House of Curiosity...

I was watching and old episode of ER the other day; I do enjoy this show, even though it does not fit the profile of my favourite shows which are usually action and mystery such as Quantum leap, Alias, the pretender.  Anyhow, there was this scene where Dr Carter pisses off one of the nurses, and all the nurses stand together.  In revenge they wake him every half an hour for nothing when he stays at the hospital for the night shift… so what ends up happening is that Dr. Ross the charming Clooney tells him, he should buy the nurses doughnuts and apologize for whatever he has done. I discussed this with Layla, who is a doctor, because I found it really amusing!  she was telling me how as a doctor, she has to make sure the nurses are very happy, because if she pisses them off for whatever reason, they make her life miserable hell! Things start disappearing, orders start being ignored, charts mixed up…etc. 

This leads me to a book I came upon.  It is the weapons of the weak by Scott, through one of topics at school. This book became a movement.  it discusses this exact point by giving an example of the peasants in Malaysia, who revolt against their landlords,  and against the inequality and injustice of life by every day hidden forms of resistance  because they need to live and they can’t just revolt openly. They pretend they are stupid, they break things, they steal little things, they kill animals, they drag their foot throughout the day…etc.  I loved the study… because really this is how human nature works. We resist in small things when we can’t do much to change our realities. This is how maids resist their tyrant employers, this is how wives resist when their too controlling husbands,  this is how children resist when their parents or teachers are too un-understanding… Another example was in memoirs of a geisha Tchio resists the cruelty of the grandmother by rubbing her robes with smelly bathroom towels and the cruelty of the cook, by finding mice and putting them in the kitchen saying that brought her so much satisfaction, although they never knew what hit them. Thinking of this reminded me of a childish dream of one of my friends at school, which I found absolutely fascinating at the time. My friend was dreaming about having absolute power in the future…. Today, I realize that the concept of absolute power does not exist, because no matter what, human beings are free… and as long as e have a spirit and an instinct, it is difficult to achieve absolute power

On a different note, one of the things I love most about our culture is the strong family bonds. I have about 35 cousins. One of the wives got sick. This lady is introvert and very much into herself. Her family does not live in Jordan. When she was alone in the hospital and the family realized, everyone started doing something, one aunt would send food, another cousin will take the kids for the day, a third one took the baby till the mother is out of the hospital, another uncle would stay in the hospital… and so on… and although naïve, it made me feel proud of belonging to the culture that still believes in strong family bonds.