Being Ill Is the Norm, Being Well Is a Miracle, Living with Illness Is Reality

Whether as individuals or as a society, the normal state is one of illness; being without illness is merely a miracle. We humans have always lived in symbiosis with pathogens; everyone is born carrying many kinds of viruses and bacteria and may at any time fall ill.

Society is the same. The individual, as the basic cell of human society, has all kinds of innate flaws — we are ignorant, or selfish, or greedy; these flaws mean human society can never reach a state of perfection. To borrow a medical term, human society too is merely living with illness.

TCM emphasizes: "Do not overwork your body, do not deplete your essence, then you may live long." This means that if the body is not overtaxed and the spirit is not overtaxed, one can achieve longevity. This is the best regimen for health preservation from ancient times to the present; it is not outdated now, and will not be outdated even in a more scientifically advanced future.

In the future, human science may be far more advanced than now, but the limit of human lifespan will still be little different from that of the ancients. The limit of human lifespan may be around 120 years; some long-lived people in ancient times also reached this age.

These people lived out their natural span, first because of good genes, and second because they did not overtax themselves. If they had excessively worn out their body and spirit, no matter how good their genes, they would not have lived long.

For society to enjoy long-term stability, the various parties must also not harm one another too deeply. Some people are too greedy and take up too much of society's wealth, leaving the poor with very little living space. Some are too ignorant, feverishly violent, disrespectful of common sense, and unreasonable; they too end up causing their own and others' violent deaths.

If we have a deep understanding of this reality, perhaps we will not have so many complaints and resentments. Many extreme voices have appeared in society today; my family has asked me why social contradictions have suddenly become so sharp. My answer is that social contradictions have always been sharp; it is just that the current state is an abnormal one, which is why many people can feel the sharpness.

For some astute observers, as early as before the plague they had already perceived that our society was in a state of sharp contradiction. Right now our medical workers are much praised, but I still remember the repeated doctor-killing cases of last year, each of which drew loud applause from crowds.

Behind this distressing situation lies an enormous wealth gap: wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few elites, and the broad public is deeply resentful of the elite class that holds most of society's wealth. That is why we see so many unexpected social phenomena today.

Some say these phenomena resemble the Cultural Revolution; others say many people's behavior resembles the Boxers; still others regard public intellectuals as traitors. Both sides hope the other side suffers, and even long to physically eliminate one another.

The COVID-19 virus is merely a catalyst that has brought these latent contradictions to a head. These are not new contradictions; they are old contradictions magnified under new social conditions.

When we treat disease, we never think of beating the patient to death and then treating them. Whether treating infectious disease or chronic illnesses like cancer and diabetes, no doctor heads straight into a fight with our opponent. We all do everything possible to maintain the patient's life while solving their problems bit by bit. So after a long career in medicine, one develops patience.

Social illness, like human illness, cannot be cured by extremism. Both far-left and far-right thinking are extreme. I occasionally watch news on outlets like Twitter, YouTube, BBC, Radio France Internationale, and Voice of America, and sometimes follow domestic hot-button medical issues to see how Chinese netizens react. After watching, I cannot agree with either side; whether one remakes society according to the so-called left or the so-called right, I am afraid it would end in rivers of blood.

If a physician treats a patient until they are covered in blood, it would surely be regarded as a disastrous medical malpractice, and could even bring the physician death. I deal with many people and have not yet encountered anyone who has always been healthy — even if someone thinks they are healthy, that is only because they have not realized they too are ill.

Human medicine does not yet have the ability to easily solve human disease. There is a Chinese saying: medicine does not cure those who are doomed to die; it means physicians can only cure those whose illness is not fatal. This saying is very correct: medicine's power is limited, and humanity's hope that medicine will keep them perfectly healthy is merely a beautiful wish, or perhaps wishful thinking.

What we truly need to adapt to is the normality of "being ill"; we should pursue relative health within this normality, not pursue absolute freedom from illness.

Many people do not understand this and keep pursuing absolute "illness-free," which leads to overtreatment and eventually a series of iatrogenic bodily harms. Such iatrogenic harm is also an important cause of doctor-patient disputes, and physicians find it extremely headache-inducing.

For society to be relatively peaceful, it too needs constant adjustment on the basis of tolerance, balancing the interests of all parties so that it falls ill less often. If any party is intolerant and pursues an absolute ideal state, the result easily escalates into fierce conflict or war, causing countless deaths and injuries among the common people.

I deeply dislike those who incite others to sacrifice while hiding behind to profit; there are quite a few such people. If they were willing to stand up and sacrifice for their own ideals, I would admire them. If they dare not do so and merely expect others to realize their ideals, that is despicable.

In my lifetime, whenever I have the chance, I will do my best to fulfill my civic duty by speaking and acting to improve society. If anyone wants to place their personal interests above society — including my own — disregarding our lives and deaths, I will stand up to stop them even at the cost of my own life. But if things have not deteriorated to that point, I do not want to see many people bleed for the so-called ideal.

Physicians always prefer "keeping the patient alive to treat the disease" — preserving the patient's life and treating more safely and effectively. I believe improving society requires the same principle: only improving society with the minimum sacrifice is true "good governance."

After all, every human life is precious.