Caring is the key to happiness, success and respect alike. The capacity to care is a universal human potential that must be developed and nurtured as part of our spiritual, intellectual, ethical substance. Failing that, we remain – in my father’s words to me, back under Hitler’s rule – “lightweight for a grownup size.” Indeed, just like flotsam rises after a ship has sunk, lightweights around me have kept rising to the top as institutions and societies compromised their values and started sinking. Naïve believers often mistake such rises for “success,” even inspiration.

As the home stretch of this year’s elections unfolds, we hear calls for saving democracy and honest politics, even as we sometimes wonder whether a world order based on such honesty is even possible. Actually, there are working models of honest, caring, democratic collaborations, ready to be adopted and upscaled.  My family and I found such a model in Damariscotta’s Miles Hospital when my wife, in pain, checked in at their emergency room in the middle of the night. Her diagnosis: appendicitis. During surgery the appendix was found to have burst, prolonging the post-operation recovery.

Post-operative care was an exemplary combination of science, skill and care, delivered by a multiracial, multiethnic nursing staff – from north, south, Canada, Haiti, Colombia, the Philippines and more. They kept track of vital signs and healing progress, keeping the doctors informed. And they cheerfully kept their patient as comfortable as possible. Beth was released from the hospital eight days after her surgery.

What we experienced is also a great model of successful problem solving, one that I, as an engineer, can sum up as the keys to creative competency. They are:

(1) Conduct research. Peruse prior medical-scientific findings, diagnostic tests, monitoring patient progress. Research is the only reliable way to discover reality – e.g., the appendicitis diagnosis and the results of patient monitoring – the only things that matter. From private lives to unfolding world history, everything is a series of real occurrences.

(2) Truth – e.g., the information shared by members of the medical team – is simply information that describes reality. Misinformation, propaganda, beliefs, denials, lies, and so on, are but damaging distractions from truth and reality, with potentially dire consequences.

(3) Questioning and critical evaluation – how members of the medical team decide the appropriate treatment and medications, for example – are the only way to ascertain the truth, and the validity of information from any source.

(4) Respect must be earned by individuals, officials and institutions alike. They earn it by being truthful and caring about the needs of others. Mutual respect is what makes professional collaborations, like those at Miles, possible. Liars, narcissists, hiders behind assorted uniforms may demand, but cannot earn respect.

(5) Equality and mutual respect are the only basis on which diverse people can peacefully and productively work together. We humans are, without exception, equals as members of small minorities within Earth’s great population – of one diaspora among many that may or may not earn the acceptance and respect of the others as citizens of this diverse, multicultural world. This diverse equality is both a comforting fact and a challenge.

I have found the above five key principles applicable to all problems I have been challenged to address. The same simple principles are key to addressing climate change, the Gaza fiasco and this 2024 election season. They define and demonstrate what’s possible. So, the Miles Hospital medical team has much to teach leaders, public servants and citizens alike on both the national and international levels – to act with care, and only on the basis of reality and truth; and to avoid falsehoods, power games and demagoguery. Because only real things matter, i.e., only the facts, uncontaminated by falsehoods, power games and manipulated beliefs.

Sick climate? Ailing country? Warmongering? Demagoguery? Endangered democracy?

What and who could stop us from being diverse, committed caregivers for this country working together?