Tag: babies

Hitting the Lottery: My feelings about family are closer to the Amish

This is going to sound bad, but I don’t care.  I’m not humble, and I have no plans to be.  When I say that my fourth grandchild was lucky to be born into the family she was, I mean it for how it sounds.  I always like to see little kids born into the world. And as far as I’m concerned, nothing in the world is more important than family.  Our job as human beings is to emerge from the void and to fill it with consciousness.  And long after the shell of a living body dies away, the spirit that emerges lives eternally for all kinds of purposes.  And even though that spirit has its characteristics and is immortal in its conduct, the experience of a physical existence profoundly shapes the content of that eternal character. As I visited one of my daughters in the hospital giving birth to my fourth grandchild, that was what I was thinking as I visited the hospital wing full of optimism, as other families were giving birth also.  And it was a generally happy floor full of hope for the future, and I enjoy places like that.  But as I was holding this new baby, I couldn’t help but think that she had hit the lottery relative to the other families on the floor.  Out of all the random chances of landing in a body that gave birth in such a family as she had, she was one of the luckiest creatures in the universe.  And it made me sad for the other little kids who will never get such an opportunity.  I wish I could be a parent or grandpa to more kids.  Because most of them have terrible families that cripple them usually before life ever starts to get going and its just not fair to them.

I say that because I don’t spend much time slowing down.  I live a fast-paced life full of high stress and chaos.  So a moment alone with family to talk to each other doesn’t come often.  But for us, a couple of holidays are the best; the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving give us great moments that carry us through the rest of the year.  There are many more throughout the year, but those two are benchmarks that we value more than others.  And they are usually very positive experiences.  But when a new child is born, of course, that is an even rarer occurrence, and we take those kinds of things very seriously in my family.  Because we like life and all the opportunities that come with it.  I want kids more than the average person, and I like them a lot until they start showing signs of becoming adults, and if they start taking on the signs of becoming just another loser in the world, then I lose my enthusiasm for them.  I can’t say I like people, so when kids trade away their childhoods for adult behavior, I think they give away a fortune, and the rest of their lives are wasted.   But with kids, those dumb decisions haven’t been made yet, so knowing them is usually full of optimism.  And for my daughter and her new little daughter, there are many very supportive people in their family, and no matter how bad life gets, there is always room to grow and recover in our family activities.  But compared to the rest of the world and their approach, it almost feels like we are an Amish family.   I can relate to them much more than a normal family these days, because we have similar beliefs about the value of family. 

As I was pushing my granddaughter around the hospital floor to keep her entertained while her mother recovered a bit from birth, I had a good look at the other families also having babies.  Especially the dads.  And by their look, they weren’t ready to have a baby.  You could see the fear in their eyes as they held their newborn children at the tremendous responsibility they suddenly found themselves in.  Most of the dads having new babies were going to let down their families in some way, and they would never get the chance to understand what I’m talking about.  Most people probably won’t.  But to see that fear in the faces of people during such an optimistic time in their lives is sad to see, and I instantly feel sorry for the kids born into such a weak family with bad dads who aren’t up to the rigors of the task.  Most moms at least get a connection to a child who grows with them during the pregnancy.  But the men don’t get to have a baby or bond with it during the pregnancy.  So they aren’t so flat-footed when the baby is born; they have made at least some psychological transition that has prepared them for having a baby.  But the men must go deeper to get there, and most never do.  And the kids end up without a positive primary influence.  I am pretty standoffish with most people because I find them insulting that they don’t take the parenting process more serious, and I know that if they screw that up, then most things they do in their lives will also be screwed up and the kids will grow up to be bad people.  And most of those kids being born with my granddaughter don’t have a chance at a happy life, just by looking at their parents’ faces. 

I wouldn’t say it’s challenging to be a good parent or a grandparent, but unfortunately, most people fall short.  I was thinking about this recently during my birthday in April, when we were all at Hocking Hills doing a ghost hunt at Old Man’s Cave with the grandkids.  It was a lot of fun, and as we were doing it, it was nice to see the lights of discovery light up on the little kids’ faces, and many of those memories with family will shape them for a lifetime in everything they do.  And I enjoy my role in that process, and I always give as much as possible so they get the best opportunities out of it.  But most kids are born randomly into life, and they get the parents they get, which is usually not very good.  And most of the time, they are doomed before they ever get started, and that was certainly the case with all the kids born with my granddaughter.  There are always exceptions, of course.  But for the most part, most kids born that day were born into families where the adults raising them would disappoint them greatly.  And I feel sorry for the lack of chances they will have in life because of it.  I don’t think there is a better or more important job than being an adult mentor for a little, emerging child.  But what’s sad is that so few adults feel that way.  And when I have to see and talk to them, it just reminds me how few there are, and I feel sorry for the kids.  I want to help them all, but unfortunately, I can’t because of how families work.  But for my new grandchild, she hit the lottery. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Future of Healthcare: Living to over 150 years

I don’t do it every time, but sometimes, when I get a chance to talk to important people about something that everyone is interested in, I share it, which was certainly the case this week when I had an important meeting with high-level people about the future of healthcare.  These people are interested in helping shape Trump’s next four years into a success story, and our conversation migrated to healthcare and what it should look like by the end of Trump’s next four years.  I was being asked because they wanted an out-of-the-box answer, which I said was probably the easiest thing on Trump’s plate.  Healthcare is super easy to deal with.  It’s only hard if you are trying to preserve the old sickness model where insurance companies profit from the slowed demise of people ahead of death.  That is a dead model, and whenever people talk about health insurance or healthcare in general, that is what they want to throw money at.  And that game has been over for quite a while now.  Which, to that point, was the reason for this important meeting.  And what I told them was worth sharing with everyone else, so I’m happy to let everyone else in on the conversation.  I don’t think we were breaching any NDAs or anything.  I told them about the two problems of the human population in the future and that the Trump administration would have to solve both of them with some connected policy that would let the current system slip away into oblivion and embrace a whole new approach.  We talked about business cycles, and the way we treat people for healthcare ailments is about as practical today as a horse and buggy competing in the Indianapolis 500 is to the racing world.

“So what’s the future look like?” they asked me.  “A lot different,” I said.  We have two main problems: we have a depleted birth rate.  To become a multi-planetary species, we need to have a lot more newborn babies come into the world.  We don’t want to lose so many children to abortion or the decision not to have children because they cost a lot of money. Marriages are complex, and people aren’t so interested in all the hard work it takes to make a family.  We have to change that mindset.  Then we have the other problem: people live for too long in a depleted state.  The extra 20 years that people are living post-retirement can be said only to serve insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry that seeks to profit off the extended demise of people.  Rather than treat them for what’s breaking, we have a financial model that plugs into them as they die and profit off their loss.  Then, the government looks forward to stealing a lifetime of wealth with estate taxes at the end of life.  It’s a cannibal-based system resulting from gross mismanagement by a leadership culture of politics and social influencers.  The solution is in stem cells, where we get them, and how we build healthcare policy around using them to make a society that lives longer and still encourages birth rates to increase for couples inspired to start families and make commitments worth fighting for, which of course got a lot of eager faces hungry for more information.  Stem cells have been around for a while, but we know enough now to build a policy around them as a real healthcare solution that provides the best opportunity for people working in healthcare to continue.  But changing the motivations toward lifetime longevity is profitable longer than just allowing people to become sicker until they die away, leaving little behind gradually. 

Typically, when hospitals provide birthing services to new babies, the afterbirth, the placenta, and umbilical cords are tossed away into the garbage as biowaste, which is entirely foolish.  The placenta and the umbilical cords that give babies new life are valuable; they shouldn’t be thrown in the trash.  Hospitals should sell those items to stem cell labs for treatments for people seeking longevity care for health concerns.  If you wanted a stem cell injection to get a rotator cup repaired or a new knee or hip replacement, you could go to Panama City, Panama, and get a $15,000 injection, which would immediately boost cell growth to fix the problem areas without surgery.  It is a much better method than traditional methods.  Stem cells, especially those out of placentas and umbilical cords, will fix anything naturally and don’t need to be aimed at specific tissue.  When introduced to a body, they present competition to an aging cell structure within the body that finds they need to perform better, which is the result.   Stem cells only stay in the body for a couple of days.  But that infusion of activity jumpstarts the aging cell structure into behaving as it did when the body was much younger.   People find that they heal as they did at the start of their life rather than in a depleted state at the end.   Many sports figures are already using stem cells to fix torn ligaments and worn-out cartilage rather than going through the invasive surgeries that have been the typical path. 

Hospitals could get very rich selling these placentas and umbilical cords to stem cell providers, who could then save the healthcare industry from people slowly dying and being a drag on the entire system.  Not to make it sound bad, but what is more worthless in the world than an older adult who can’t work anymore, who is costing thousands of dollars every week in medical care?  We want that person to live longer and healthier.  Their age limit should be more than 150 years rather than 80 years old as it is now, after essentially 20 years of retirement and lousy health.  Stem cells return people to their youthful healing process, and you can get all the cells you need from new birth rates.  Hospitals to inspire more births could offer nearly free birthing processes to young couples and make all their money off selling the created afterbirth.  Of course, the current healthcare professionals don’t want anybody to know about these methods; they don’t want to change.   They want the government to dump wasted money into an ineffective system.  But at this point, we are about 4 years away from stem cells being mainstream anyway.  It might as well happen during Trump’s term rather than after so he can get the credit for it.   Because the only thing holding us back now is policy.  Not science.  This technology has been around in the form I’m talking about for about 4 to 5 years.  And by 2030, it will be almost as common as going to the dentist.  The cost per stem cell treatment will come down a lot and be affordable.  So, there is no downside.  It’s the future, and it’s here now.  Death and the aging process are decisions, not fate.  And for those concerned about the natural order of things being disrupted by science, I would point to the many biblical characters who lived many years past 100, and if they can live longer and pass down more wisdom to the next generations, then we would be much better off as a culture.  We need to solve both problems, aging and low birth rates, at the same time.  And this is the way to do it within a few short years of the next Trump presidency.  And all that’s keeping us from doing it is ourselves and a very slight refocus on the purpose of healthcare in a social context.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707