There’s an extremely interesting debate going on over at John Michael Greer’s blog, The Archdruid Report, discussing the viability of the primitivist vs. the agrarian response to the coming collapse. The most interesting thing about it is the stances of the two main debaters, Greer and Anthropik’s Jason Godesky.

Godesky is a prolific writer on primitivism and strongly believes that the best response to the coming collapse will be something close to the hunter-gatherer life. Greer, on the other hand, believes that a more moderate response, one that more fully embraces agriculture, will be best. To me, their positions approximate two main aspects of myself that have often been in contention with each other (as readers of my past posts will know).

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Tonight I was thinking about my tendency to obsess about cleanliness.

I have to admit, such a tendency is useful for me professionally because it dovetails quite nicely with the acupuncture profession’s Clean Needle Technique, which demands constant handwashing and obsessive avoidance of contamination — probably quite wise for a health care provider in these modern times, inserting needles into the bodies of strangers who are not necessarily in the best of health.

But still, above and beyond the demands of my particular career, I see in myself a mood, a climate of beliefs surrounding cleanliness, which is supported by the culture of multiple antibacterial products and overprescription of antibiotics — a culture that believes we are swimming in a sea of microbes that are out to get us.

I wonder if we’ve gone too far.

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I’ve just finished my first week practicing in the clinic, my first week seeing patients.

One of my biggest fears never came to pass. I had been so concerned that the first week would roll around I would be sitting around without patients to see, and would be forced to rely solely on the goodwill of my fellow students for my required hours.

But in fact, I’m booked for the next couple of weeks, and, in an interesting reversal, I’m actually concerned that I may have too many patients for the limited number of hours that I’m practicing, which might hinder my ability to treat them every week, and so hamper their progress.

I guess I got what I wished for, with all that entailed. Anyway, I’m very pleased with this outcome. Reminds me of the Mark Twain quote: “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

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