CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The first decade of the new millennium was increasingly turbulent, asnews headlines reveal.

Dotcom bubble crash—Vladimir Putin elected presidentof Russia—Concorde crash in France kills 113—Sydney hostsOlympic games—Wikipedia launched—George W. Bush swornin as US president—Terrorist attack brings down World TradeCenter towers killing thousands—First tourist in space—Applelaunches ipad—Euro currency begins circulation—Deadliest actof terrorism in the history of Indonesia—Columbia space shuttledisaster strikes—Second invasion of Iraq begins—Human genomeproject completed—Record heat wave kills tens of thousands inEurope—Myspace introduced—China launches its first mannedspace mission—Worldwide oil production hits plateau—Twitterlaunched—North Korea conducts its first nuclear test—SaddamHussein executed—Global economic recession—Shootingrampage kills 32 at Virginia Tech—Market blast in Baghdad kills100—Prime minister Bhutto of Pakistan killed—Minneapolisbridge over Mississippi collapses—First recorded hurricane inSouth Atlantic—George W. Bush reelected—Olympic gamesin Athens—Train bombing in Madrid kills 200—First privatelyfunded human space satellite—Facebook launched—New world'stallest building in Asia—Indian ocean earthquake results in aquarter million deaths—Youtube launched—Suicide bombersLondon—Hurricane Katrina decimates New Orleans–AngelaMerkel first female chancellor of Germany.

After selling our rural paradise in 1999, we moved to the state ofWashington, where we bought a derelict house on two acres of land withsaltwater frontage at the south end of Puget Sound. In February 2001,a major earthquake (6.8 on the Richter scale) with the epicenter but twomiles from our house provided ample adventure. It was our second suchexperience, the first (6.9 magnitude) having occurred in February 1989,with the epicenter but four miles from our ranch house in California.

Sales from my recently published book, One from Many, werebrisk and brought even more invitations to speak and consult, which Ihad little desire to pursue. After ten years of intense effort to catalyzeinstitutional change without notable success, I had become disillusioned.As the closing lines of Voltaire's Candide advised, "perhaps it is just aswell to stay at home and tend one's garden."

I wanted no more of travel, notoriety, and fruitless effort. Imethodically put aside activities of the past as I turned my attention torebuilding the derelict house, creating two acres of gardens, oil painting,hand-lettering in stone, and, as ever, continuing my incessant reading,writing, and study, including another 2,200 reflections on life andliving.

As 2003 began, we were comfortably settled in our new but smallerShangri-la, with sweeping views of rocky beaches, lower Puget Sound,a forested, far shore with the Black Hills in the distance. I continued tomake an occasional speech and work with the Patient Safety Institute,a not-for-profit effort by leading people in the medical field who wereattempting to create an electronic medical information system to reducea rising tide of medical errors resulting in death or serious injury.

Ironically, in October, the cartilage in both my knees gave out anddouble knee replacement became necessary. The surgery was successful;however, when I regained consciousness, both my arms were extremelypainful and the side of both hands and two fingers of each were paralyzed.Neurological testing revealed major damage to the ulnar nerve in eacharm.

The surgeons, anesthetists, surgical nurses, and hospitaladministrators denied any knowledge of possible cause, yet the factremained that both arms and hands had been in perfect shape whenanesthetics were administered and severely damaged when I awoke inthe recovery room.

Six months later came news of colon cancer. With great trepidation,I returned to the hospital for more surgery to have a third of my colonremoved, this without apparent medical error. Within months of thecancer surgery came diagnoses of sleep apnea requiring use of a machinethat delivers constant air pressure through the night via a face mask,then chest pains due to a blocked heart artery that put me back in thehospital to have the artery probed, opened, and a stent inserted.

I made one last attempt to create institutional change when thesecretary of Health Education and Welfare asked if I would help createa national organization for the evolution of the American HealthInformation Community, a semiformal group working to advance theautomation and electronic transmission of medical information. Afterworking on this for a year and creating a concept, an organizationalstructure, requisite bylaws, and proposing a plan to bring it into being,political pressures caused the department to take a different approachthat I knew was certain to fail. I declined further participation as itfaded away.

In spite of five major medical problems in less than two years, mytreasured routine of rising each morning at five thirty for a half hour ofmeditation and two hours of writing, followed by six to eight hours ofwork in gardens, painting studio and wood/stone shop, then four hoursof evening reading and study, became even more entrenched.

Toward the end of the decade, the habit of ending the morning'swriting with four or five short observations came to a close, and selectingand arranging them for publication took its place.

And so herewith, the second volume of the Autobiography of aRestless Mind.

1Life is messy; only death is neat.

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2Dreams are destroyed by their realization and achievementby accomplishment, but hope lives on forever.

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3Knowledge is the rubble left when wisdom breaks down.

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4Trusting a politician to put the public interestbefore his own is like trusting a dog to deliver apound of hamburger to your neighbor.

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5The two most discontented beings are humans and cancer cells.

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6Under precise, scientifically controlled conditions,life does as it damned well pleases.

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Every man, no matter how intelligent and learned, concealswithin a dunce in a dungeon and a madman on a chain.

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8Life offers everyone truth and comfort. Choosecarefully. You rarely can have both.

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9The young man loves women; the mature man lovesenterprise, the old man loves memories.

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10It is no more sensible to expect morality from science than it is toexpect feathers from a rock. Morality is not what science does.

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11"From a great kingdom [nation] into one great play-table,to turn its inhabitants into a nation of gamesters; tomake speculation as extensive as life; to mix it with all itsconcerns; and to divert the whole of the hopes and fearsof its people from their usual channels into the impulses,passions and superstitions of those who live on chances."—Edmond Burke (1790)

(It's enough to make one believe in reincarnation. This would make anexcellent twenty-first century op-ed piece for the Washington Post.)

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12Even donkeys know it is better to lie on straw than on gold.

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13In the gratification...