After another hell night of going over and over the closure of my research project in my mind, I woke this morning with very little fuel left in the tank. Like yesterday. And the day before. And the month before that. Rather than being clear about the content of the conference paper that is due at the end of the month, I was really clear about the resignation letter I would write to wind down the project. Which was not a good feeling to wake up to.
After checking my Steemit account, I saw there were some comments to attend to. Real comments. Not upvoting bots or steem chasing "follow me / follow you" spammers. Holy cow, this is an actual social website that socializes.
The first comment was by 
Here is the comment thread.
As I mention in my reply, this is the first actual feedback I have had in years. While I have spoken to people about the work in person, I never get an 'angled question' that tells me that the person is trying to understand. And form a model of what I am saying. If I had that years ago, I would not be here now in "feedback starvation" as I mentioned in my reply. I'd be pumping out updates on the work and where it is at. Which is what I am doing now, except that the tone is sour and not positive because quite frankly, my work is stuck in a ditch and it ain't going nowhere without a push by the community.
As I said earlier, I literally have no fuel left in my tank. Mentally, financially and healthwise. The trifecta that tells you life has you in "check mate". 20 years I've been at this and I damn well have a right to be tired from carrying the load. I have been carrying a new discovery since 2003 and it sits like "a hot coal in my soul" because I don't know where / who to deliver it to. It's important but there are no ears to hear the message.
As I mentioned, I have had 'likes' from peers and the ( very ) rare share of my articles, but lazy feedback systems like that don't tell me what people understand about the work and what I need to do to systematize or refine it for mass consumption. Likes don't feed your mind.
This mornings comment by
The natural medicine community that I have been closely allied to needs MY feedback as to where they are. I'm "over here" with my plants and they are "over there" looking at me like I am speaking an alien language. My feedback is that the health associations need to support innovation and indie R&D... and also need to practice the fundamentals of plant medicine again. But more on that in another post.
You don't know me from a bar of soap but I can tell you I'm not here playing the 'poor me' card and begging for digital bread crumbs. I'm here because I am pissed off at the behaviour of the community I belong to. The culture needs to change it's thinking, PLANT STUDIES need to come back into fashion in natural therapy courses ( don't get me started on that chestnut ) and people need to start replying to emails.
Yes, emails.
While you and I know that it is common courtesy to reply to an email, in my field you don't bother getting back to a person about their research. On 2 seperate occasions, in 2006 and again in 2016 when I made major breakthroughs. So I wrote to about a dozen natural medicine associations, societies and top producers in my field for quotes.
The ONE response I got was literally "good luck with your research".
While I don't expect a ticker tape parade or a street named after me in my honor, I do expect some sort of interest in a topic that they are researching themselves. People in my field would be shocked to know the identity of a well known and popular personality who I physically handed a written report, not once but twice', and asked for their feedback. Crickets.
I get it. I get it. It's business. And I am the disruptor in the field because I talk about plant medicine and not new age mumbo-jumbo. While I am willing to take a broadside on the playing field of business, I'm not willing to let them block me from delivering the research that future generations might get something out of. And they may even benefit from.
In my mind, the natural medicine community is the biggest threat to natural medicine. And big pharma is second. New age thinking has polluted the "Earth based" medicines to the point that I had to rewrite the entire syllabus for my therapy, rebrand it as Www.ClinicalFlowerTherapy.com/guidelines/ and reintroduce the elements that had been left out or watered down. You know, inconsequential things like plant studies and how to understand the therapeutic properties of plants by looking at them. How to prescribe plants based on their physical characteristics, etc.
But there I go again. Griping and performing like an angry ant when I should be serene and spiritual. Ommm. Screw that. My clients know exactly what I mean and respect me for my human outbursts. In fact, they rely on them for feedback.
Anyway, back to the original point of this post. Responding to feedback. Two things will happen. In this order.
- I hear you. I will publish some of the findings.
- Alarm bells are still ringing in my mind. Constructive complaining with resume, but be reduced as more feedback for other posts comes in.
Thanks again
Thanks,
Brendan Rohan - Melbourne, Australia
Www.Skyflowers.co ( see "botany" tab for the plant research )
Www.ClinicalFlowerTherapy.com
Social @iSkyflowers
YouTube Skyflowers.Tv
If you support natural medicine and an independent research project that began in 1997, then steem me. The creds I get will help me provide a solid body of information that future generations to draw upon.