"First, do no harm."
That's the phrase on all our coins, paper currency, flag, coat of arms, the national anthem (those same words over and over and over), license plates, and government buildings.
People attribute those four words to the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors. It's not in there, not in those exact words. (Go ahead; look it up.) And Hippocrates himself did not likely write those precise words. No matter.
First, imagine how ironic, even hypocritical, it is to find this phrase omnipresent on planet Harm.
"First, do no harm"?
What happened? We don't know. The Institute of Archeohistoricalpsychosociology has been tasked to find answers. They've been at it 234 years with nothing to show for it. If you ask me, they're still trying to figure out what the name of their institute means.
Like many on the planet, I have some hunches, some theories, as to how we got here, and by "here" I mean this landscape-seascape-skyscape of haunting and harrowing harm. Here are theories floating in my head:
- "First, do no harm" became our ubiquitous catch phrase by mistake. Either its provenance was misunderstood or it was mistranslated. Translated from what language or communication system? No one knows. Mistranslated how? Again, we don't know. Allow me to posit: "Last, do no harm," "Alas, do no harm," "Do no more harm." Naturally, all of those suggested mistranslations carry the weight of vastly different meanings; each hints at a different story, an altogether different narrative. Would our history have turned out differently? Where would we be today? (Obviously, we're not talking about our position in the lunar system; we're talking about the here of how things are.)
- The saying evolved over the years, corrupted and altered by new dialects, dictators' dicta, strange tongues of invaders, linguistic earthquakes, and populist decrees.
- Somebody's been playing a mean joke on us since forever. It's simply a mysterious example of merciless sarcasm and satire. It continues "because that's the way we do things, it's always been that way, it's our tradition." Thoughts invited.
1 comment:
'First, no harbinger, no fowl' per those crusty ol' gents wearing 'purple' derbies stitched by those experienced in the millinery of finer headwear while holding a varmint in the air decrying, 'First, no Spring for six weeks'. Beckons the very existence of those prognosticators spewing a 50-50 chance of meteorological gibberish professing to undermine Mother Nature with, 'First, no snow, no rain, no wind, no dust, no funnels, feast or famine' or is it feminine. No that would be 'First, no sexist', not sex or is there.
We hold these truths to be self evident that we are, in a sense, held under the notion of 'First, do no harm'! We all are do no harm to the notion of hypocritical or relating to our very being, an oath of the early days of serpents, apples, fig leaf's of the temptress's long golden locks and blue eyes who mesmerized the weakness of man with her conniving way, 'First, do no Harm', forever etched within the frontal lobe. A post it as a reminder, the male psyche is governed by 'First, do no harm'.
And I quote a mutual kinship from a fellow Kingsmen when his retort to the cynical theory, "You Hamburgers"!
That's my decreed chronicle and I'm sticky-wicky to it!
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