Sunday, April 22, 2012

Simple gift

Though optimistic, I am not blind to the reality of pancreatic cancer. It has one of the lowest survival rate of all the cancers. Just 6% of patients survive beyond five years from their initial diagnosis. My oncological surgeon told me I have a 50% chance for two years and 25% for five years of more.

A student of existential psychology once noted, "I know only two things: I am alive today and one day I shall be dead. The questions is what to do in the interim." This is the challenge faced by all of us, of course, but with special emphasis by those of us with a terminal illness.

Time to create a "bucket list" of what to do in the interim. Time to think of a legacy of thoughts and/or material resources. Time to consider spiritual matters.

 A man or woman of 50 years is not likely to say, "Let's see, I have about 30 or 40 years to live. How shall I spend my time?" They simply live day to day with no thought of an end to life. So maybe I should consider my pc a gift?
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Posted by john839 at 5:08 AM

2 comments:

  1. bkerrApril 22, 2012 at 7:57 AM

    In a less grave way than you,I've lately seem cracks in the wall of my immortality, irreversible conditions requiring efforts of maintenance.Makes one realize how carelessly we regard our remaining time until nature speaks.

    "Lieutenant Kerr has no sense of urgency" they wrote about me in the Army."I'm frankly irritated to have to work on my health along with everything else. I am working on my novel-memoir but it's just another thing in life, and imagining I'll smile in heaven over it is just bad story telling.

    Wittgestein said it best:"So too at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end.

    Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.

    If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.

    Our life hs no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.

    ...is some riddle solved by my surviving forever?"(See his Tractatus Logico Philosophicus p. 147

    I for one, now that I'm older, see no a priori truth to follow. I need more freedom. I've learned too well how to do nothing, to be Zen,to appreciate the little things. Now I want riches and to fly first class, and to go to the Oscars.Now! As for the bucket list, I hate the idea. I'm going out for a walk.

    Bill Kerr

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  2. john839April 22, 2012 at 1:02 PM

    Thanks for the comment, Bill. I love that last line by Wittgenstein. Indeed, living forever is the curse of the gods and the most probably reason we are here, so the gods can vicariously appreciate the world they've created. How boring would it be to live forever, a prisoner of time for all time.

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