Wednesday. Fandango’s Provocative Question once again. This week, he asks:

If you could choose anyone, past or present, and walk that proverbial mile in his or her shoes, who would you choose, and why would you choose that person?

Okay, walk a mile in their shoes. Then get back into your own shoes, yeah?

Funnily enough I was having this conversation with somebody only a couple weeks ago, so I should be able to articulate something. The thing is, to experience somebody else’s circumstance, then get transported back to our “old self”, such that what we experience actually teaches us something extra about how we should live our own lives.

At the kind-of “commonplace” end of the scale is something like using a food bank. Seems commonplace enough these days. Certainly before anybody (not just me) is allowed to become wealthy, it should be mandatory to experience life without even the next meal.

At the more “hardcore”end, something like homelessness. Exactly the same arguments.

Quite simply, if our leaders, in particular, had experienced any of these, they wouldn’t exist. And I’m coming at this from the perspective that food banks and homelessness are a bad thing, because there are lots of people out there who don’t seem to mind them.

In some ways, I was glad I had the stroke. It gave me first-hand experience of our health system, and frankly, it could be better. I’ve never even uttered some of the worst nursing I experienced, even to my wife, maybe one day I will. And of our benefits system. Ditto. Could do better. It is not just money, but money plays a big part.

I’m quite unique in having seen these so early in life. Most of the time, you see them so late in life (if at all) that there is no opportunity to do anything about them. I wonder if the current crop of oldies, who’ve been told they won’t be treated because the health service has other priorities, would have been quite so happy that they paid taxes all these years, to keep this service going?

Of course, on balance I would sooner just have my health back, but I have been privileged to have gotten a sneak preview at what is in store for the rest of you!