Ever heard of the saying “the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing”? This economic-political-social phenomenon can be seen just about everywhere in society.
A local sidewalk that is newly laid is torn up 3 months later to lay electrical cables and then repaved. 4 months later, it is torn up to lay piping and then redone once again. Why didn’t the public authorities call a meeting of the maintenance, hydro and engineering department and plan the build once, saving a bundle in costs for the public?
A friend of mine, Mike Tripka TOR, mentioned a situation where his wheelchair could not enter a medical building(stairs but no ramp), and once it did, could not enter the door frame of the building. Wheelchairs have been made and standardized for a century, as too door frames and buildings themselves. Of all places, a medical facility should have oversized doors and every avenue of access possible, right?
You have seen government officials pass bills that create substructures and transportation pathways that require private land and homes to be often forcefully grabbed, offering these private individuals the purchase of their property way below market value and done pso ost haste too. The government works for us, right, yet the public is often the one holding the financial bag, victimized by the very entity that is supposed to represent us all.
The Medical System is a gigantic monolithic system resting on its traditional methods and financial practices. The ill and handicapped must face many obstacles daily, attempting to live their lives as routinely as possible. Parking spaces, entrance and transport accessibility, available assistance while they attempt to meet their medical appointments and needs. These involve hospitalization and getting to a medical facility, not their living spaces at home and the requirements needed there. Most end up relying on the kindness of strangers who help them in their pursuit of living their lives as independently as possible.
Why are medical, dental, and eye clinics often not handicapped accessible? Those who build these buildings must not research the needs of medical patients who use wheelchairs and other means of movement. The Healthcare Community, Federal and Provincial Governments must surely talk, right? About what? Perhaps about compensation for their services, but surely not the needs of all the ill and handicapped! Government and private authorities claim costs are too high, so building or remodelling an office is out of the question. Most buildings are aged, therefore, permanent ramps, oversized doors and elevators that work can be provided, but those costs take away from other priorities.
Communication is key. The Left Hand(authorities) often creates plans of attack to get the job done, and gathers a list of those who will accomplish said task, but those who carry out the projects often do not communicate with each other, which would have provided a chance to plan consecutive operations one right after the other, saving public money. The whole process seems to have nothing to do with saving the public revenue, just to make money for those private concerns.
John Donne has said that reason is our soul’s left hand, faith the right hand. It refers to Matthew 6.3, where Jesus advises that when giving to the poor, do it from the heart, not logically. Humanity controls its actions logically, while the emotional part of us responds to others less logically, more freely. Let the left hand not know what the right hand is doing. An actual illogical idea. The whole person needs to be in control of themselves, knowing what they do and why they do it. This separation of logic and emotion is inhuman, yet very common. The Church’s separation of Science from Faith has been a long accepted tenet. Far too many people believe the story of the Garden of Eden, the creation of humanity and the Creation of Sin (devil-inspired). Logic tells you that Human Evolution probably happened and is still evolving to this day. Hiding the truth, the reason one acts as one does, is unhealthy and illogical. The Left hand needs to know what the right hand does at all times, otherwise we are talking about split personalities here. No wonder there is so much confusion in the world today.
Society faces a challenge that is pivotal to our survival. Hide from the truth, or knowingly ignore what the right hand is doing, or unite oneself, stop hiding from the truth recognizing the perils we face head on such as over population, massive global poverty and debt, uncontrollable viruses and diseases, huge financial discrepancy between all of us and the 1% who rule the day. Overconsumption of things we really do not need, therefore wasting precious minerals and resources that could have been used in better ways, the lowering of a global IQ based on dumbing the population of our planet, allowing mistruths and untruths to control the airways and media on many occasions.
Sure, not knowing what the left hand does from the right can create more employment, move money around more freely, keep us all in a hopefully safer mindset set, but what about the “Truth”? Unveil what is hidden and see reality in all its nakedness. Public and private waste will sink our economy someday. There are simply too many people in the world, and we have to face this fact. The earth is changing, the oceans are rising and heating up, the climate is unpredictable, and socio-economically damaging our future prospects.
Anyway, that’s why the saying. Why keep the left hand in the dark while letting the right hand proceed? It’s a lot like the public’s need for transparency in public policy and decision making, a need that simply has no accountability to be seen. Things get done with no explanation as to why, where, how and for how much? Shadows and clouds hide the truth from us all. Is it acceptable? Well, what can we do about this process anyway? Our system, be it “democratic or authoritarian,” leaves us in the trenches, where an elected political party can carry on without needing to answer for its actions for the next few years, or the actions of a tyrant, simply putting us all into our prescribed place.
Know Not What the Left and Right hands are doing? Common Practice.
“There is no left or right in writing, only good and bad writing,” Ernest Hemingway. As such, good writing unites left and right into a commonality of purpose.
Steven Kaszab
Bradford, Ontario
