being on the 3rd world and the Brugada Syndrome

These past few days I had this privilege to watch a National Geographic piece on Brugada Syndrome.

The discovery of this syndrome started in the 80s when people, at the prime of their life and health, dies on their sleep. The medical community was alerted with this because the mysterious deaths happened in Singapore. At a time when they were really on the verge of becoming a first world country.

On further investigation of the attending physician, he found out that all victims of this still unexplained deaths came from a specific region in Northern Thailand.

Now, that fact has a very significant weight on why the world knows about this now and why it is being shown in National Geographic = )

Back then, Thailand was a 3rd world country. These deaths in the region was simply explained, and was accepted by the people since time immemorial, as a visit from the Widow Ghost who invites men, in their sleep, to be with her. If the healthy man said yes, then he moves on the after life. And that's that.

Because of this accepted explanation, the medical community was never alerted. And the fact that this is a death happened in a 3rd world country does not help either.

So you may ask, how do people live with this situation all these time?

Simple, they wear women clothes to fool the Widow Ghost. Why? because this is what the Buddhist monks told those who said "no" to the invite of the Widow Ghost. Wear women clothes for the next three days. In the Philippines we call this mysterious deaths as nabangungot.

And these crossdressing solution was the embraced solution for this situation up until the medical community was alerted with this mysterious deaths in Singapore. And since these deaths happened now in a 1st world country, a scientific investigation ensued that culminated in a paper written by sibling doctors, The Brugada's, hence the name for the syndrome.

My point is simply this, it is painfully sad that when you have the means and resources, solutions abound. But when we lack the means and resources, fate is the most common way in moving forward.

How many more problems do we have that are laced with the weight of being in a 3rd world?

Can 1st world thinking thrive in a 3rd world? And if it does, can a 1st world mind enjoy the beauty of being in a 3rd world?

"... path to everlasting!"