Friday, February 20, 2015

Oliver Sachs on Impending Death

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com



My Own Life

Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer

By OLIVER SACKS

FEB. 19, 2015

A MONTH ago, I felt that I was in good health, even robust health. At 81, I
still swim a mile a day. But my luck has run out — a few weeks ago I learned
that I have multiple metastases in the liver. Nine years ago it was
discovered that I had a rare tumor of the eye, an ocular melanoma. Although
the radiation and lasering to remove the tumor ultimately left me blind in
that eye, only in very rare cases do such tumors metastasize. I am among the
unlucky 2 percent.

I feel grateful that I have been granted nine years of good health and
productivity since the original diagnosis, but now I am face to face with
dying. The cancer occupies a third of my liver, and though its advance may
be slowed, this particular sort of cancer cannot be halted.

It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I
have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can. In this I
am encouraged by the words of one of my favorite philosophers, David Hume,
who, upon learning that he was mortally ill at age 65, wrote a short
autobiography in a single day in April of 1776. He titled it “My Own Life.”

“I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution,” he wrote. “I have suffered very
little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have,
notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment’s
abatement of my spirits. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the
same gaiety in company.”

I have been lucky enough to live past 80, and the 15 years allotted to me
beyond Hume’s three score and five have been equally rich in work and love.
In that time, I have published five books and completed an autobiography
(rather longer than Hume’s few pages) to be published this spring; I have
several other books nearly finished.

Hume continued, “I am ... a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper,
of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little
susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions.”

Here I depart from Hume. While I have enjoyed loving relationships and
friendships and have no real enmities, I cannot say (nor would anyone who
knows me say) that I am a man of mild dispositions. On the contrary, I am a
man of vehement disposition, with violent enthusiasms, and extreme
immoderation in all my passions.

And yet, one line from Hume’s essay strikes me as especially true: “It is
difficult,” he wrote, “to be more detached from life than I am at present.”

Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great
altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the
connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life.

On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time
that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to
write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of
understanding and insight.

This will involve audacity, clarity and plain speaking; trying to straighten
my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too, for some fun (and
even some silliness, as well).

I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything
inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends. I shall no
longer look at “NewsHour” every night. I shall no longer pay any attention
to politics or arguments about global warming.

This is not indifference but detachment — I still care deeply about the
Middle East, about global warming, about growing inequality, but these are
no longer my business; they belong to the future. I rejoice when I meet
gifted young people — even the one who biopsied and diagnosed my metastases.
I feel the future is in good hands.

I have been increasingly conscious, for the last 10 years or so, of deaths
among my contemporaries. My generation is on the way out, and each death I
have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be
no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else,
ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot
be filled, for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human
being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life,
to die his own death.

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of
gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have
given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written.
I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers
and readers.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this
beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and
adventure.

Oliver Sachs, February 19, 2015.
________________________________________________________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Sachs’ remark on neither watching the
nightly news, nor paying attention
 to arguments about global warming or
Middle Eastern is understood by me, 
and is something to be ambitioned; His
advice is counter Dylan Thomas’ which was, 
I am sure you know:

Not to go “gentle into that good night,” and that
“Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.”


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas <

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Democracy and Condominiums

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com



Subject: Democracy


Thursday, February 19, 2015

Today I read an article in the New York Review about a book written by Joel Klein, former Chancellor of Education in NYC.
Allow me to change a few words: 

“Our condominiums were founded to use democratic methods, which are premised on the belief that people of equally good motives can reason from the same set of facts to different conclusions. In the heat of differing opinions, however, some Owners—and some of their more jaded critics --- seem to have lost that essential democratic faith. Each side casts the other not as decent people who might see the world in a different way, but as unknowing fools or biased charlatans. The lack of goodwill and understanding here is palpable. It should make all of us worry the future of Condominiums in general, and also of our democracy.”

Here’s the original:
“Our public schools were founded to teach democracy, which is premised on the belief that people of equally good motives can reason from the same set of facts to different conclusions. In the heat of our (educationally) revolutionary moment, however, some contemporary school reformers—and some of their more jaded critics --- seem to have lost that essential democratic faith. Each side casts the other not as decent people who might see the world in a different way, but as unknowing fools or biased charlatans. The lack of goodwill and understanding here is palpable. It should make all of us worry the future of our schools, and also of our democracy.” Jonathan Zimmerman, New York Review, March 5, 2015

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

I want to avoid the potential indignities of old age.