Who hear eminent this, that and the next things talking about whatever it is they talk about while all the time missing the people at the heart of their curiousity...dismissing the evidence of their pain and frustration...pursuing models of science, neurobiology and medicine...losing sight of the humanity that their models impact upon...
For those who give up their time and their energy and, on an almost daily basis, experience their heart being ripped from their chest and squeezed tightly in the hope that it will bring about some change.
I know that it must be a temptation.
I know that you must feel that you cannot bear to hear another word,
I can see how it must must push you to the edge to experience the arrogance...the dismissals...the sneering...the patronising...
And I want to find a way to stand alongside you...
But I beg you to keep on going...to remember the stars...
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
by Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before
me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander' d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
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