"The organization of the European Games thinks about everyone. We motivate professionals to have more fun at work, we motivate housewives to have more fun in the supermarket, we motivate children to play, and we even have a special event for the heavy people. As long as they have money to pay us, we treat everyone with respect, without discrimination. Therefore, it's a pleasure and an honour to present you the Q&A Contest, the perfect game for our oldest generation.
» To compete, each candidate has to speak Basic English, and they have to be over 65 years of age. Of course, our questions are about general topics because if we'd ask «How tall is the Eiffel Tower?», it would give an unfair advance to the French contestant. Please, welcome our 50 competitors with warm applause!"
They planned to hold the Q&A Contest in the auditorium of the local high school, but the organization decided to switch location to the Stade Francis-Le Blé, where they placed 50 tables and chairs in a circle around the central circle of the football field, and where 16.000 enthusiastic supporters from everywhere (every contestant invited all hor friends and family) welcome the players. On the tones of the official hymn of the European Games, the grandpas and grandmas from all over Europe enter the field in alphabetic order of their country, waving with joy and pride on their way to their seats. The official hymn has to be restarted three times because our most experienced generation is not the fastest anymore, and those modern walking frames don't work well on the short-cut grass of a football field. The audience doesn't mind. They clap until even the slowest contestant has found her place at the table.
The host, popular Gary Lineker, explains the rules: "You all see an electronic device before you. That is called a tablet computer. No, Miss Hungary, take it out of your mouth, it's not a tablet of chocolate, you can't eat it, you touch it, with your fingers, yes, that's right… Each question will be asked by a special guest. The four possible answers will appear on the screen of your tablet. All you have to do is tap the correct answer. The computer will do the rest. Does everybody understand?"
"When do we get the chocolate?", Miss Hungary wants to know.
"You'll get lunch and a chocolate medal when this event is over.", Gary replies.
"My hands are trembling a bit. If I make a mistake, can I correct it?", Mister Albania asks.
"A good question, Mister Albania. When we ask the question, you have 10 seconds to tap the correct answer. If you make a mistake, you can use the remaining time to tap the correct one. When the 10 seconds are over, the computer records your answer, and the answers to the next question will appear on your screen. Is everything clear now? I want to present our first guest of tonight to you. He will ask a question about sports. We are proud to present you, all the way from Jamaica, the legendary winner of 9 Olympic medals [yes, we count the one that was taken from him because someone else cheated], 11 times World Champion, 6 times holder of the World Record, and officially the fastest man on earth… Usain Bolt!"
Accompanied by a standing ovation, Mister Bolt steps on the field, waves at the audience, walks to the central circle and… comes to me to shake hands with an old friend: "Hey, mon. You okay, mon?"
"I'm okay, Bob. How are you?"
Bob grins: "I'm cool, mon. They pay me 50 euros to ask one question. They think I'm me brother Usain, you know."
Gary Lineker grabs Bob by an ear and drags him to the centre: "Usain is the holder of the World Record on the 100 metres. His question is: «How long did it take Usain Bolt to run 100 metres when he set his World Record in Berlin in 2009?» The possible answers are:
» A. 9,58 seconds
» B. 9,58 hours
» C. 9,58 weeks
» D. 9,58 kilos
» The time starts—"
Bob objects: "Hey, mon. You're asking me question. You're getting me 50 euros now?"
"100 metres? How far is that? I mean, in real life distance.", Miss Czech Republic asks.
"It's from here to the bathroom. Do you have to go? I have to go too. Perhaps we can go together.", Miss Slovakia answers.
"I can't answer this question. Someone stole my mouse.", Miss Bosnia & Herzegovina mutters.
Mister Bulgaria wants to help his neighbour: "You can have my mouse. His name is Mickey." He takes his pet from his breast pocket and shows it to Miss Bosnia & Herzegovina.
"AH! A MOUSE! HE TRIES TO EAT ME! HELP!"
Gary tries to calm down the candidates while Bob and I help several women climb down from their chairs and tables: "Please, sit down. There's nothing to be afraid of. Mister Bulgaria, please put your pet away. We're trying to have an international contest here. The biology question follows later. Please, ladies and gentlemen…"
When the peace has returned and the candidates have taken their seats again (except for Miss Czech Republic and Miss Slovakia who 'had to go'), Gary tries to get the focus back on our main event, his question about the World Record: "Are we ready to answer the question?"
"My battery is empty.", Mister Greece objects.
"It doesn't matter if your hearing device doesn't work, Sir. All you have to do is tap the answer on your tablet.", Gary explains.
Mister Greece lifts his hands in despair: "Are you deaf? My hearing device works perfectly. What I said was: the battery of my tablet is empty. It went black."
Slightly irritated, Gary strides to Mister Greece's table and turns the tablet upside-down. Instead of the black backside, it shows again the illuminated touch screen with the four answers: "Can we go on now?"
Miss Andorra agrees: "Yes, can we go on now? We don't have all day, you know. If you're old like me, time is a valuable thing. I don't like to waste even one second of the time that remains to me."
Mister Turkey doesn't understand: "And what's so important? You're in the middle of the attention of the entire world, only a few answers away from immortality. What are you complaining about?"
"Well, before I die, I would like to see the Eiffel Tower, for instance. I just realised I don't even know how tall the thing is.", Miss Andorra replies.
"That's easy. The Eiffel Tower was built by Gustav Eiffel and opened in 1889 for the World Fair. With its 324 metres, it's the highest tower in Europe. It's visited yearly by 7 million people.", Miss France explains.
"You see? Every year, 7 million people have a great day, and I'm wasting my time here. How long will this silly game take anyway?", Miss Andorra complains.
"We have 50 questions, and each will take 10 seconds to answer. That won't cost you even 10 minutes of your life.", Gary grumbles.
"10 seconds per question? We've already been here for fifteen minutes and we haven't even answered one. This is going to take forever.", Miss Norway calculates.
I fully agree with her. With the average life expectancy of each of the candidates, divided by the time it takes to answer one simple question, this might become the first Game that ends with a funeral.
Mister Switzerland adds: "I've visited the Eiffel Tower during my honeymoon. It was the best day of my life."
Gary is losing his patience: "The Eiffel Tower stands in Paris. Even the TGV takes almost four hours to get there. Answering the question about the World Record takes only 10 seconds. So I suggest…"
Bob has another suggestion: "I can take you to Paris a lot faster, mo'om, I mean, granmo'om. Me friend Bugs gave me a good tip, so I sold me taxi and bought a touring car. Bolt Tours, fastest on the planet. If you like, we can all go."
Miss Portugal, Miss Finland, Mister Ukraine and Mister Iceland accept: "Good idea." - "Wonderful idea." - "Let's go right away." - "I have always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower."
Mister Austria objects: "Wait a second… Wait 9.58 seconds… We were promised lunch when this show is over. I don't want to miss that."
Miss Macedonia wants more info from Gary before she decides: "Yes, Mister Knowsitall. What's for lunch?"
Mister Slovenia reads from the official program: "Croissant au Camembert, Escargots de Bourgogne, y vin du país grand ordinaire."
Miss Switzerland knows some French: "That sounds like something, but it means a bread roll with cheese, snails, and a very ordinary country wine."
Miss France waves the storming protests away: "We can have lunch in Paris, and dinner too. My grandson has a petit restaurant in Quartier Latin. You're all invited."
"With me bus, it will take 9.58 minutes to get there, granmo'om. World Record, guaranteed. If we leave now, we won't get stuck in the rush hour. The mon who sells the Eiffel Tower tickets is a cousin of me. If you give him some sweets, he'll let us all enter on a cheap ticket."
All the old-timers are excited about this unexpected excursion. They are right: climbing the Eiffel Tower is something unforgettable, a memory you will cherish forever, until the end of your life or the start of your Alzheimer. They get up and walk towards the exit, together, helping the ones who have problems with walking, and pushing the wheelchairs of the ones who've solved those problems. Bob shows the way: "I parked me bus right in front of the door. You can board with a lift, and it has a bathroom too."
Gary, Doc, fifty tables, and I stay behind in the stadium. The 16.000 spectators are as quiet as the white mouse in the breast pocket of Mister Bulgaria.
"What do we do now?", Gary asks Doc.
Doc grabs the microphone: "What do we do now? We give them warm applause, of course. These folks have experience in life. They don't want to waste their precious time playing stupid games, or (even worse) watching others playing stupid games. We should follow their example: go out and have fun.
» I have an important message for you all: 69 Free Export Beer is the official sponsor of this event and they wish you all a happy day. There are 16.000 people here, coming from 50 different countries all over Europe, and you don't know even one of them. 16.000 people, and more loneliness than anyone can bear. I have another important message, the message inside every bottle: give away a 69 Free Export Beer and find out what you'll get back. Shake hands with each other, say your name and where you're from, invite each other to a bottle of 69 alcohol-free Export Beer and find out how nice and interesting it is to meet someone from another country.
» 50 Grandparents from 50 countries are going to have a great day, visiting the Eiffel Tower. We should follow their example and have a great day too. Are there any musicians here? Anyone here who likes to dance? Does anybody want to go fishing with me?"
Advice from a Cuban doctor, from the country where the best doctors and nurses of the world come from, such advice should not be neglected. When the director of the show starts the music, 16.000 spectators stand up, enter the field and start dancing. Life's too short to waste even one second of it. Life's a party; all you have to do is celebrate. Our most experienced generation just showed us how to do it…
* * *
On our way from the Stade Francis-Le Blé to the hospital, Doc and I have our own Q&A Contest.
"Are you crazy?", I ask, while I push his wheelchair through the crowded streets.
"Why? I named the beer brand three times. Thanks to my slogan, 15.000 people in the Stade Francis-Le Blé bought a bottle. I don't think 3.000 euros is too much. Do you know how much they paid Gary? He didn't mention their brand name even once…"
Doc puts the envelope with the money in the inner pocket of his white coat.
"If you calculate 3.000 euro commission for 15.000 bottles sold, it's 20 cents per bottle, indeed a fine fee, especially if you divide it by the time it took you to earn that money: twenty seconds to say the words plus two hours of negotiations over lunch with the representative of the beer brand.
» But I'm looking at 'crazy' from another point of view. They expected between 5% and 10% of the Europeans would watch these Games. Last night, we had 750 million viewers, with an average rating of 4 stars. [Star-rating like readers give stars to books: 1 = horrible, I switched the TV off / I didn't finish the book, 2 = I finished it but I didn't like it, 3 = I liked it, 4 = I recommend it and I'm looking forward to the next episode, 5 stars = between the best ever] A viewer from outside of Europe compensated for every European who didn't watch this show. The exposure of these Games in the world is tremendous. After the Olympics and the World Championships of Football, Athletics and Rugby, this is the biggest event in the media of the last four years. The European Games dominate the major headlines of almost every respected newspaper. Every word you say, YOU, Doc, has more impact on society than a president of a respected country, confessing an affair."
Doc still doesn't get it: "So 750 million people heard me say «stupid games». So what? They are stupid games. I don't care. We have freedom of speech. Nobody will fire me for giving my opinion: I have a contract, and at such short notice, they can't find another doctor who's as good as I am."
"You still don't get it, Doc. To put their name on the All You Can Eat Contest, Pizza Slut pays one cent per viewer. They earned it back on the same night, thanks to the effective brainwash of TV and advertising. Five percent of the viewers were brain-dead enough to react by instinct to every suggestion on the screen. They ordered a Pizza Slut pizza for dinner. [«brain-dead» means here «not able to realise that Pizza Slut adds 50 cents per pizza to pay for the costs of publicity», while another brand sells the same pizza for half a euro less; with beer and other drinks, the difference between advertised brands and other brands is often half the price: advertising is paid by the consumers who buy the product, not by the brand itself, and publicity doesn't make any product better, it only makes the product more expensive.]
» You mentioned the brand name «69 Free Export Beer» three times and invented their best slogan ever. Your «message in a bottle» launched a completely new publicity campaign. If you'd only have thought of letting them pay the same fee as Pizza Slut, it would have been 750 million cents, which is 7,5 million euros. But you are happy with 3.000 euros. Are you crazy, Doc?"
"Damned! I'm crazy!"
"Don't say «Damned!», please. Say «Rostov!» if you want to express surprise or irritation or another strong feeling. There's no need to relate your emotions to something holy for other people, and neither is there the shitty necessity to refer to our necessities, or the sick custom to refer to diseases, whenever you need words to express your frustration. «Rostov» is an educated word, perfectly fit for the task, thanks to the strong sound of the starting R and the two O's."
Doc tries hard to sound educated: "Rostov! I'm crazy. I could have earned seven million euros and a tax-free route to get it. I'm crazy. Shall we go back and renegotiate the conditions?"
"Did you sign the agreement?"
"Yes, I did."
"Then I wish you an expensive and incompetent lawyer. Those people have now a budget of 7,5 million euros to spend on legal advisers, and you have 3.000 euros. Who's going to win that race?"
"Rostov! I'm crazy… Tonight is the Sumo Suit Wrestling tournament. Should I visit the representative of XXXXXL Fashion and try to get a deal with them before the event starts?"
"They sell clothes, Doc. They sign deals with people who wear their clothes on TV during events. Are you going to dress like Heavy Heather?"
Doc sighs, lifts his hands in a powerless, hopeless way, and decides to forget about it: "It's a good thing I'm still suffering the effects of Prepoleptyl: I've been stupid, but at least I don't feel bad about it… Let's forget it and look forward again. We have the rest of the afternoon off. The Sumo Suit Wrestling starts at 18:00."
I push the wheelchair up the ramp. We cross the hall of the hospital and enter the lift. I push the button of the fourth floor where Doc has his office. The silence helps me think more clearly.
"I've been thinking… Perhaps it's time you tell me about Prepoleptyl now.", I start.
"I've been thinking too.", Doc says suspiciously, after a brief silence: "First you save my life and stay cool like Italian ice cream. Then you confess you have a degree in Economy. I hear you speak seven languages with everyone we meet, quite impressive for someone in his early twenties. You run around Brest at night, delivering highly confidential documents. One night, you disappear to follow a mafia boss and his mysterious lady. On top of that, you want to know everything about G.O.D., Prepoleptyl and other drugs. Who are you, Bugs?"
"I'm your friend."
The lift doors open. The walls have ears. We say nothing more until I close the door of Doc's office behind us. In this safe environment, Doc's curiosity starts looking for answers again: "Are you a spy? What's your mission here? Do you work for the CIA? MI6? The Mossad? Russia?"
"I can tell you everything about it, but after that, I'll have to kill you for stealing secrets of the State."
"I've sworn an oath not to reveal medical secrets. Also, you can trust me for being your friend…"
"If I tell you, will you tell me about the Prepoleptyl?"
Doc doesn't hesitate: "I will. I promise. You can trust me. Under the condition you won't tell anyone, not your boss, not your family, nobody."
"You can trust me too, Doc. You were right: I'm a spy. Keeping secrets is my job. Saving the world is my passion. I work for the LSD, the Luxembourg Spy Department. My mission is to localise the manufacturer of G.O.D., to obtain the drug itself or its formula, and to use it, so Luxembourg wins the medal race of the European Games. I suspect Manny, I suspect Tong Au and I suspect the Gambino family, but after an entire week without sleep, I'm still standing with empty hands. That's it. Now you. Prepoleptyl. What's the story?"
"Can you prepare us some tea first?"
"I'll prepare tea while you do the talking. You said it was a long story…"
Doc nods: "It is. What do you know about emotions, sentiments, feelings?"
"That's a strange question. Do you want to know if I have emotions myself? Or how I know that others have them? Or what?"
Doc clarifies his question: "No, sorry. I mean the medical side of it. I'll try to explain it to you, simple. Emotions are strongly related to instincts. Both are… let's call them «signals from Mother Nature». Emotions help us make important survival decisions. When we experience fear, our body reacts with an adrenaline boost that helps us to fight or to fly. When we meet a mate, our emotions release a chemical reaction of mutual attraction. Those signals of wellbeing and love help us produce offspring and raise them in a protective family circle. Our anger helps us to dominate weaker forms of life. Emotions, like instincts, are ancient signals of survival that our environment gives to our brain.
» Most of our brain has the task of a computer hard disk, storing information for later use. The brain's emotional centre looks more like the processor of the computer, the central point where data comes in and actions go out. Do you have experience with anaesthesia?"
"Yes, of course. Both with the local version a dentist uses (I know the drill) and with a full knockout during a medical operation; they took my appendix out when I was fifteen."
"The full knockout is a nice metaphor: it makes you unconscious of anything you feel. But the dentist's local anaesthesia is better to start with. When you burn your hand, you feel the pain. You think you feel that pain in your hand. Your nerves send signals to your emotional centre, your processor. That processor gives you the perception of pain in your hand, but you really 'feel' the pain in your brain, in your emotional centre. Did you ever hear of people who have pain in amputated limbs? Their brain, their processor, tells them signals are coming in, even when the nerve that should send those signals isn't even there anymore. Is it all clear so far?"
I serve the tea (Earl Grey… ugh… It tastes like someone dropped a drop of French perfume in hot water), and nod.
Doc continues: "Prepoleptyl works as a full knockout, but only on your emotional centre, on the part of your brain that registers the incoming signals. It works like local anaesthesia, but it doesn't paralyse the nerves like your dentist's injection. Prepoleptyl turns off the processor where the nerves send their signals to. The second difference with your dentist's anaesthesia is that locally paralysed nerves start working again after one or two hours, while Prepoleptyl stops working after… Well, I really don't know. Perhaps it doesn't stop working at all. Perhaps I'm doomed to be without feelings for the rest of my life. I don't worry about that, of course, as I'm on Prepoleptyl, so I don't suffer any feelings at all, but I'm the first human who's been injected with the stuff, already a week ago…"
"Six days. I gave you the injection last Thursday, around 09:00 AM. Today is Wednesday."
Doc sips his tea: "For a grown-up like me, 80 kilos, normal health and normal posture, those 20cc you injected me with should be out of my blood in…"
Doc searches some info in a book behind him, makes a few calculations, checks another book and does a bit of research on the Internet with his computer: "… if you'd injected it in my heart, as instructed, or in my bloodstream via a vein, the medicine would have worked between four and five days. After that, the white blood cells would have cleaned up about 50% of it and the brain would slowly start to function again like before the injection. But you injected it in my buttock, in the muscles. It will cost the body more time to 'digest' the pollution (the body sees anything from 'outside' as 'pollution'). Between eight and ten days, I should feel something again. If I can get some strong emotions in the following days, I might notice the effect. But it's also possible my white blood cells won't be able to digest the medicine… If I don't feel anything soon… it might stay like this for the rest of my life. Do you have any idea what that means?"
My enthusiasm for the medicine is much warmer than for the tea: "That's fantastic, Doc. Imagine the CEO of a major company who doesn't feel anything. He would fire inefficient workers without feeling responsible for ending their careers. He would not hesitate to sell customers worthless products for high prices, after a convincing campaign of lies and deceiving. Without remorse, he would easily sacrifice nature for his goals and decide to dump the toxic waste of his factories. All those methods are much cheaper than taking care. In short: anyone on Prepoleptyl would be SUCCESSFUL. You have gold in your hands, Doc. You can sell this to the rich elite for any price you want."
Doc didn't think about that: "Do you think so?"
"And what about that lady with her depression? Do you have any idea how many people suffer from depression? 300 million people, Doc, with the highest percentages in India, the USA, the Netherlands and France. Around 800.000 people die every year of suicide because of depression, making it the second-highest cause of death under 15-to-29-year-olds. Five percent of the world's population suffers from depression. All they need is one injection to turn off all those horrible feelings. You can become the best doctor ever in history. Your name will be written in neon light, high above the names of Louis Pasteur, Alexander Fleming, and Doctor Zhivago. You can become rich…"
"Rich… The word doesn't give me any feeling right now. Perhaps in a few days, I think differently about it, but now… Without feelings, all the work goes to the logic part of your brain, Bugs. For a depressed patient, a Prepoleptyl injection would only work temporarily. Treating the symptoms is useless if you don't solve the problems that cause depression. The pain and the sadness are powerful signals to change, learn, and improve. Without them, it would be like cleaning the floor while the ceiling is leaking.
» The problem humanity has with emotions is simple: our world changed, but our alarm system is still the same antique set of emotions that worked already a billion years before the Clan of the Cave Bear. When we eat, when we do nothing, or when we have sex, we feel pleasure. Our emotions stimulate us to eat more and reproduce ourselves. Instinctive laziness, saving all our energy for food and sex, avoids death by starvation and extinction of the species. Now, look at the actual dangers of our modern world. We don't die of hunger but of being overweight, caused by moving too little and eating too much. The amount of humans on our planet doubles with every generation, making overpopulation a much more realistic threat than the extinction of the species. We don't have to run for lions or cave bears anymore; our biggest enemy is humanity itself. We are doing the wrong things because we act according to our instincts instead of listening to our brains. Turning our emotions off would only make things worse: we would start a war; we would kill all the others without mercy, to give the ones without feelings a bigger chance to survive…
» What would happen if you wouldn't have any feelings? What would happen with your hand when you wouldn't feel anything when you put it into the flames? Your flesh would burn, you would lose your hand, and you wouldn't even care. When you drink without getting drunk, you would drink yourself to death. How about eating without having the satisfaction of having enough? Making love would be devaluated to having sex. What would happen if the powerful people on this planet would not care about others anymore, if they would just think about themselves? It would be a question of years, perhaps even less, and humanity would destroy itself.
» We need those feelings, Bugs. Prepoleptyl doesn't just turn off the negative emotions, but also our capacity to enjoy, to feel love, hope, and excitement. Our feelings are important, not only from a medical point of view but also from a human point of view: our emotions make us feel alive. Almost everything we do has «positive emotions» as its ultimate goal: winning a game, kissing a woman, buying something you like, doing something you love. Turning off your emotions is worse than suicide, Bugs. A life without emotions would turn us into zombies…"
Suddenly, slurping this awful Earl Grey tea gives me a completely different sensation. Would this tea be better if it had no taste at all? What's my emotion when I drink this? I compare it to the sensation of drinking the Russian tea Rostov sent me, and I like that Russian tea better… If Earl Grey was the only taste available, I would like it, perhaps even love it…
Doc is right. We need bad experiences, so we can evaluate our good experiences better. Our feelings are the 'judges' in that contest. What was it Doc said to that woman with the depression? «You don't want to turn off your emotions. You need to learn how to dominate them.» And he taught her that in five minutes. Flip the switch and repeat, repeat, repeat your mental training of positive thinking. Be realistic. Use your brain to understand what your emotions tell you: you're not depressed; you just think you're depressed. Enjoy what you have and what you are. Be aware of all the wonderful things you can do. Every minute you lose will never come back again. Those old folks understood that lesson perfectly well during this morning's Q&A Contest… You can't turn off your feelings, they're part of «you», but you can learn to dominate them, by training positive thinking.
I've read books about that phenomenon of positive thinking. Last month, I've tried to motivate Scarlett with it during my mission in Poland. It worked. Training is a matter of repeat, repeat, repeat. If we can train an hour per week and become better football players, if we can train 30 to 40 hours per week during the years we're at school and learn important things like language and mathematics, then we can also learn to dominate our feelings and overcome our depression. We don't even need medicines, just someone who explains the trick to us. One book with instructions, one website, would be enough to save the world…
"Why did you invent Prepoleptyl, Doc? What was your final goal? Which problem did you try to solve with it?"
Doc looks away. He's not in a mood to answer the question. After giving it some thought, he prefers to walk around it: "At first, I had the same idea as you: without emotions, you can become successful. When you're in an Olympic marathon and your opponent falls… you don't stop and help him up; you go on and think «one less». When you play the final of the World Championships, you don't think «that other team worked so hard… they deserve a reward too…» You try to be as selfish as you can to win that match. Without emotions, you can be successful. If nobody can trace Prepoleptyl… it would be the perfect drug for any athlete to perform better. Training wouldn't hurt you. Defeat wouldn't disappoint you. Doubt wouldn't molest you. You would perform like a machine, an efficient robot with the perfect set-up to get the best out of yourself."
It takes a while before I realise the impact of those words. For a full five minutes, we both don't say a word. Even our tea gets cold, as cold as the shiver that runs up and down my spine: "You wanted to sell it as a Success Magnifier. You wanted to create a new drug and sell it to athletes…"
"Yes. But it doesn't work. I've just decided I won't use it or sell it to anyone. You can trust me, Bugs. This isn't an emotional moment. I don't feel sad or ashamed. As long as I'm at Prepoleptyl, I feel nothing at all. I took logical decision, fully conscious. No sentiments disturbed my process of reason. Prepoleptyl is a message in a bottle: a warning against madness taking over. That bottle stays closed. I will not let the mad genie escape. Prepoleptyl's secret formula of dies with me.
» We, humans, are what we are, thanks to the balance between our emotions and our reason. When we take one part away, we take the balance away and we take our identity away. Without feelings to protect us, we would create a new species of zombies, as dangerous as the Übermensch that the Germans had in mind before they started World War Two."
"We have to learn how to dominate our feelings, not how to turn them off.", I add.
"That's right. We can treat 300 million people with 300 million bottles, but it's much better (and also much cheaper) to send a Save Our Soul to the world by giving them the formula for how to cure depression: flip the switch and repeat, repeat, repeat your positive thinking."
"Why didn't you think of that before?"
Doc almost looks depressed (impossible, of course): "Do you see that stretcher on wheels over there? It has a name. It's called a gurney, after J.T. Gurney from Boston, who invented the concept in 1883. Mister Gurney did humanity a favour and in return, humanity will forever remember his name."
"And you wanted to do something for humanity? You were not interested in making money by selling drugs?"
"No drugs. Medicine. The money is just a reward from society for the ones who did something important. Selling medicine can make me famous. Selling bottles with a successful product can make me the doctor whose name will be written in neon lights, high above those of Louis Pasteur, Alexander Fleming, and Doctor Zhivago. But giving people free access to knowledge, words, information…"
… and letting them figure it out for themselves, without paying for it, without giving the credits to the doctor who invented the idea…
Doc doesn't finish his thoughts. You can't patent or copyright an idea. It's clear as a message in a bottle. Doc wanted to stand in the spotlights. He wanted to become the Number One medic in the world. With Prepoleptyl, he hoped to win the Gold Medal for Best Doctor during the World Games.
But now, he knows he won't get it.
It's good he's on Prepoleptyl. If he were not, his disappointment would certainly drive him into a depression, and who knows where that would lead to…
Doc is an optimist. He throws the cold remainders of his tea into his throat and ends the discussion: "But we have still one chance: we can find that G.O.D.-doping. If that works better, we might sell it instead. I'm an optimist. Don't look back at failure; look forward to a better solution. We still have one more chance…"