Extreme Harmony

I want so much to forget all of this.  I want that more than anything.  But I know that if I did; if I were to put this all behind me and live as if it never happened, it would be the single most selfish act of my entire life.  Just because I was lucky enough to have survived, that doesn't mean I can ever walk away.

Writing about my experience with cancer brings back painful memories with every word.  Engaging in the cancer community, and finding all of these wonderful people whose lives have been touched by the disease is both a blessing and a curse.  It brings me closer to all of you, knowing that we have this shared experience.  And it brings me closer to humanity, knowing that such suffering isn't only possible, but commonplace in the world.  It identifies and exposes the human condition in greater detail than anything else could.

This is what inspires me to act -- the fact that everyone goes through something, which is an important thing to be mindful of in the first place, but even more so when you've just been through something pretty terrible yourself.  You have the option to step back into the mainstream, that winding and disorienting wormhole of people and energy shooting off ceaselessly into the future, back into the routine, into the grind, the rat race, the series of events and reactions and self-decrees that we call everyday life.  It certainly takes a while to get back to that place, back to "normal," or what was once normal for you, but I'm finding out that it's entirely possible.  When I talked to people while I was going through treatment, people who were a few years out who had already been through the same ordeal and had left most of the pain behind them, I was exposed for the first time to individuals who had regained normalcy in their lives.  I couldn't, for the life of me, understand how they'd done this.  It was such a foreign concept to me.  And I wasn't even happy for them.  In fact, I was irritated.  I thought about my feelings, and how I'd been so miserable, so life-alteringly miserable, and knew in my heart that I'd never be where they were.  I'd never be satisfied again, and I'd certainly never be able to hold a job again or have successful and fulfilling relationships, not with the dark cloud of what had happened following overhead.  Those thoughts seem so far away now.  I've been reintroduced to levels of normal in my life that I never thought I'd see again.  And I've also realized that it's okay to embrace them.  It's okay to allow myself to be happy.  I don't have to take the whole weight of cancer on my shoulders, all by myself.  I can do my thing and help, and I can also be happy.

But that's just it; I have to help.  I can't sit by while others are dealing with this and worse, and allow it to continue without putting up a serious fight.  Which brings me to option number two.  Option two is where I was, sitting alone in my room, writing up a storm about my experience, all nicely packaged together in book form (which will hopefully be seeing the light of day soon), that I would use to garner awareness and attention, and build a platform from which I could enact change and better the circumstances of those who were not as fortunate as myself.  There are some people in this world who have no advocates, and who are lost, and who have no hope.  This is unacceptable to me.  I was going to fix it.

I still am.  And I would be extremely pissed at myself if I didn't follow through here.  The need to do so outweighs any threatening complacency a million fold, so I don't really have a lot to worry about.  I don't have to hole up anywhere and work myself to the bone, focusing on nothing but the misery and the task at hand.  There is, I'm finding, a third option: a Middle Way.  And that is, as I touched on earlier, that I can focus my energy on enacting change and bettering the world, and find personal happiness and fulfillment at the same time.  I want others who are going through this and don't even remotely understand what it means to accept "normalcy" again, to know that it's okay to learn to be happy again.  It's okay to be happy.  You'll find happiness in old things in different ways. And it's okay to embrace that.  It's okay to own your new life.  You have passed through a checkpoint, a weigh station, and you've seen things others never will, and that has shaken you to your core and caused you to reevaluate and reconsider just about everything you've ever experienced.  But there are some experiences that will still translate, and that will be all the same, or even enhanced by this.  And they are...

Love.  Self-worth.  Fulfillment.  Happiness.

If you're anything like me, you'll isolate yourself from the possibility of ever finding these things again.  I had resigned myself to being miserable, although I would have argued that I was steeling myself and making the necessary sacrifices to meet my goals.  I now know that it was unreasonable to put myself through all that I did, but, I needed it at the time, and it was useful to my growth, and I wouldn't trade that time for the world.  I got a lot of work done, both tangible and intangible.  It was a time of significant development and the beginning of a gradual process of healing.  I'm proud of myself for having such discipline and fortitude at a point when I needed it most.  This is not to say that I immediately took to my self-care responsibilities right away, or with any sense of ease whatsoever.  In reality, I spent the good part of a year curled up on the couch, covered in a snuggie.  But that was part of my process.  If you happen to process tragedy that way, curled up under a snuggie, then that's okay.  I went from severe "handling" mode, to severe couch mode, in the span of a few months.  I shut down because I couldn't filter all the terrible information that was running through my head, like the vile tributaries of a vast and poisonous river.

It's okay to come to terms with all that, and the fact that you've gone through it.  And the fact that you are or will some day come out on the other side.  Being happy or accepting happiness is not a denial that something awful has happened to you -- quite the contrary, I'm finding out.  It's an acknowledgment of the experience, and a nod to your new-found perspective.  Life is short enough as it is; we should embrace all the love, self-worth, fulfillment, and happiness that we can.  You might stumble around aimlessly until you find it, like I did, or you might suddenly get back on your feet and know exactly where to look for it.  In truth, there's no right answer, and no guidebook for finding happiness after a tragedy.  Normalcy is a lie ordinarily -- it doesn't exist -- and even more so after you have your life threatened.  Normalcy is a quest, more than it is a concrete state of things.

Who Am I?

I came out of St. Marks Market today, with a bagel in one hand and coffee in the other.  I crossed to the south sidewalk and passed a group of punkish-looking fellows.  One of them wore a black hood with the eyes cut out, and was eyeing my approach eagerly.  I was fully aware that I was about to have an interesting story to tell.

Sure enough, the man began walking backwards, gesturing wildly.  "I am famous for chopping off people's heads in the 1800's," he yelled, excitedly.  "What is my name!?"  I felt like it was a riddle straight out of a video game.  If I got the right answer, I thought, maybe he'd give me a special sword because it's dangerous to go alone.  My first inkling was actually to stop in my tracks and respond to the inaccuracies of his riddle.  "Well, actually buddy, you're a few centuries off," I would start, proceeding to launch into a chronological analysis of the tradition of western capital punishment.  It took a lot of willpower, but I simply mumbled "executioner," and went on with my day.  

This could be a fun story about how I view life in the city, and the availability of bizarre and thought-provoking material at every turn.  In a way, I think it is.  For me though, I operate upon the connections I forge during daily life, and this called upon an idea I'd had for some time.  It made me think right away about death, of course.  And how everyone is basically very cool with the idea, in the abstract.  When it has a face, and is a symbol, and categorized.  Here's a man with a hood, inaccurately riddling people in the streets to get his jollies.  He represents an idea, and as long as it remains within certain social confines, most people will probably not think twice about it.  Maybe one or two people he solicits will be uncomfortable and leave with a bad taste in their mouths, but for the most part, I imagine a lot of folks will be thoroughly entertained by the man's shenanigans.  

What is it about death that makes it so easy to deal with as a clear symbol, something brutally and often inaccurately portrayed in mainstream culture?  And what is it about death that makes it so easy to symbolize, so easy to make into a caricature and focal point of such intense negativity?  Death is a man in a black hood. That's good -- this man is a symbol and an automatic enemy.  Death can be a disease.  Even better -- you can fight a disease, engage in a battle, and come out triumphant.  It's often easier to fight a disease as a concept than a man in a black hood as a concept.  Because an executioner is state-sanctioned, and he's still a person, and we can identify with aspects of his nature.  We absolutely cannot identify with a disease, a ruthless and unflinching organism or state of malfunction within our own bodies, that has no personification, and simply doesn't care, because it doesn't think or reason, and it has no sympathy, and is not state-sanctioned, or sanctioned by any force that human beings can readily comprehend.  As a symbol, it can be broken down into polarizing and unrealistic interpretations and handled more clearly.  

Because it's easier to make a symbolic fight out of something than to face the full extent of its terror.  Cancer is very much a symbolic battle these days, much to the chagrin of anyone diagnosed with the disease.  We are not fighting a symbolic enemy, but attempting to survive with a condition that doesn't have motives.  That's a paralyzingly scary thought.  Death is a scary concept to most of us, and I firmly believe in Irvin Yalom's existential psychology -- I believe the man is 100% accurate in his conclusion that the highest motivating factor in anyone's life is the conscious or unconscious anxiety spawning from the fact that someday life will end.  I don't know that it isn't okay to create symbols that serve as focal points for certain emotions and fears, but it does seem a bit juvenile after my own experience with the real facts of death and dying.  

It's possible that there's a way to bridge the gap.  I believe the bridge will be built firmly from education and genuine awareness.  Self-analysis is of huge importance in matters relating to such extreme finality.  It's very difficult to be comfortable with thoughts that you believe by extension will threaten your very existence.  But if these thoughts allow you to improve your circumstances and that of others going forward, then it might be time to deal with your fears, because not doing so would be selfish.  It's okay to be afraid.  It's not okay to create limitations revolving around your fears that prevent you from dealing with reality, and force others to go along with that.  Soon there will have to be a real conversation about the ethics of death and dying.  I feel fortunate that I was raised by a family that was abnormally comfortable with the subject, due to the fact that my mother is a hospice social worker.  I've been addressing the idea in one way or another my whole life, mostly in an analytic and observational way, and then suddenly in a very practical way.  I feel that it's important to assemble the collective powers on this one, and find the sense of duty possessed by those of us who have faced the issue in a practical way.  We hold certain keys that can succeed in opening doors that are sealed with the utmost apprehension.  There's so much wisdom and hope that comes arm-in-arm with facing these issues in a practical way, and that needs to be expanded upon and shared.  It's a top priority of mine to find a way to do this that will succeed, and will benefit the baseline happiness and self-awareness of the human condition for generations to come.  

A Free Life

"I was supposed to die, and I just didn't.  And it kinda felt like I had a free life, an extra life."
        - Bukowski

I watched a documentary about Charles Bukowski recently.  I've always been interested in the man's words.  Although tortured and hard-earned, his views and expressions are primal, unrelenting, and pure.  He exhibits a fascinating reality, one that is unfamiliar to me in most regards, which probably accounts for my fascination.  However, I did not expect to hear him say those words, and it opened up an entirely new perspective on his life.

Because this is how I feel.  So I understand more fully where he came from now.  Obviously, this is one chunk of the man's personality, and while I identify with certain aspects of his character, I don't claim to understand the rest.  I, too, should have died, and I didn't.

There is no cure for what I have.

Typing those words is one of the hardest things I've ever done.  I literally had to take a minute to brace myself.  What else could possibly be worth worrying about?  Well, turns out, a lot of things.  Because we are not as isolated as we would like to think.  Those pesky people, all of the rest of them that live here with us -- they always get in the way of our plans.  No matter how hard we try, with our five-year plans and our ten-year plans, there are always things that derail us.  Organic, living, loving things.

For a long time I thought I was alone.  A very, very long time.  I had resigned myself to several things, none of which I'm ready to publicly admit.  But there is a strange power in hardening your resolve, and preparing yourself for a certain future that you have planned for, absurdly, without any thought as to how easily you might be swayed from it.  The reason this power is strange, is because it isn't real.  Because you don't have any power over your future.  It will happen 100% without you, if it has to.  Ride with it, or deny yourself the experience.  But there is no in-between.

My point was that worst of these concerns, the ones that cause us the most grief, are for the first life.  The free life is for remembering how absurd it is to obsess over these things, and to let yourself be caught up in the winds of fate, and taken wherever you will yourself to go, and some places that you don't.  Some people never have cause to own their free life.  Others go back and forth between the two.  For my own life, I hope there's a balance to be found between the two; between caring about the day-to-day, and remembering how superfluous most things are.  There is no question that I must remember the wisdom I etched into my heart the day I was diagnosed.  But as much as I'd like to have my effervescent transformation solidify and hold for the rest of my days, I'm only human, and the wisdom of the free life fades.

I'd like to delve deeper into the free life and what it means to me at another time.  For now, though, I believe 2 a.m. is threatening to swallow me whole and resurrect me into another day.

Attitude: the Ultimate Form of Alchemy

Attitude and perspective, in my experience, account for my mode of living, more than anything else.  Maybe it's obvious -- but if you have a positive outlook, and feel confident and comfortable in your own skin, your decisions come easier, and the borders around your path through life are crisper and more defined.  Mmm, I love me some crispy borders.

There are things I have to do to keep up my attitude.  Some of these things I've neglected for a very long time.  Without them, I flounder like a wild, floundering thing.  Some of these things are very specific -- I have to be writing, I have to be exercising in various ways (resistance, aerobics, martial arts, meditation), and I have to be listening to and performing music.  If I'm ever feeling unhappy, eventually (you'd think it would happen automatically at this point) I go down the checklist.  Am I writing?  Exercising?  Jamming out?  No?  Well, that's an easy fix.

Some of my essential items are more intangible.  I have to feel active, and I have to feel useful, for example.  If I don't have a busy schedule, it's harder for me to be content.  But if I have a busy schedule, and my business is superficial and not allowing me to feel useful, I feel even more dissatisfied.  These are the things I've figured out and saved on my mental hard drive, to pull up now and again when I need to perform some serious self-analysis.  Finding your things is important, because it allows you to have more control over your behavior, and overall destiny.  I prefer to regulate my own subconscious, or at least do as best I can, and not have it regulate me.

Today, I feel fantastic.  I've accomplished a thousand things (in my head, because in reality, it's more like 3 major things), and I have a thousand more on the agenda.  In fact, I'm using this blog post to distract myself from one of them.  Shit, I just said that out loud.  Oh well, back to finding my things, and nurturing my attitude.