hippocrats

"First, do no harm." 

That's the phrase on all our coins, paper currency, flag, coat of arms, the national anthem (those same words over and over and over), license plates, and government buildings.

People attribute those four words to the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors. It's not in there, not in those exact words. (Go ahead; look it up.) And Hippocrates himself did not likely write those precise words. No matter.

First, imagine how ironic, even hypocritical, it is to find this phrase omnipresent on planet Harm.

"First, do no harm"?

What happened? We don't know. The Institute of Archeohistoricalpsychosociology has been tasked to find answers. They've been at it 234 years with nothing to show for it. If you ask me, they're still trying to figure out what the name of their institute means.

Like many on the planet, I have some hunches, some theories, as to how we got here, and by "here" I mean this landscape-seascape-skyscape of haunting and harrowing harm. Here are theories floating in my head:

• "First, do no harm" became our ubiquitous catch phrase by mistake. Either its provenance was misunderstood or it was mistranslated. Translated from what language or communication system? No one knows. Mistranslated how? Again, we don't know. Allow me to posit: "Last, do no harm," "Alas, do no harm," "Do no more harm." Naturally, all of those suggested mistranslations carry the weight of vastly different meanings; each hints at a different story, an altogether different narrative. Would our history have turned out differently? Where would we be today? (Obviously, we're not talking about our position in the lunar system; we're talking about the here of how things are.)

• The saying evolved over the years, corrupted and altered by new dialects, dictators' dicta, strange tongues of invaders, linguistic earthquakes, and populist decrees.

• Somebody's been playing a mean joke on us since forever. It's simply a mysterious example of merciless sarcasm and satire. It continues "because that's the way we do things, it's always been that way, it's our tradition."         Thoughts invited.