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12a9dae
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You may not see the ocean, but right now we are in the middle of the ocean, and we have to keep swimming." --
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Tracy Kidder |
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4668ac3
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And I can imagine Farmer saying he doesn't care if no one else is willing to follow their example. He's still going to make these hikes, he'd insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you're saying that their lives matter less than some others', and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world.
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inspirational
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Tracy Kidder |
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b4ee686
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among a coward's weapons, cynicism is the nastiest of all
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Tracy Kidder |
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0cf0b4f
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That's when I feel most alive, he told me once on an airplane, when I'm helping people.
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Tracy Kidder |
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c6f7f88
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Paul's face grew serious. 'I think whenever a people has enormous resources, it is easy for them to call themselves democratic. I think of myself more as a physician than an American. We belong to the nation of those who care for the sick. Americans are lazy democrats, and it is my belief, as someone who shares the same nationality as [a Russian doctor], I think the rich can always call themselves democratic, but the sick people are not amo..
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Tracy Kidder |
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426fedc
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Attempts at imitation would put the emphasis where it didn't belong. The goal was to improve the lives of others, not oneself.
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Tracy Kidder |
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c294b21
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The goofiness of radicals thinking they have to dress in Guatemalan peasant clothes. The poor don't want you to look like them. They want you to dress in a suit and go get them food and water. Comma.
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Tracy Kidder |
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0faddba
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Among a coward's weapons, cynicism is the nastiest of all.
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Tracy Kidder |
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3bc9ce2
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One time I listened to Farmer give a talk on HIV to a class at the Harvard School of Public Health, and in the midst of reciting data, he mentioned the Haitian phrase "looking for life, destroying life," Then he explained, "It's an expression Haitians use if a poor woman selling mangoes falls off a truck and dies." I felt as if for that moment I could see a little way into his mind, It seemed like a place of hyperconnectivity, At moments li..
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Tracy Kidder |
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5599d49
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I think Farmer taps into a universal anxiety and also into a fundamental place in some troubled consciences, into what he calls "ambivalence," the often unacknowledged uneasiness that some of the fortunate feel about their place in the world, the thing he once told me he designed his life to avoid."
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Tracy Kidder |
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2d7233b
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I do believe in God. I think God has given so much power to people, and intelligence, and said, 'Well, you are on your own. Maybe I'm tired, I need a nap. You are mature. Why don't you look after yourselves?' And I think He's been sleeping too much.
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Tracy Kidder |
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8cf014a
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In order to go on with our lives, we are always capable of making the ominous into the merely strange.
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Tracy Kidder |
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c85cce4
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Little sleep, no investment portfolio, no family around, no hot water. On an evening a few days after arriving in Cange, I wondered aloud what compensation he got for these various hardships. He told me, "If you're making sacrifices, unless you're automatically following some rule, it stands to reason that you're trying to lessen some psychic discomfort. So, for example, if I took steps to be a doctor for those who don't have medical care, ..
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Tracy Kidder |
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14ad69a
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The view reminded of the Haitain proverb "Beyond mountains there are mountains" which meant that when you'd solved one problem, you couldn't rest because you had to go on and solve the next."
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Tracy Kidder |
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37daa76
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So many people, he thought, don't listen to the content of what you say but only to the noises you make.
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Tracy Kidder |
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c0e3f29
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I have fought the long defeat and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I'm not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don't dislike victory. ... You know, people from our background-like you, like most PIH-ers, like me-we're used to being on a victory team, and actually what we're really trying to do in PIH is to make common cause with the losers. Those are two very different thin..
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the-long-defeat
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Tracy Kidder |
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086d8cd
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Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing but medicine on a large scale.
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Tracy Kidder |
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cc2c694
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It is the curse of humanity that it learns to tolerate even the most horrible situations by habituation." "Medical education does not exist to provide students with a way of making a living, but to ensure the health of the community." "The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them."
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Tracy Kidder |
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ced6a29
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When writers stop believing in their own stories, readers tend to sense it.
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writing-process
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Tracy Kidder |
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a80a929
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Children get dealt grossly unequal hands, but that is all the more reason to treat them equally in school, Chris thought. "I think the cruelest form of prejudice is... if I ever said, 'Clarence is poor, so I'll expect less of him than Alice.' Maybe he won't do what Alice does. But I want his best." She knew that precept wasn't as simple as it sounded. Treating children equally often means treating them very differently. But it also means br..
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educational-inequity
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Tracy Kidder |
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405fa8f
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He sniffed, and said as others had before him and others no doubt would again, "I have learned never to say, 'Never again."
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Tracy Kidder |
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2e78887
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In the process Paul laid out a comprehensive theory of poverty, of a world designed by the elites of all nations to serve their own ends, the pieces of the design enshrined in ideologies, which erased the histories of how things came to be as they were.
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Tracy Kidder |
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44bff2d
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The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.
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Tracy Kidder |
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fb20fb8
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The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them.
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Tracy Kidder |
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dbe9ed1
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Montaigne blessed the form when he said, "If I knew my own mind, I would not make essays. I would make decisions."
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Tracy Kidder |
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0c4ab01
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It became apparent that communications and computing served each other so intimately that they might actually become the same thing;
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Tracy Kidder |
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7bb440a
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Sure," I said. "But some people would ask, 'How can you expect others to replicate what you're doing here?' What would be your answer to that?" He turned back and, smiling sweetly, said, "Fuck you." Then, in a stentorian voice, he corrected himself: "No. I would say, 'The objective is to inculcate in the doctors and nurses the spirit to dedicate themselves to the patients, and especially to having an outcome-oriented view of TB.' " He was g..
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Tracy Kidder |
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7f65dc8
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In the early days, computers inspired widespread awe and the popular press dubbed them giant brains. In fact, the computer's power resembled that of a bulldozer; it did not harness subtlety, though subtlety went into its design.
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Tracy Kidder |
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c7f9490
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When you burn out, you lose enthusiasm. I always loved computers. All of a sudden I just didn't care. It was, all of a sudden, a job.
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Tracy Kidder |
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a119b38
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It seemed as though Margaret hovered near Alice, aware of Alice when Alice didn't seem to be aware of Margaret.
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Tracy Kidder |
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b1a5798
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One winter night, at his home, while he was stirring up the logs in his fireplace, he muttered, "Computers are irrelevant." Building"
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Tracy Kidder |
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9e766c8
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Too much protocol.
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Tracy Kidder |
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63af7ee
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How to preside over your own internal disorder? Finding the "I" that can represent the pack of you is the first challenge of the memoirist."
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writing
writing-process
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Tracy Kidder |
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0ae877d
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Virchow was the perfect role model for anyone who wanted to change the world, or at least lessen the inequality between the rich and poor. One of Farmer's favorite Virchow quotes was "The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them." Virchow viewed the world in a way that made sense to Farmer, his vision a comprehensive one that included pathology--the study of disease--with soc..
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Tracy Kidder |
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02d3da9
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At age twenty-six, Virchow wrote passionately that terrible social conditions in an impoverished part of Germany called Upper Silesia were the cause of a malaria and dysentery epidemic. His recommendation to the German government: if it wanted to do something about the epidemic, it needed to end the malnutrition, overcrowding, and poor hygiene. Better yet, he added, allow for a full and unlimited democracy in Upper Silesia.
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Tracy Kidder |
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f44e0de
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But he realized that Haiti was now so embedded in his mind and heart that he could never abandon the country so quickly.
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Tracy Kidder |
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b65843d
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As they say, the first step in fixing something is getting it to break.
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Tracy Kidder |
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83a272c
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To an outsider, building a school before there was a medical clinic, or someone to deal with the problems of hunger and homelessness, was illogical, but Farmer and Lafontant understood that the school meant hope and empowerment.
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Tracy Kidder |
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830774b
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Everything is quantified," he said. "Whether it's the technology or the way people use it, it has an insidious ability to reduce things to less than human dimensions."
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Tracy Kidder |
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3342fc0
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No one keeps track of the hours we work," said Ken Holberger. He grinned. "That's not altruism on Data General's part. If anybody kept track, they'd have to pay us a hell of a lot more than they do." Yet it is a fact, not entirely lost on management consultants, that some people would rather work twelve hours a day of their own choosing than eight that are prescribed. Provided, of course, that the work is interesting. That was the main thin..
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Tracy Kidder |
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4413dbe
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We can spend sixty-eight thousand dollars per TB patient in New York City, but if you start giving watches or radios to patients here, suddenly the international health community jumps on you for creating nonsustainable projects.
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Tracy Kidder |
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cc32302
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If disease is an expression of individual life under unfavorable conditions, then epidemics must be indicative of mass disturbances of mass life.
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Tracy Kidder |
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617dce6
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People call me a saint and I think, I have to work harder. Because a saint would be a great thing to be." - Paul Farmer"
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Tracy Kidder |
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9725531
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On the contrary, a company was more likely to asphyxiate on its own success.
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Tracy Kidder |