Rambling thoughts for a New Year's eve morning.
I have insomnia often, but tonight is different. Tonight I feel anxiety when I lay down and when I sit up. It might have been the result of my earlier attempt at subtle stimulation. I allowed myself to have a cup of irish coffee. My thinking at the time was that the caffeine would keep me from yawning at a late evening party, while the alcohol would keep me from being too hyperactive. This strategy worked for the party, but at 2am I am the human version of the table-top novelty the "Dippy Bird."
Those in favor of a smaller government often like to blurt out the expression "personal responsibility." They say this as if personal responsibility is a key benefit of doing away with social services. They also somehow imply that this will improve our society. I guess it may be logical. It is possible that the American species would be improved by a bit more natural selection. However, I think it is only fair that with the reduction of social services that we ensure that folks who are seeking the path to personal responsibility be given every chance to achieve self-sufficiency. This should be especially true for the children. That's why we should insist that all who seek solvency be allowed to beg at the doorway of ANY private or public establishment. I think New York City and Disney will benefit from the contrast that thousands of small, dirty ignorant people will create. Why should Tijuana and Calcutta have all the personally responsible people?
How can I say all that more simply?
If smaller government is equal to personal responsibility but personal responsibility is not equal to opportunity, then how can deepening ignorance and poverty be equal to a stronger republic? Business 101 mandates that 80% of a company's profit would always be generated by 20% of its workforce, while the other 20% of the profit would be generated by the remaining 80% of the workforce. Why then wouldn't that rule apply to liberty and justice?
If we stop trying to support the weakest of our republic through social services I feel certain that we will only weaken the overall republic.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Survivor's guilt
I've heard the term "survivor's guilt" many times before, but until recently I regarded it with little comprehension. I couldn't really understand the concept until a particular call ended last Friday afternoon.
At the age of twelve I learned that I was the son of a forty-three-year old woman who suffered a massive and debilitating stroke. She survived and recovered almost completely given the fact that her deep brain aneurysm ruptured while she was in post-op after routine surgery.
At the age of fifty I learned that I am now the brother of a fifty-six-year old woman who has recently discovered that she too has a deep brain aneurysm that has the likely potential of rupturing as catastrophically as my mother's did those many years ago.
When my sister told me of her diagnosis a few weeks back, she explained that her fate was no longer a matter of "if," it was only now a matter of "when." She also explained that my siblings and I are now considered second degree candidates, which implies that our statistical probability of stroke jumps past the 50-50 mark.
She said with a hint of shame, "You are advised to consult your doctor and schedule a MR-Arteriograph."
I called my doctor's office and left a casual message in the appropriate voice mail box, using the terminology that my sister's doctor had advised and waited for the usual long overdue call back from a tired and bored medical secretary, who would assure me that my complaint wasn't worthy of a doctor's visit. I was surprised when cell phone vibrated and hour later with a caller ID that read, "BLOCKED." Surprise became alarmed when I heard the tired, but concerned voice of the medical secretary ask me, "when can you get in here?"
My meeting with the doctor was anything but routine. We sat knee to knee in an examination room as he made notes of my news. When he had heard enough he began typing up an order for my blood work and scans. His only comment was, "we should get this done soon." The way he said the word "should" was intended to have an air of casualness, but instead it came across with an edge of anxiety - an anxiety that shived me between my shoulders.
I am a fatalist in many ways. I try to live "in the moment." My motto is "be here, now, and make your moment count." I want to embrace the doubts that now loom over my existence, and live the daily life, throwing caution to the winds. I have my good days with this philosophy, but as the date of my MRA closed in, so did the heavy cloak of my mortality.
The first attempt at the scan did not go well. I couldn't control my anxiety. My heart raced as they conveyed me into the clunking magnetic doughnut and the contents of my stomach threatened to paint the sterile aesthetic of the machinery. The technician was very kind and assured me that many people are claustrophobic. I know that I am not. I accepted his diagnoses, but knew that my anxiety was rooted in visions of blindness, lost memories and lost motor functions of a stroke victim.
My second attempt was less traumatic outwardly given the miracle of Xanex. However, the movie that played in my mind as the machine rattled around my skull was that of a man, buried to his neck in sand, being eaten by crawly things I could not see or deflect. It was a 20-minute ordeal, on a Thursday afternoon before a long holiday weekend, but it felt like a lifetime of misery. As I planted my feet and lifted myself from the gurney the technician told me the radiologist would probably get to my scans by next Wednesday.
That's why it was such an unsettling surprise for me to see the large caller ID, "BLOCKED" on my phone again the next day. Sinking feeling isn't just an expression. I was in my classroom, holding court over a lab project, and I calmly and quietly slipped into the hallway to take what would no doubt be a paradigm changing call. My dry hello was met by the now too familiar voice of a medical secretary. I said my name, repeated my date of birth, and she paused a moment before saying, "your scans are normal."
That's how the say it. "Your scans are normal."
They don't say, "YOU'VE JUST WON THE FUCKING LIFE LOTTERY!"
They say, "Your scans are normal."
I said thank you and pushed the button that ends every ordinary call. I took a deep breath and was not the least bit surprised to hear the rhythmic rasp of air passing a heart caught in a man's throat. I looked left and then right down the shiny, empty hallways of the IT department. There was no one there to see the color return to my face. I peeled myself from the wall and returned to the classroom only slightly lighter than when I had left the room.
I am only slightly lighter because I am alive to live today. And even though there is probability that there are some tomorrows in store for me, the same cannot be said for my sister. No matter how "here and now" I pretend to be, I cannot accept the inequity of our different realities.
I feel guilty.
At the age of twelve I learned that I was the son of a forty-three-year old woman who suffered a massive and debilitating stroke. She survived and recovered almost completely given the fact that her deep brain aneurysm ruptured while she was in post-op after routine surgery.
At the age of fifty I learned that I am now the brother of a fifty-six-year old woman who has recently discovered that she too has a deep brain aneurysm that has the likely potential of rupturing as catastrophically as my mother's did those many years ago.
When my sister told me of her diagnosis a few weeks back, she explained that her fate was no longer a matter of "if," it was only now a matter of "when." She also explained that my siblings and I are now considered second degree candidates, which implies that our statistical probability of stroke jumps past the 50-50 mark.
She said with a hint of shame, "You are advised to consult your doctor and schedule a MR-Arteriograph."
I called my doctor's office and left a casual message in the appropriate voice mail box, using the terminology that my sister's doctor had advised and waited for the usual long overdue call back from a tired and bored medical secretary, who would assure me that my complaint wasn't worthy of a doctor's visit. I was surprised when cell phone vibrated and hour later with a caller ID that read, "BLOCKED." Surprise became alarmed when I heard the tired, but concerned voice of the medical secretary ask me, "when can you get in here?"
My meeting with the doctor was anything but routine. We sat knee to knee in an examination room as he made notes of my news. When he had heard enough he began typing up an order for my blood work and scans. His only comment was, "we should get this done soon." The way he said the word "should" was intended to have an air of casualness, but instead it came across with an edge of anxiety - an anxiety that shived me between my shoulders.
I am a fatalist in many ways. I try to live "in the moment." My motto is "be here, now, and make your moment count." I want to embrace the doubts that now loom over my existence, and live the daily life, throwing caution to the winds. I have my good days with this philosophy, but as the date of my MRA closed in, so did the heavy cloak of my mortality.
The first attempt at the scan did not go well. I couldn't control my anxiety. My heart raced as they conveyed me into the clunking magnetic doughnut and the contents of my stomach threatened to paint the sterile aesthetic of the machinery. The technician was very kind and assured me that many people are claustrophobic. I know that I am not. I accepted his diagnoses, but knew that my anxiety was rooted in visions of blindness, lost memories and lost motor functions of a stroke victim.
My second attempt was less traumatic outwardly given the miracle of Xanex. However, the movie that played in my mind as the machine rattled around my skull was that of a man, buried to his neck in sand, being eaten by crawly things I could not see or deflect. It was a 20-minute ordeal, on a Thursday afternoon before a long holiday weekend, but it felt like a lifetime of misery. As I planted my feet and lifted myself from the gurney the technician told me the radiologist would probably get to my scans by next Wednesday.
That's why it was such an unsettling surprise for me to see the large caller ID, "BLOCKED" on my phone again the next day. Sinking feeling isn't just an expression. I was in my classroom, holding court over a lab project, and I calmly and quietly slipped into the hallway to take what would no doubt be a paradigm changing call. My dry hello was met by the now too familiar voice of a medical secretary. I said my name, repeated my date of birth, and she paused a moment before saying, "your scans are normal."
That's how the say it. "Your scans are normal."
They don't say, "YOU'VE JUST WON THE FUCKING LIFE LOTTERY!"
They say, "Your scans are normal."
I said thank you and pushed the button that ends every ordinary call. I took a deep breath and was not the least bit surprised to hear the rhythmic rasp of air passing a heart caught in a man's throat. I looked left and then right down the shiny, empty hallways of the IT department. There was no one there to see the color return to my face. I peeled myself from the wall and returned to the classroom only slightly lighter than when I had left the room.
I am only slightly lighter because I am alive to live today. And even though there is probability that there are some tomorrows in store for me, the same cannot be said for my sister. No matter how "here and now" I pretend to be, I cannot accept the inequity of our different realities.
I feel guilty.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Long shadows
I've been spending too much time in the company of my human mortality. I never really appreciated before how blissfully ignorant I was of the truth, the truth that we are frail, we are lonesome, we are brief. As I type those words my mind flashes on a place I know in the woods. It is a place that looks old by human standards. It is green with pines, red with oak leaves, and silver with poplar and birch bark. I feel myself in this place. I feel brief, alone, and fragile, yet in this place those feelings are fair and honest. How can I not be humbled by the accomplishments of mushrooms and moss. Or awestruck by the ambitions of the acorns. Or impressed by the industry of a trickle of water that will for eons carve these hills and the dales. In this landscape I feel as whole as I need to be. In my urban spaces, I tap on my electronic keyboard, and it ticks like the clock of obsolescence. I feel this too when I look upon a friend's mother in a casket, a father-in-law strapped to a gurney, a wife wired to a heart monitor, and my knees as the throb and squeak. I guess it is time for me to appreciate the long shadows I am casting.
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