I agree with just about all of this. I agree that all control is an illusion. I also agree that the medical industry doesn’t give a shit about patients. Sure you may find a nurse, doctor, etc that has compassion/empathy but in the end you’re just a number.
That’s why everyone who deals with the medical industry needs an advocate. They need someone who will fight and “make them care”. Usually, that means being an advocate for oneself. That means being vocal about treatment, procedures, etc. It means insisting on making people care. When I was younger and I did some guardianship work where I was the court appointed guardian for people in psych wards. I can tell you that I was a real pain the ass to doctors. These were patients nobody cared about. I was the guardian because no family member wanted to do it. I went to every treatment plan meeting. I challenged them on every anti-psych drug they wanted to administer. If I didn’t lots of those doctors would have just doped those people up so that they weren’t a bother to staff.
The point is that while we don’t have control we can do things that effect certain outcomes. We can take steps to influence outcomes. We aren’t all just riding a wave that has a pre-determined outcome. While all control is an illusion it’s also true that we are all a byproduct of the decisions that we make. Make poor decisions you will get poor results. Let’s take this subject: I don’t have any stats to prove it but logic dictates that most people who die from colon cancer are those who don’t get colonoscopies. Certainly not all but I’d venture to say most. Often times this is a preventable disease. If you choose not to have screening then it’s a greater likelihood that you’ll suffer from it. It’s not totally random.
As far as an afterlife, I honestly believe that there is something. I don’t think it’s a grey haired man in the sky judging all things as good/bad. I do think that it’s another plane of existence. I also believe that we often encounter those who are in our lives now.
