Note

Stepped outside for a smoke today and found a sheet of paper. Probably doesn't mean anything–just a semi-official work document one of the neighbors happened to leave outside and the wind happened to carry to my porch. Just the neutral, causally determined motion of matter according to the laws of nature. And granted, when I say "according to the laws of nature" that's an anthropocentric metaphor that could lead us to draw the wrong conclusions if we take it too literally. It's not as if there were any legislating agency creating the laws of nature, there's no mind or intention behind the motions of matter. What we call laws of nature are simply descriptions of the way we've observed matter to behave in the past and expect it to behave in the future.

The word "model" captures the nature of our descriptions of natural forces much more accurately. Most scientists speak in terms of models rather than in terms of laws of nature these days. The concept "law of nature" carries with it too much metaphysical baggage from 18th century deism, or even earlier superstitions.

The point of that digression into the philosophy of science is this: as a 21st century man, it is not permitted to me to read any significance into the appearance of this piece of paper. It is not a sign from God. It is not a meaningful coincidence. It is not a message that was in any way intended for me. It's simply a thing that happened, merely a member of the set of things that happen to be the case.

Fantasies about a meaningful connection between nature and the human person are a disease of poets, priests, and storytellers. Delusions of this sort give rise to the most appalling superstitions among primitive people, imprecise thinkers, and Swiss psychologists. Rigorous thinkers like you and me, lovely reader, have no patience for such fluff.

Which isn't to say this piece of paper isn't, in some sense, a message. It has words printed on one side. It has words written on the other side. The existence of mind and intention insinuate themselves in its construction.

But it's not a message for me, although I happen to have received it. It's not a message for you, although you happen to be reading about it. It just is. Any meaning you or I draw from it originates from us, not from the world.

Does the silence of infinite space fill you with dread, dear reader?

Anyway, enough lollygagging.

On the printed side of the page there's a heading in bold black type that reads:

(Early Heart Attack Care) EHAC

New Employee Orientation

What follows is a bulleted list of facts about heart attacks and heart attack care. Written with the indifferent grammar and punctuation typical of written communications between management and employees. (We don't bother to write clearly and we don't actually expect to be read, but we're passing this information along to you so you can't claim you didn't know about it.)

About midway down the page there appears a sentence in large, red, bold print:

All employees are required to complete an annual educational module in the LMS system (based upon your position in the system)

Then there's a shorter bulleted list, containing instructions for clinical and non-clinical staff, respectively, to fulfill their annual educational module requirement.

(Which seems like the real point of the message. Everything else seems to be there because some administrator wanted to fill the whole page to make it look more important/official.)

Then there's a few lines about a website for an accreditation program. It doesn't sound like the accreditation program is required, though. Suspect it's just there for the benefit of the type of person who likes to get accredited for things even though they're not required.

And at the bottom there's another line in big, bold print. This time it's in all caps:

BECOME AN AMBASSADOR FOR EHAC AND HELP US BEAT HEART ATTACKS BEFORE THEY HAPPEN!!!!!!

Yes, that's six exclamation points. A universal feature of administrative communications is their overuse of exclamation points. Rather than conveying excitement through the writing or by tapping into the genuine motivations of employees, you just use exclamation points to indicate how much they should care about what they're reading.

(Or, more likely, skimming indifferently)

That's unfair. Some people like their jobs.

Buncha creeps…

Anyway, that's the printed side of the page. Again, no messages here. Just something I happened to find when I went out to smoke. If smoking were a risk factor in heart attacks I'd be worried some supernatural mind was trying to warn me of something.

The other side of the paper holds more human interest. It's a handwritten note in a feminine hand–the script an idiosyncratic hybrid of cursive and print, in which certain letters flow into the next while others don't. The neat, conscientiously legible writing appears squat, because taller letters (such as h, k, l, etc…) are written only slightly taller than the short letters. Very little distinction between capital and lowercase letters. (They are recognizably distinct, but you have to be paying attention to notice it.) I'm not sure how much you can glean about personality from handwriting, but it strikes me as the hand of a person with a great deal of care for appearances but very little natural sense of hierarchy.

(I'd say something about a gnawing dread stemming from feelings of inferiority and insignificance, but that would be going beyond the facts and basically just be me projecting my own issues onto the writer. There's no need for me to read short capital letters as a compulsive need to drag everything high down to the uniform level of the mass.)

The text of the note is as follows:

The best part of the day is interacting with the patients. It's self rewarding to turn their dark times into a more enjoyable experience. Compared to other work organizations, there's an abundance of gratification and feeling of importance. We all agree, our inner hero blooms at work.

PS: [NAME] said he likes the money!

Below the text of the note we find the writer's signature and a drawing of a rose in black pen. The flower, textured in black and colored with a few impressionistic spots of red marker, leans to the right as if lying on a table.

Like we've already observed, the handwritten note on the back holds much more human interest than the official message on the front. The one expresses the workaday world. Impersonal. Businesslike. By its nature somewhat alienating.

And the other? We meet a woman finding satisfaction in her work, or at least trying to find satisfaction in her work, or at least claiming to find satisfaction in her work.

We don't know who the letter is written to, for one thing. How sincere is our writer? How sincere can she afford to be? How sincere does she think she can afford to be?

Is she writing to her boss? Someone higher up in the hospital hierarchy, who could have an influence on her career. We'd have good reason to suspect she's not entirely sincere in that case. It's rarely a good idea to tell the boss you're unsatisfied in your work.

Family? Parents? Same problem. You always have to have it together for the parents.

A friend, then? Always have to control appearances with friends. Can't let them suspect you're anything other than blissfully happy or else they won't envy you. And what's the use of having friends to begin with, if not to have somebody envy you?

A lover? Not likely. You don't talk about work with a lover until after you've gotten bored with them. And anyway, John (who likes the money, as we all know) probably fills that role, at least in most times and in most places.

Or is she writing for herself? Again, not likely. Of course, we've all had to pump ourselves up now and then–remind ourselves why we do the things we do, tighten our focus, keep ourselves on the path. And even if she's writing to herself it's no guarantee of accuracy. People lie to themselves all the time. Probably it takes a stronger moral effort to be honest with ourselves than it does to be honest with anyone else.

But as to the actual content of the letter? We have a woman finding a sense of satisfaction in her work. Importance. The blooming of the inner hero. There's something delightfully naive (or euphemistic?) in the phrase about turning patients' dark times into "a more enjoyable experience."

There's humanity here. Humanity that wants to meaningfully contribute to the well being of others. A caring desire to help others in their suffering. Lifting spirits and healing bodies.

Again, I don't think there's any particular meaning in my finding this note. Probably a nurse or nurse's assistant wrote it to tell herself and whoever she wrote it for that her work is worthwhile. Likely she's fresh out of school and it's her first real hospital job. She's a little jittery, a little nervous, and needs a little reminder of why she does what she does.

And if she happened to misplace the note, that's just a thing that happened. And if the misplaced note happened to find its way to me, that's also just a thing that happened. We might like to read the hand of fate or the presence of a Mind beyond nature into simple coincidences, but they're really just simple coincidences.

Probably.

But whatever she was thinking when she wrote and despite the happenstance that I happened to find the note, there's real truth in it. There's an inner hero in this woman, an inner hero who finds expression in the care she gives to others. Possibly as the years go by she'll become a little jaded, a little cynical. Maybe she never really imagined herself working as any kind of medical professional, and maybe she'll struggle to find meaning in the work.

But I hope she keeps that inner hero alive in her. I hope through all the everyday struggles, boredom, and inevitable disappointment she can keep alive the part of her that's sensitive to the good that she does.

It's so easy to become cynical. It's so easy to think, "She must just be writing this to keep up appearances." It's so easy to blind ourselves to the good we do for others.

Probably I'll never know the woman who wrote that note. Probably it's just a meaningless coincidence that I found it. Probably there's no use in looking for deeper meanings behind the events of this world.

But I hope she keeps the inner hero alive, all the same.