What fanned the flame

I didn't even notice him walk into the room, yet once he had, he completely commanded it, whether he had wanted to or not...

Paul Farmer, doctor, medical anthropologist, founder of Partners in Health, author of several books and, as it turns out, surprisingly funny and engagaing guy. There were about 15 of of us there for the wokshop with Paul, all grad students of various levels from various backgrounds, researching social justice, migration, ebola, maternal health, access to healthcare. It took at least an hour for me to move from feelings of inferiority (should I have been worried that I didn't understand half the words

they were saying?!) to feelings of excitement, expectation, eagerness. There's something about being in a room with passionate and knowledgable people that lights a fire and fans the flame.

It was nearly a week ago and ever since, my mind has been working at approximiately 300 miles an hour. I've been trying to write essays this week, but all it takes is one word to set my mind racing - poverty...inequality...imagination...morality...trust...and I've abandoned my essay and am in another world. I love being in this place - a place where everything has a little bit of inspiration, from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the song, Pure Imagination, has been stuck in my head all week, swirling around with all those thoughts) to Dr Seuss (You've got brains in your head, you've got feet in your shoes...) to the more academic Didier Fassin (Inquiètude, when it is associated with a concern for others, moves people to act - more on that in a future blog).

Back to the workshop...Paul Farmer has many ideas attributed to him, including that of structural violence, which describes conditions in which structures like economics, politics and various institutional practices prevent people from accessing what they need. However, he's the first to say that he can't take credit for these ideas and that none of them were original. "I wasn't the first to talk about looking after the poor...that was Jesus". It was easy to imagine him with a patient - when he answered someone's question, albeit via a hundred tangents, it felt like that person was the only one in the room, the only one who mattered at that moment. His tangents ranged from Tolkein to obscure treaties to the time when he just sat with a dying patient to the fire that happened at his hotel earlier in the week.

I could write a short novel about the workshop. I won't. But I will tell you about the flames it fanned, the things that I want to spend my life doing, whatever that looks like...I believe that all humans have a right to healthcare, wherever they are in the world and I want to spend my life working at breaking down the barriers that stop them from getting access to that healthcare. I believe that part of the solution to that is in things that we don't even know about yet, in things that are going to require creativity and imagination, so in the short term, I want to work at stirring up the imaginations and passions of the creatives, passing on the flame that has been fanned in me. I'm still working on how to do that...maybe another book? I'm not quite sure yet - but my mind hasn't slowed down from its intense whirring.

Let's see where that goes.

P.S. It's always easier for a flame to stay hot when it's surrounded by other flames so if you have any thoughts on any of this, please comment, or drop me an email. I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

#PaulFarmer #PartnersInHealth #fantheflame