Liverpool Care Pathway - When The Glass is Half Full, You Don't Need To Be Told It's Half Empty

Just as repetitive tasks may cause stress and metal fatigue in materials, so does the brain succumb to mental fatigue. Thus has my brain succumbed these past few days…
According to Better Health USA -

Mental fatigue can be caused by continual mental effort and attention on a particular task, as well as high levels of stress or emotion. Basically, any mental process that goes into overload can result in this disorder. 

...there are several ways in which sufferers can help themselves. The first is through exercise, as this will improve oxygen levels in the blood stream. The second is to take a good look at your diet.

Many people begin to show signs of mental fatigue later in the working day ... tasks seem much more complicated, concentration is low, and mistakes are made. Likewise, late nights spent working or studying can cause mental fatigue, making information difficult to recollect and resulting in mistakes and clumsiness. 

Although there is no actual cure for mental fatigue, you will find many elixirs and herbal remedies on the market that claim to help with this condition. They are usually little 'pick-me-ups' and can work very temporarily, but have no long-term effect on continuous mental fatigue.

This sounds good advice. I have worked for most of my life in the great outdoors with the open sky as my roof. I could always work solid for 6 hours without a break and never tire. Still can if it’s physical work. My current circumstances have changed all that, however, and my working roof is now a ceiling….

I shall attain an age this year when I shall be considered by a growing number of social architects such as Jacques Attali to have ceased my economic usefulness. On the Communitarian spectrum, I shall be joining that throng of wretches classified as making disproportionate and unfair demands upon what tightly managed and rationed resources society may permit.

Then, I should think twice, perhaps, in making public any such physical or mental dwindling should it be noted and I be elected for the 1% elect for grooming to accept that I am on my way out and that all I should expect is palliative rather than curative care. 

"Shucks," as my elder American cousin is wont to declare, "I don't aim on checking out just yet!"

Why am I writing all this? Well it just occurred to me that when you’re on a low par physically or mentally, the last thing you want or need to here is some death-cultist psychophant doing psychometrics in your head, grooming you for the pathway. And a song by Stanley Holloway sprung to mind that used to be very popular on Family Favourites, once broadcast on the Light Programme back when the BBC was more like the BBC used to be.

This is it on You Tube -

        STANLEY HOLLOWAY: 

   My Word You Do Look Queer.

I've been very poorly but now I feel prime,
I've got up today for the very first time.
I felt like a lad as I went to the door:
It was the District Nurse but she said, ‘Are you sure…?
My word you do look queer!
My word you do look queer!
Oh, dear! You look dreadful: you do need a shave,
You look like a man with one foot in the grave.' 

I said, 'Bosh! l'm better; it's true I've been ill.' 
She said, 'I'm delighted you're better, but still, 
We’d better discuss your Living Will. 
My word, you do look queer!'

That really upset me; I felt quite cast down, 
I tried to buck up, but up came Dr. Brown. 
He stared at me hard, then he solemnly said, 
'You shouldn't be up, you should get back to bed: 
That’s where folk want to die; he smiled as he went.:
Still, you’ll still do for my one percent! 
'My word you do look queer! 
My word you do look queer! 
I’ve seen all the signs: your missus has gone;

Let’s talk about dying, well you are getting on. 
I’ve been eyeing you up; how old are you now?

You know dying matters, well I know, anyhow.

My word! You do look queer!'

With apologies to:-
(Bob Weston / Bert Lee)Stanley Holloway (Monologue)

Their words are a mantra recited, chapter and verse; a liturgy held with such respect it might as well be from a religious tract. The adherents of these death pathways behave with such fervour in their beliefs the death pathway might as well be a death cult. Their obsession is frightening to perceive.

The most  horrifying thing to observe is the absolute arrogance with which these people espouse their beliefs with a thorough conviction that they are perfectly correct and that to even contemplate anything otherwise is madness - as do all cultists espouse their deep-held convictions.

It borders on fanaticism.

They are storming through Twitterland brandishing the works of Chairman Ellershaw!

I shall be careful to say more; else shall they send me to the countryside for re-education.