I Have This Extra Kidney I'm Not Using...

In my previous post I talked about my thoughts of altruistic compassion.  Helping people you know is important.  Helping people you don’t is at least equally important.  I feel  need to disclose that I admire someone who doesn’t harm another.  I admire them more when they help others in need, regardless of any benefit to themselves.  A lot of people become part of an awareness group once they have been affected by it, and this is a good thing.  Volunteering time and money is a great form of compassion.  Some people even become an advocate for something they know is wrong, but haven’t experienced it.  I admire these people even more so.  A friend of mine is an advocate for human trafficking.  I’m pretty sure this person hadn’t experienced this first hand, but they know it’s wrong and they don’t want it to happen anymore.

I like volunteering, but I don’t do it often enough.  I give money to charities, give blood, and I’ve done the whole habitat for humanity.  I find myself questioning some of these acts of compassion though, wondering if I’m actually making an impact, or just prolonging the demise.  For instance, I could volunteer at a soup kitchen, and help feed the homeless.  At the end of the day, they are still homeless.  Hell, at the end of the year they are still homeless.  It’s good to help in any way possible, but I feel I could be doing more for the greater good of our global society.

While philosophizing on the impact of compassion, I started looking at unique ways to volunteer.  I then discovered, and ultimately decided that I would be a living donor.

A living donor is one who donates part or all of an organ to someone else.  Giving blood is a form of living donation, but for the most part it includes bone marrow, liver and kidneys.  For the past couple of months I have been going through the process of being matched for kidney donation for a fellow out in California.  I have never met this person before, but that was kind of the point.  I had one condition: This person must be a good person, and one that has helped and will continue to help others.  The idea is that my donation is a conduit to continued compassion on the recipients’ behalf.  I improve his quality of life in order for him to maintain a positive influence to those around him.

The process has been interesting.  At first I created a profile on a message board for living donors and recipients.  I was flooded with invitations to be matched as a kidney donor for many different people.  I quickly realized that I could not handle responding to so many people, telling them that I will not be donating a kidney to them.  It sounded too much like “sorry, but you’ll just have to risk death a little bit longer, because you aren’t good enough for my kidney”.  It’s like signing a death pact – giving so many people hope and then stripping it away.  Before I changed my profile to “private” I was contacted by one person that met my conditions, and better yet this was someone on the recipients’ behalf – The recipient didn’t even want to ask a living donor to get tested.  He is a good person in his community, and didn’t want or expect someone to go through the process of being a living donor for him.  This, I decided, is the kind of person who deserves my kidney.

So far I have talked to two social workers and given nine vials of blood to determine tissue typing – they needed to make sure that once my kidney was transplanted, his body wouldn’t reject it.  Once it was confirmed that my parts would work in his make and model, we scheduled the remaining tests.  The next step is to give more blood to ensure that I do not possess pretty much every disease known to man.  There are like 30 things they are testing.  On top of that, I need an EKG, chest X-Ray, physical, 24 hour urine collection for a urinalysis, and a CT scan.  There may be others, but the bottom line is, if there is a disease in me somewhere, they are going to find it before I pass it on to the recipient.  I fly out to California to meet with a psychologist in November, and to perform the CT scan.  Once all that clears, the OR can be scheduled for the transplant about four weeks from then.  As it is planned, by Christmas time I should have one less kidney in my body – seems like a perfectly normal way to lose some weight.

I had one reservation for actually going through this process.  I had thought “What if a family member or friend needs it later on in life”?  I realized that this is a big “What If”.  The chances of knowing someone with kidney disease is not that great, and it becomes even smaller when you consider all of the variables needed to be a match.  I then concluded that if this actually did happen, I can count on others to be a living donor.

I really did not focus, and continue not to focus, on the effect this will have on me.  Since I am donating altruistically, meaning I do not know the recipient, I have had to talk to social workers, and eventually a psychologist to ensure that I am mentally prepared for the surgery and for life after the surgery.  I’m not really concerned, to tell you the truth.  For one, life after surgery is about the same with one kidney as it is with two.  I won’t be able to smoke or play professional football, but I think I can get by.  Another reason, it’s not about me more than it’s about helping others through helping one.  Consider this: if you went back in time and had the opportunity to jump in front of the bullet for MLK, sacrificing your life for that of a civil rights hero, would you?  Given the chance, my answer would be a swift “Yes”.  We don’t survive as individuals, and there is not enough selfless acts done for the greater good of mankind.

I’m not saying I am giving my life for someone else, but I am aware and understand that I am risking it.  However small the risk, it is still evident.  One statistic shows that it is riskier to be born than it is to donate a kidney.  When people ask me why I am doing it, I tell them I have an extra kidney I’m not using, and it’s much more beneficial for someone else to have it than continue incubate it for a “What If”.  That’s the simple version.  A much simpler version is that it seemed like the right thing to do. 

I’m not writing this because I expect others to follow suit and start donating a bunch of kidneys.  I would only suggest challenging yourself to do good for others, in hopes of compounding compassion through your acts of kindness.  I debated telling people other than friends and family, but then realized that the more people see an act of kindness, the more willing they are to pay it forward.  I think that the world needs more of that.  I also did this in mass notice, as telling each person individually would be a gigantic effort.

TL;DR: I have this extra kidney I’m not using, and will be donating it because I want to, and it seems like the right thing to do.

Why We Are Less Passionate Than Ants

I haven’t displayed my feelings about religion yet, mostly because I don’t want to completely alienate and drive away some of my family and friends.  Not yet at least.  Upon all of the religions that exist, I agree with Buddhism the most.  Not entirely agree, but they have some pretty good points.  I won’t go into detail just yet, but there is one quote by the Dalai Lama that just made a whole lot of sense… LOGICAL sense.  Mr. Lama said “If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them”.  I find it is hard to actually knowingly harm someone, but it’s quite simple to do nothing at all.  It’s even simple to help over harm.  The Buddhist religion practices compassion.  Compassion, one may find, is not necessarily a selfless act.  Once one is compassionate, they too benefit from the act of kindness, simply by knowing they had a positive impact on another’s life.  In a world where there seems to be more harm than kindness, the feeling is ten-fold, because now it is a rarity.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of acts of kindness in the world.  One friend helps another on a daily basis.  What bothers me is that there is not a big enough presence of altruism.  How often do you see someone carrying groceries out for a sweet old lady anymore?  What about someone whose car breaks down – do you see many people stop to help?  My car recently broke down in the middle of the street, without enough power to run my hazard lights.  It was rush hour, on a two lane, one way road.  People were so frustrated with me, having to slowly drive around me in this stop and go rush hour traffic.  Not one person cared enough to roll down their window to make sure I was OK.  I believe it is our duty as a species to help others when they really need it.  This should be as natural to us as breathing or eating.  If you don’t agree with this, I understand, but consider the following cases.

There are five types of animals that are altruistically caring in nature.  I will discuss two.  The first is a species of ants in the Amazon Jungle.  Their home threatened by a flood, the ants built a bridge using their bodies, to carry their young and Queen to safety.  Some died, but most survived.  If this wasn’t done, most assuredly all would have perished.  Now this may only show compassion in a time when it’s a decision between everyone dying or just some, and we may display the same trait in say, a flood of our own.  But it is compassion nonetheless.

The second case is that of the Dolphin.  The dolphin is perhaps the most caring animal in the world.  When threatened by a predator, dolphins will band together and fight together for the safety of all.  Apart from helping their own species, dolphins have been known to recognize the distress calls of other marine life and come to their aid.  A single dolphin was observed heading the distress call of two beached whales and guided them to safety.  Another instance included a group of dolphins began circling around some swimmers.  It wasn’t until they were out of the water that they learned there was a shark nearby, and the dolphins were forming a ring of protection for the humans.

Now this may be a moot point – just because a couple of dolphins and an army of ants banded together for the greater good, doesn’t mean they all do it.  My point is, these animals are in it for the survival of not only themselves but for other non threatening species.  We have the mental capacity of a million ants, and believe it or not, should be smarter than dolphins.  However, it seems we would rather use this capacity to be greedy and look out for our own good, even though it pales in comparison to the needs of others.

TL;DR: I understand that you shouldn’t be expected to help others, but I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to.  This rant has a bigger point, which I will carry on in my next post, which will be soon.

Justice Isn’t Blind, She’s Just in a Really Intense Game of Hide and Seek

I haven't written one of these in awhile.  I guess I've been to busy to let the world get to me.

I’m not one to grab onto an internet Meme and use it in everyday life; I don’t even know what Meme stands for.  I can’t find a better way to describe my reaction to our (global, really) justice system than ‘facepalm’.  Facepalm, as some of you may know, is the swift slap to one’s own face when reading or seeing something so incredibly backwards stupid, that it would be easier to divide by zero than to try to understand the logic of said stupid act.  I find it disturbing that the justice system is so dependent on law upon law, that 100% of the audience can see the logic in one verdict, but the law points to another.

I contribute most of the inaction and inefficiencies of our society to the fact that we have thousands of laws to obey when making the simplest decisions.  I’m not sure there is even an accurate way to count how many laws there are.  I looked up on the internets to find out how many laws there were in the US.  I didn’t search too far, but I would not be surprised if there was no exact answer.  I did see a couple of interesting lines on random web pages.  One mentioned there are 20,000 gun control laws.  That seems a bit excessive, right?  I can think of maybe two or three laws you would need: don’t shoot people with guns unless they are going to shoot you; don’t carry a gun unless you have a permit that says you are smart enough to carry a gun; and don’t buy guns from some dude out of the back of his van.  I guess wording is everything though, and you could get around that last law by saying it wasn’t a ‘dude’ but a ‘chick’ they bought the gun from, out of the back of ‘her’ van.  Then there’s mention of 452 new definition of crimes added since the start of 2000.  This makes me believe that we completely suck at solving problems, and the only way we can fix them is to make them illegal.

If you think that lawyers and politicians are completely sane, logical, intelligent individuals of society, then I direct your attention to the number of absolutely ludicrous laws still in effect, mostly due to the fact that it would cost too much money and time to strike them from the books.  Here’s a fun website to go to if you need to kill some time, and a few brain cells:

http://www.dumblaws.com/

This site outlines, by state, some of the dumb laws our government has passed with the help of politicians and lawyers.  I looked up some of the laws of the state I currently am forced to inhabit: Ohio.  There are some laws that held a purpose some time ago, but is still in effect, such as ‘Participating or conducting a duel is prohibited’ or ‘If one loses their pet tiger, they must notify the authorities within one hour’.  I’m not sure about when that last law might have been useful, though.  Some laws are good to know when you feel like breaking the law but don’t want to get arrested for it, such as ‘No one may be arrested on Sunday or on the Fourth of July’.  And some laws just don’t make any sense, and are clearly there for our amusement, like ‘It is illegal to fish for whales on Sunday’.  I’m not a Geographist, but I’m pretty sure Ohio isn’t connected to any oceans. 

Now, these are harmless enough, and I’m kind of glad they are still around.  I know I don’t want to see anyone ‘walk a cow down Lake Road’ in Bay Village, or see someone ‘drive around the town square more than 100 times in a single session’ in Oxford.  Often a sentence is issued because the law is in plain sight, but the penalty is ridiculous in comparison, and the person who broke that law just isn’t wealthy enough to hire a lawyer who knows how to get around them.  For instance, a homeless man in Florida steals a box of cereal and evaporated milk.  His sentence is 15 years in prison.  Now, granted this man had 50 prior convictions and rejected a plea deal that would have reduced the sentence to 3 years, the sentencing is still pretty harsh.  Every time I read a story that someone was jailed for misdemeanor crimes, I think about overcrowded prisons and the fact that it’s the taxpayers that pay to house these criminals.  If we look at this from the point of view of a balanced society where there’s a cause and effect that’s equal for all offenders, then I fail to see the reasoning for people who steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in various ponzi-like schemes and get sentencing for less than 10 years.  In the case of the homeless guy stealing cereal, a $3.50 crime turned into a $50,000 per year expense for tax payers… That’s $750,000 out of the taxpayers pocket to punish a hungry man that will just get out and steal again.

Another big pet peeve of mine is copyright infringement.  There are two sides of this law, and the “practice” of infringing on a patent.  Case A: A small company creates software to play videos on a computer.  They patent their technology but do not immediately have the capital to distribute it and make money from it.  A big computer company finds out about it, knows they have a patent, but steals their idea anyway.  This big company makes millions of dollars from the software, leaving the little business that created the software in the dust.  The small company sues the big company for infringement, and wins, but their winnings are just a fraction of the profit the big company made, and the small company has to use their winnings to pay off legal fees, and when it’s all said and done, they don’t have much to show for it.  Here’s the big kicker – the big company can continue to use the software – continue to infringe on the patent, legally.  They can continue to make money off of their theft, and the small company can’t sue them again.

Case B:  A company either develops a patent, or buys patents from small business that does not have the capital to properly distribute the technology.  This technology may be very profitable, but more importantly, applicable and contributive to technological advances, which would create jobs.  The company that buys these patents does so with the full intent of not developing the technology.  They wait until someone decides to infringe on the patent, then they sue them.  Meanwhile, the company that decides to infringe on the patent and start actually using the technology, does so knowing they will get sued, and they will factor this into the price of the developed product.  In both cases, the consumer gets screwed.

The crime to punishment ratio is extremely off balance.  If you murder someone, and we are 100% positive you murdered someone, then you should not be allowed to live anymore – at least not in our society.  If you steal money, you have to give it back, or work it off.  There’s no reason why we should continue to support criminals in our society.  To be somewhat honest, I think we should have a system of penitentiaries like in “Escape from New York”.  We set up maybe three different levels of small isolated societies based on level of conviction, dump the offenders in there to serve their sentence and then leave them alone.  They have to grow their own food and survive with each other.  I’m sure this is a bad idea though, as it could swiftly turn into Lord of the Flies.  So maybe it’s not perfect, but whatever we have now isn’t working.

TL;DR: I’m against the rationalization that we “obey the book” – it hasn’t really worked out for religion, and it surely hasn’t worked for our justice system.  The lack of LOGICAL decisions in this country to all issues is mind boggling at best.  The justice system isn’t any better.  There are smart sociologists that can outline where we are making mistakes and how to fix them, but nobody listens to them.  It was hard for me, but I think I can come to understand how we made these mistakes in the first place.  The fact that we haven’t bothered to fix them, knowing full well they are wrong and detrimental to our society, gives me a bad case of the facepalm.