In terms of the last part of what you were talking about, the big things we can't get wrong, it has to do with hits to the head in many different aspects of our lives. At one time, in World War I, we thought that somebody who came home and couldn't function had shell shock, and then it moved on to a different phrase later. The assumption was that when those people came back and couldn't function, it was all their fault. They can't cope with the world and get on with life. What's the problem? They're drinking; they're an embarrassment to society and all the rest of it.
We never really quite thought that maybe there was physical damage that was done. They looked fine; they weren't injured. They didn't lose their arms or their legs. There were so many other people who seemed to have horrible injuries, and they didn't seem to, so they were just weak, obviously, and couldn't deal with it.
If we just imagine for a second, and we know it well, continuous blows to the knee. We know what our knees feel like after a while, or our shoulders. Why would a head be different in that way? Why have we gotten it the way we have for so long? That is the big one to avoid getting wrong in this particular instance and in terms of sports.
One last quick thing on what you were saying about Curtis Joseph and others who have a voice. The thing is that we have a voice because we're given a voice, because we've done something and a publisher thinks others may be interested in what we're saying. What we say isn't anything more interesting than what any other athletes might say who have experienced something. It's just that nobody's asked to hear their voice.
You have the wonderful opportunity here to listen to athletes who have just as powerful a voice if they are given a chance to express themselves. Then, I think, they will have as much power and as much influence, if not more, than those you cite.