Preventive Medicine Column
May 15, 2015
Graduates, Rage Now!
I was privileged to receive an honorary doctoral degree from Quinnipiac University last weekend,
and to deliver the commencement address for the Graduate Programs in the Health Sciences. My column this
week is excerpted from what I said.
Whatever the full array of connotations intended by Dylan Thomas in his famous poem, Do Not Go
Gentle Into That Good Night, I think we may comfortably endorse the basic proposition, but repudiate the
timing. And that leads directly to the only advice I feel qualified to offer you today: rage now!
I would not wait to rage until wizened, and withered, and wispy. I would not wait to rage until
stooped, and spindly, and sarcopenic. I would not wait until frail, and failing, and feeble, and futile. I would
not wait, and nor should you.
Rage, while young. Rage, while strong. Rage, while resolute, and resilient. Rage while buoyant, and
boisterous. Rage with limbs unwearied by the miles and dead-ends. Rage, with a conscience uncluttered.
Rage, with supple hearts as citadels of righteous rage. Rage, while foolish enough to believe in the possible.
Rage now.
Rage against standards of care that fail to meet your standards, wherever and however you encounter
them. Rage against a society that has known for literal decades how to prevent fully 80% of all chronic
disease, but has done so little to convert what it knows into what it does. Rage against a perennial,
preventable loss of years from lives, and life from years.
Rage against the hypocrisies of a culture that wrings its hands over epidemic obesity and diabetes in
children, yet continues glibly to run on Dunkin’, wrap its pizzas in ever more copious garlands of bacon, and
market multicolored marshmallows to kids as ‘part of a complete breakfast.’ Rage against the willful
engineering of addictive junk food. Rage against procrastination, and prevarication, and profit-driven
predation.
Rage against the pursuit of only those opinions we already own, and calling it research. Rage against
the divisive echo chambers of cyberspace. Rage against the triumph of ideology over epidemiology; dogma
over data; diatribe, over dialogue.
Rage - at the confluence of science and sense, evidence and empathy - rage there against the false
choice between responsible use of scientific evidence, and responsiveness to the needs of patients that all too
often go on, when the results of randomized, controlled trials, run out. Rage, there, in defense of holism, and
humanism, and the humility to acknowledge - they are the same.
Rage now, and follow your rage along the road that leads to the difference you hope to be in the
world. What road is that? I don’t know. Robert Frost might suggest the road less traveled, whichever one
that is. Yogi Berra would, presumably, advise that when you come to a fork in the road, you take it.
As is often the case with Yogi, the blatant simplicity of that statement may mask its genuine wisdom.
Perhaps the one best hope any of us has to learn what we need to know- is simply by going where we have to
go. That very wisdom is developed in another famous poem, The Waking, by Theodore Roethke: I wake to
sleep and take my waking slow; I learn by going where I have to go.
And so, my young friends, we come to it now. For the rage is all within you; and the roads are all
before you. And it is your time; and it is your turn; and it is your chance; and it is your difference to make;
and it is your road to take. Let none dissuade or divert you. But expect none to direct you. The road that
spends your rage on the difference you need to be in the world belongs uniquely to you, and no one else can
find it.
It is your turn. And we have left for you a mess of messes. We have left you the things we have
broken, and all that we have failed to fix. And now we have the nerve to say to you: it is your turn. And for
that, I can only offer my sincere apology, and my condolences.
But it is also your chance. And the righteous rage is all within you, and the roads along which to
spend that rage to be the difference you hope to see in the world- are all before you. And you are young, and
foolish enough to believe in the possible. And for that, I offer you my genuine envy; my heartfelt
congratulations; and the only parting guidance my own road accords me the right to share: Rage now!
-fin
Dr. David L. Katz; www.davidkatzmd.com; author, Disease Proof; founder, GLiMMER Initiative