“There is a superstition in avoiding superstition.”
-- Francis Bacon 1561-1626: “Essays” 1625 ‘Of Superstition’
“A man’s illness is his private territory and, no matter how much he loves you and how close you are, you stay an outsider. You are healthy.”
-- Lauren Bacall 1924- : “By Myself” 1978
“We are born to die. Not that death is the purpose of our being born, but we are born toward death, and in each of our lives the work of dying is always under way.”
-- Richard John Neuhaus “First Things Magazine”
In an op-ed piece in the New York Times titled, “In Defense of Death,” David Brooks paraphrases the writer and theologian Richard John Neuhaus’s letter of comfort to the gravely ill William D. Eddy, an Episcopal minister: “There are comforting things you and I have learned to say in circumstances such as these, but we don’t need those things between ourselves.” As Brooks notes, Neuhaus, unlike most of us, reversed the traditional paradigm of life and death: “While most people might use the science of life to demystify death, Neuhaus used death to demystify life.”
This got me thinking about correspondences between those of us who have lived or are living on what Susan Sontag describes as the “night-side of life.” I recently sent my close friend T. S. this e-mail: “A common feeling I've experienced, and one that you and my friend, T. M., have echoed, is that we sometimes focus on our illness to the point that it's a burden to others to hear about it. My friend asked forgiveness for 'whining,' and even went so far as to delete some very eloquent posts he perceived as such. This suggests that this feeling also extends to those around us who are healthy. I was thinking that perhaps those who are sick get sick of those who are not sick talking about sickness all the time.”
T. S.‘s response was this: “The sick person is situated in several roles: one is the whiner, and the pressure is constant to react to suffering and disease in the right way, i.e., the hopeful, optimistic response of the fighter. Now it seems that medical research shows that this attitude is very productive, so there is reason to be a fighter; but the pressure to be a fighter also comes from the desire of those around the sick person to see the disease defeated, both because they love the sick person and because they fear for their own life. This is all okay. So the sick person may expect different reactions to talking about suffering; sometimes it is suppressed, sometimes encouraged. The sick person may also tire of the talk about sickness, but it is hard to say whose right it is to regulate this talk. Is it only the sick person's right? Might s/he tell those around her/him to stop talking about 'it'? I'm not too sure. The only thing I know is that sometimes I don't want to talk about it. But I don't know that my feeling has the rule of law within it.”
To me, shopworn martial metaphors related to “fighting, battling, and beating” the inevitability of illness seem wrongheaded. Brooks writes, “People would tell him [Neuhaus] to fight for life and he would enjoy their attention,” but by Neuhaus’s lights, “the matter wasn’t really in his hands.” My friend T. M.’s attitude provides a wise and honest complement to Neuhaus’s idea that strength, attitude, and willpower, while admirable in their attribution, may have little to do with natural consequences and noble outcomes: “Prior to the surgery I was never that worried, but it was not because I am strong, because I am not mentally strong. I think this is one case where it was good to be naive. If I had any idea of what I was in in for I don't know if I could have done this.”
T. S.’s mention of the “pressure to be a fighter” arising from the intermingling of a love for the afflicted and fear of death by those who love us has more to do with the naivete of immortality inherent to health than the resignation to the inevitable inherent to serious illness. It is within the realm of health that T. M.’s recurring idea of “having no idea of what I was in for” adheres; but the “night-side” of life preceding Neuhaus’s ironic vision of death’s dawn, a place that only the sick can know, must be experienced before arriving at this conclusion: “I had no idea of what I was in for. I just had a clinical perception. Yesterday was as close as I ever want to come to crossing over. My neck was so full of blood it looked like a football, how appropriate. I was in so much pain I just wanted it over, one way or another.”
When I recently voiced my skepticism toward the importance of attitude, visualization techniques, and such, I was asked, “Well, what alternatives would you propose? How did you dispose yourself to dealing with cancer and chemotherapy?” Even as I write this, I am unsure of exactly how to answer this. I guess I would say that if stress, for instance, were crucially important to recovery, I might not be here. The idea of visualizing myself in a fight whereby my goal was to beat cancer flies in the face of how I perceive reality. To me, one can no more beat cancer than they can beat death itself. This doesn’t mean I wasn’t optimistic, hopeful, and upbeat about my prognosis, it simply means I wasn’t ready to delude myself with romantic notions about mind over matter. I was firmly set upon dealing with whatever it took to eradicate the cancer, and I hope it stays away, but I also felt it would do me no good to see myself as an exception to what might possibly happen. While I couldn’t theorize what was happening when I was in the throes of the worst, looking back, I would say I tried to strike a balance between grim visions of the worst and the denial that resides in romantic illusions.
-- Francis Bacon 1561-1626: “Essays” 1625 ‘Of Superstition’
“A man’s illness is his private territory and, no matter how much he loves you and how close you are, you stay an outsider. You are healthy.”
-- Lauren Bacall 1924- : “By Myself” 1978
“We are born to die. Not that death is the purpose of our being born, but we are born toward death, and in each of our lives the work of dying is always under way.”
-- Richard John Neuhaus “First Things Magazine”
In an op-ed piece in the New York Times titled, “In Defense of Death,” David Brooks paraphrases the writer and theologian Richard John Neuhaus’s letter of comfort to the gravely ill William D. Eddy, an Episcopal minister: “There are comforting things you and I have learned to say in circumstances such as these, but we don’t need those things between ourselves.” As Brooks notes, Neuhaus, unlike most of us, reversed the traditional paradigm of life and death: “While most people might use the science of life to demystify death, Neuhaus used death to demystify life.”
This got me thinking about correspondences between those of us who have lived or are living on what Susan Sontag describes as the “night-side of life.” I recently sent my close friend T. S. this e-mail: “A common feeling I've experienced, and one that you and my friend, T. M., have echoed, is that we sometimes focus on our illness to the point that it's a burden to others to hear about it. My friend asked forgiveness for 'whining,' and even went so far as to delete some very eloquent posts he perceived as such. This suggests that this feeling also extends to those around us who are healthy. I was thinking that perhaps those who are sick get sick of those who are not sick talking about sickness all the time.”
T. S.‘s response was this: “The sick person is situated in several roles: one is the whiner, and the pressure is constant to react to suffering and disease in the right way, i.e., the hopeful, optimistic response of the fighter. Now it seems that medical research shows that this attitude is very productive, so there is reason to be a fighter; but the pressure to be a fighter also comes from the desire of those around the sick person to see the disease defeated, both because they love the sick person and because they fear for their own life. This is all okay. So the sick person may expect different reactions to talking about suffering; sometimes it is suppressed, sometimes encouraged. The sick person may also tire of the talk about sickness, but it is hard to say whose right it is to regulate this talk. Is it only the sick person's right? Might s/he tell those around her/him to stop talking about 'it'? I'm not too sure. The only thing I know is that sometimes I don't want to talk about it. But I don't know that my feeling has the rule of law within it.”
To me, shopworn martial metaphors related to “fighting, battling, and beating” the inevitability of illness seem wrongheaded. Brooks writes, “People would tell him [Neuhaus] to fight for life and he would enjoy their attention,” but by Neuhaus’s lights, “the matter wasn’t really in his hands.” My friend T. M.’s attitude provides a wise and honest complement to Neuhaus’s idea that strength, attitude, and willpower, while admirable in their attribution, may have little to do with natural consequences and noble outcomes: “Prior to the surgery I was never that worried, but it was not because I am strong, because I am not mentally strong. I think this is one case where it was good to be naive. If I had any idea of what I was in in for I don't know if I could have done this.”
T. S.’s mention of the “pressure to be a fighter” arising from the intermingling of a love for the afflicted and fear of death by those who love us has more to do with the naivete of immortality inherent to health than the resignation to the inevitable inherent to serious illness. It is within the realm of health that T. M.’s recurring idea of “having no idea of what I was in for” adheres; but the “night-side” of life preceding Neuhaus’s ironic vision of death’s dawn, a place that only the sick can know, must be experienced before arriving at this conclusion: “I had no idea of what I was in for. I just had a clinical perception. Yesterday was as close as I ever want to come to crossing over. My neck was so full of blood it looked like a football, how appropriate. I was in so much pain I just wanted it over, one way or another.”
When I recently voiced my skepticism toward the importance of attitude, visualization techniques, and such, I was asked, “Well, what alternatives would you propose? How did you dispose yourself to dealing with cancer and chemotherapy?” Even as I write this, I am unsure of exactly how to answer this. I guess I would say that if stress, for instance, were crucially important to recovery, I might not be here. The idea of visualizing myself in a fight whereby my goal was to beat cancer flies in the face of how I perceive reality. To me, one can no more beat cancer than they can beat death itself. This doesn’t mean I wasn’t optimistic, hopeful, and upbeat about my prognosis, it simply means I wasn’t ready to delude myself with romantic notions about mind over matter. I was firmly set upon dealing with whatever it took to eradicate the cancer, and I hope it stays away, but I also felt it would do me no good to see myself as an exception to what might possibly happen. While I couldn’t theorize what was happening when I was in the throes of the worst, looking back, I would say I tried to strike a balance between grim visions of the worst and the denial that resides in romantic illusions.
After I had gone through the chemo and was feeling better, a common comment I heard concerned my toughness, and how this toughness got me through. In fact, what this experience showed me was that I wasn't that tough, and that giving up the illusion of toughness was a blessing in disguise.
Granted, these things are specific to the individual, and in retrospect, my situation was less serious than T. M.’s or T. S.’s. I can only attest to what I experienced.
Best – Randy Tessier
1 comment:
Death steals all the words that have evolved from our deepest and first utterance.
Peace and Serenity to all
genea
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