I have a fondness for Irish poets. When I was reading the beautiful poem, PAIN, by David Whyte I was reminded of Thomas Moore and his benediction like quote about the ubiquity of pain--an unavoidable side effect of being alive.
​Weirdly it applies to my work as a data scientist. To truly quantify and qualify pain I seek to calibrate definitions. Industry often treats pain like a monolithic homogenous entity and it is certainly NOT. I pick variables and attributes hoping to measure pain but know that without the context and cipher to translate--It is meaningless.
Experiencing real pain ourselves, our moral superiority comes to an end; we stop urging others to get with the program, to get their act together or to sharpen up, and start to look for the particular form of debilitation, visible or invisible that every person struggles to overcome. In pain, we suddenly find our understanding and compassion engaged as to why others may find it hard to fully participate.--David Whyte
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In a world of "evidence-based" medicine I am a bigger fan of practice-based evidence.
Remember the quote by Upton Sinclair... “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” |