Memories...For Sale?
I remember this sign that used to stand by the Houghton city limits as we drove into the area for the first time. It was the early 1960’s and we would not have believed that by 1967, we would move to this Copper Country.1967-68 was not a happy school year for me. I was a senior in high school, transplanted from a Westland, MI super school to Dollar Bay, the smallest accredited school in the State of Michigan. Culture shock was the word of the day. Still, I wonder if my memories of that time are accurate.
I had a dream last night. It was the same dream I’ve dreamed several times in the last week or so. In my dream, I’m a new medical doctor, a GP starting my practice in a small town very much like any in the Keweenaw. Working in a small town hospital, I was treating a wide variety of injuries, illnesses, and problems. I was also becoming involved in a great number of lives in my community, and with my coworkers.
In the story, a coworker is involved in a bar fight. He starts the fight because he is drunk and because he is a malcontent with stacks of chips on both shoulders. He gets injured when he is pushed out the front door of the bar by a young man whose wife he is propositioning. Both men arrive at the hospital because my coworker slipped on ice and tangled with a guard rail and the pavement in the parking lot. The young man was tripped accidentally by a drunken fellow in the tavern and hit his head on the foot rail around the bar. This is how the evening ends.
The next day, all is changed. All the patrons at the tavern say the young man's wife came on to my coworker and her husband blindsided him as he tried to leave. The young man hit his head when my coworker took him down with a single punch...what a man!
The story goes and and I discover that SMS (Subjective Memory Services) is a private memory conversion company for the hyper-rich, and can alter perceptions and memories of events to the advantage of their clients...like my coworker.
In the dream, I am one of the folks whose medical conditions short circuit their devices and I begin to see and recognize situations where facts on one day become different on another day, and people don't notice and don't care. We fight on, trying to find a way to fight the hyper-rich's control of the media, and their technology to affect memory.
For Real?
I wish I could say I have dreamed up solutions to these fantastic threats. My fears are most probably driven by recent attempts to subvert media outlets by those with the money to buy them outright and to financially coerce journalists. Fears often show up as monsters in dreams. Are the monsters real? I will never be part of the 0.1% who control most of the wealth of the world, so I will never be party to their power plays and will likely never look into the eyes of the monster.Oh, by the way, today is the 2,600th day since my transplant -- and I'm still alive and kicking. I have also discontinued the last of my pain medications, the acetaminophen, and I'm dealing with the pain in other ways -- or just living with it. Sometimes the pain and electric tingling serves to remind me that I am alive.
Thanks to all who think about us and pray for us. It keeps me going to know you are there. And thanks for reading about my dreams.
God bless,
Mick
