The most efficient prison?

 I retired as a colonel from the military hospital in Timisoara. Its high windows with iron bars were a constant reminder that the building has been used as a prison once upon a time. As a military person, I have always thought that doors and locks and bars are the ones that make a prison.

 Recently, I've come to the stark realization that the most efficient prison is made by my own body and that profitable prisons exist even in democratic societies (or should I say formerly democratic?) only we give them different names to sugar their impact. Institutions like nursing homes for elderly people, and schools and day care centers for young people form external prisons. Then there are our own homes and this pandemic has turned them into prisons.

 I know that for me death will bring a form of release. Yet I have been a afraid of dying even though my body can't move. I only move one hand. I had a dream once of a face-less person who came to take me away. I know it's silly but I was afraid. My daughter tells me that perhaps somebody from the family will come to collect me one day. I saw my father once. He seemed so real, and even my daughter felt a strong form of energy in the room. I don't want to fuel crazy theories -- just to mention in passing that even leaving the worst kind of prison can be hard.

Slavery has been profitable in the past, and slaves were more expensive than almost anything else throughout much of history. The most modern form of slavery uses a combination of screens that show addictive content (e.g., movies, games, and the internet, etc), and the addictive substances that are put in food and drink and enable us to eat so much more than necessary. They are used as tools to eventually create prisons from our own bodies. However, if I could award a prize for the most efficient prison, the screens would take it -- especially the mobile ones that people can take with them everywhere and become so addicted that they find no enjoyment outside the screen.

In spite of all this, a democratic society still gives hope that one can say "no" to the various inducements towards prisons. Of course, there is data analysis that shows that most people won't have that strength, which is why the various prisons are profitable in the first place, and there are studies that make them as profitable as possible. But there still was the possibility of travel and the hope that one's will is stronger than that of almost everyone else's -- at least from time to time. And it's so depressing when that last hope is taken away.

I have vaccinated. I want to believe that democracy will come back even though it might not make much of a difference to me. I am glad vaccination is possible for everyone over 18 in Romania, and while it's a personal decision, as a doctor I urge people to vaccinate. Between the vaccine and the virus, the vaccine is, generally, the lesser evil even if there may be some side effects.