For your "Beamusement"...

How about a shot of “beamusement” to kickstart your day! What the heck is beamusement, you wonder? Well, combine “Bea” with “bemusement" with "a dash of amusement” and you get beamusement! A beamusement can be many things. It can induce laughter, rage or (highly unlikely) indifference. You might chuckle a little, light your pipe and ponder, scoff a lot!, wind-up and pitch something at someone, add a shot of vodka to your corn flakes, scratch your head in wonderment, and/or jump out of your chair, shrug your shoulders and in your repressed New York accent (C’mon, you know you have one!) exclaim, “What the F---?”

That’s beamusement, folks.

Does this make sense?

Did you ever stop to wonder if your toaster is all it can be? Really? Is it living up to its potential?

I bet you are saying, “Yeah, it’s fine. Can’t complain.” 

Of course you can’t complain. There’s no reason. You’ve been making that popular breakfast specialty forever and you never once questioned the fine capabilities of that toasting device. No need. It gets the job done.

But now, I am about to change your entire reality. Trust me, things will never be the same...

There is a new toaster on the market that is CLEAR!!

Yes, a clear “see-through” toaster.

Whoa.

Every single person I have told about this new-fangled appliance has been absolutely dumbfounded!

“Duh! Of course!” they exclaim, smacking themselves on the forehead. “This is the way toasters are meant to be. How many times do I pop-up the toast to check on it, often messing up my timing and ending up with toast burnt to a crisp? This clear toaster is brilliant! IT MAKES SENSE.” 

See.

When something is clear, it’s clear. We feel its clarity. It feels like the truth.

When something isn’t, it isn’t. And we know it. We feel that too.

Case in point: According to a recent article in The Huffington Post, only 22 cents of every dollar donated to cancer cures goes to research (which would mean exactly 0 cents of 0 cents goes to thyroid research.) Why don’t we all just start making donations that stipulate only the 22 cents portion that we intend for good cause can be used? The rest could be returned to our bank accounts. That way we can put the other 78 valuable cents towards some other much needed good sense. Maybe a little of this “cents and sense” could go towards the research for autoimmune diseases. Just a suggestion.

Why do we say it’s ok for our cancer research donations and government health plans to waste cents covering support and treatments for something I don’t even have and to ignore the fact that I have thyroid disease and need help with that real problem? Being BRCA2 positive means I have a genetic predisposition to breast cancer, but let me be clear, I DO NOT HAVE CANCER, and don’t intend on getting it! Still, without even asking, I get myself a cancer nurse, visits with an oncologist, bi-annual screening sessions (using "perhaps less than helpful" radiation treatments, and not once being protected with a throat guard!), and a genetic counsellor! Uhh, hello? Could I possibly trade those in for an appointment with an endocrinologist when I need one?  

And better yet, why not get an endocrinologist who is chalk full of new, cutting edge research that actually makes sense, that relieves so many sufferers of this life-sucking epidemic. Sorry, but to say that my TSH is the only marker of my thyroid health is just not accurate. It does not provide a complete picture, and we need one, badly. Ahh, but for that kind of thing to happen, they all need more cents...

But, if we are going to go about donating our meaningful cents, why do we say it’s ok for our research scientists to be bogged down over the years with bureaucratic dopiness and big business “BS”, preventing them from using these cents and their gorgeous, helpful brains in gorgeous helpful ways—forcing them to do less, to discover less, and to, ultimately, be less.

Why do we all say it’s ok for these folks to not take a risk, to not stay on task and fulfill an important humanitarian mission, to be conservative with their imaginations and deny major breakthroughs for fear that one wrong research note will end any and all streams of funding?

Too afraid of doing wrong, nobody can do right, right?

And then, why don’t all these smart scientists, because of the tight, tight, tight resources they all complain about, gather all the research bits and pieces they’ve collected over the years and use their gorgeous, helpful brains to consolidate all these powerful bits and pieces from other research departments all over the globe and come up with gorgeous, helpful answers? There are significant pieces of the puzzle waiting to be connected. It just makes sense to connect them, right?

From my optimistic (and, in retrospect, very naively Polly-Anna-ish ) attempt at sourcing out a hopeful project to get behind and support through fundraising efforts, I have been held back by the obvious reality that any dollars I could raise for thyroid disease research might only be worth 22 cents, or God forbid, even less, when you remove the good sense component. It doesn’t feel “clear” for me to ask people to donate to something that is not committed to the absolute best use of their gorgeous, helpful contributions. That feels wrong, right?

There’s really not much good sense to be found in any research department when enthusiasm and optimism are in short supply. I understand these folks have had years of disappointment and struggles (believe me, I know what that feels like) forcing them to cut back, back down, and shut down, all because of where their cents are coming from, and the needs of those “givers” (or takers?) I also understand that that sort of uninspired attitude and environment is not conducive to breakthroughs and ingenuity.

Why do we make it this way? Why don’t we make it clear—right and good and truthful?  

Not-always-so-charitable charities, academic arrogance (pah-leazze), business ignorance and short-sighted greed, and fear of retaliation seem to be the stopping points here—they don't make any sense.

Seriously, does any of this make sense to you?

Ok, now you’re thinking, perhaps a little un-beamused, “Whoa! I was enjoying the toaster news, thinking about getting myself one of them "breakthrough" devices, and then you go off on this crazy tangent! Jeepers, pull it together, Bea. What the heck does any of this have to do with see-through toasters?!”

Yay! This makes sense!

Sometimes we coast along, inside the box, like the “this is what a toaster is and that’s just the way it is” box, and we lose sight of the possibilities--forgetting to address the real needs, the stuff that actually makes good use of cents and good sense. Instead, we are fuelled by the arrogance of past accomplishments, lazily hanging on, losing sight of the task at hand, half-heartedly driven by the fear of doing wrong and losing credibility, however imagined that credibility might be.

Here we see how someone had the courage to step out of the box, the passion to imagine something new, and in so doing, things were made absolutely clear...as they should be.

Nice and clear.

We like things that way. No need for burnt toast anymore.

No siree. 

That makes me feel hopeful.  

Wow, I probably just made that smart toaster manufacturer another gazillion cents.

Obviously, it pays to be brave.  

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Always,

Bea True