we will accumulate even more mounting evidence that this virus is nowhere near as dangerous as originally thought,
and it will eventually be seen as something on par with a bad flu year. That’s
on top of the actual flu, so still a concern. But not a danger so ferocious
that we must shut down the world and cower in our homes until we starve.
I’m hopeful that we will be able to open up again soon. Very
soon. I think many places should have done so by now. We may need to take some
precautions for a while, but I’m hopeful that we can find creative ways to do
whatever hygiene is necessary while getting back to work.
If you’re not hopeful about these things, maybe that’s a
difference in personality trait and you can’t help it. But I would ask, until
you can replace one of my hopes with something equally useful, stop insisting
that I shouldn’t have these hopes just because they haven’t come out of mouths
that meet your approval.
I’m not very hopeful our media can meet this request. Oh,
well. I can at least keep tuning them out while I go about looking elsewhere
for good news.
[i] This
story is mentioned a couple of times in the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 17:21, and
Alma 38:18-22, adding respectively that “because of the simpleness of the way,
or the easiness of it, there were many who perished” and “the reason they would
not look is because they did not believe that it would heal them.”
[ii] I
transcribed it for you: “So, I’ll ask a question, which some of you are
probably thinking of, if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be
very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous—whether it’s
ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And [turning to one of the doctors] I
think you said, that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it? And then
I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do,
either through the skin or in some other way. And [turning again] I think you
said you’re going to test that too? Sounds interesting. Right, and then I see
the disinfectant—where it [the UV light] knocks it out in a minute, one minute.
And is there a way we can do something like that by injection, inside, or
almost a cleaning. ‘Cause you see it gets in the lungs and does a tremendous
number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re
going to have to use medical doctors. But it sounds, it sounds interesting to me.
So we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one
minute—that’s pretty powerful.”
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