They were called to heaven, as if it did exist, but they could not accept a perfect state of bliss. They're wrapped in the struggle - attached to their own strife, seeking out some jarring rush in a leaden life.
Hectic [Verse]
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Tag Archives: life
Biodestiny [Free Verse]
linked machine to machine we're bio-destined to oblivion we can take our fidget romps, but we're still turds migrating through a litterbox called life among us are sentient volcanoes, self-aware, but not aware
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POEM: Counterfactual Life
Where we born with an infinity of lives at our feet -- chosen by how one steers all the forks in one's road? Or, are all those alleged forks false gods?
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POEM: Dissolving Past
I’ve heard it speculated that all times exist at once, and that our consciousness merely shines a light on a sequence of nows. But it sure feels like the past frays; that it’s dissolving from the edges. Worm-eaten in a way that works its way to the heart. The center reads clear for now, but one day… poof, it’ll be lost.
You’ll awake to find whole tracks of life are lost — like slides that were water damaged in the flood.
What happened in 1997? I’d need some sort of prompt to even make a guess.
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POEM: Wisdom of the Leaf
The mind is architect of a slum town of grief.
Silent words, yet ceaseless calling.
I envy the simple way of a falling leaf.
No grasping, nor fear of falling.
If a thought could twist on the wind for its brief life —
not frantically seeking hold.
We would not live these dear lives strafed by strife.
We’d not find our dreams bought and sold,
or feel untimely turning old —
vigor sapped by a false form of cold.
And life would be all we had to live.
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POEM: Dancing through the Graveyard
What’s the age at which dancing on a grave switches from an adorable bubbling over of life
to a
deplorable act of petty vindictiveness?
I saw a boy — clearly in the former category — pull it off,
but I knew that if I joined in the best I could hope for was an evil eye. And the worst would be to be slapped, kicked, or spat upon.
For I long ago crossed the river of innocence beyond which lie presumptions of foul intent.
An ever-watchful Orphean world keeps me from crossing back over that Stygian river.
Oh, to live life on the other bank.
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POEM: One Life at a Time
The man on a metaphorical soapbox said, “Aren’t you concerned about the afterlife?”
I replied, “My hands are full with the duringlife.”
Of course, nobody thinks about the beforelife,
because that requires acknowledging your parents made a bi-backed beast.
[Not you. You’re a single-backed beast in this story.]
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POEM: The Sum of All Ignorance
Oh, take me on a learning spree.
Explain the nature of reality.
Am I living in a simulation?
Perhaps, dumb luck is the world’s foundation.
Does life have meaning, or must I make one?
Should I live for love, or live for fun?
Should I consecrate or desecrate?
Do I live by chance or live by fate?
The answers, they grow no nearer.
Am I the heard or the hearer?
&
If I received such a knowledge bearer,
would I awake in bliss or in terror?
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POEM: Stone
someday someone will stumble on the stone
a stone outlasting skin and bone
a stone surface pocked and mossy
though once it shone polished glossy
brushing off letters worn shallow
on a stone face bleak and sallow
rendered so by nature and time
twins spoiling all not in its prime
they’ll read a name with bookend dates
and be shown they hold a common fate
should one become legend and myth
you’ll still not outlive your monolith
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BOOK REVIEW: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This may be the scariest, saddest, and most necessary book that I’ve read in some time. In it, Dr. Gawande discusses how medicine has proven increasingly effective at extending life, but—at the same time–we are less able to care for the elderly. The traditional approach, in which the elderly move back in with their families (or live independently near them,) often proves untenable. And it’s not necessarily because people are too busy, lazy, or indifferent to put up with granny, but rather that granny is likely to end up with needs that require a professional caregiver—in some cases for virtually every aspect of her daily life. In short, we’ve done a great job of extending life, but often with a sharp dip in the quality of life at the end.
The nursing home was the solution that the health care community came up with when this problem first became apparent. While the nursing home is both necessary and effective for many, for those of sound mind and sound-ish body, the move can be highly demoralizing. People revert from being independent and autonomous adults into a child-like status in which they have little freedom or privacy. Again, if grandpa has dementia or needs to be tube-fed, there’s no way around this, but if he’s just at risk for a fall that might break his hip, then it can be humiliating.
When it comes down to the end, fear of death has led to an unwillingness to ask important questions or even consider what might be just around the corner. This has led patients to keep asking for that one treatment that just might extend their lives—and doctors have been more than willing to allow this. This may be fine in the early days of a terminal illness, but once one has gone through—say–a couple of courses of chemotherapy, the treatment one is likely to get is some trial phase experiment that is as likely to kill one cruelly as extend one’s life—and to the degree that it does extend one’s life one may suffer a set of complications far more miserably than one would in letting the disease kill one. One of the most intriguing study results cited showed that people who took up hospice palliative care (making one comfortable) were found on average to live a little longer than those who kept seeking whatever treatment they could find.
This all sounds like bad news, but the author devotes much of the book to exploring the options that have been put forth in the face of these problems. One of these is the assisted living facility as an alternative to a traditional nursing home. These facilities work for people who are of sound mind and who aren’t too bad off physically. They allow the individuals to live as they might in a condo or apartment, but there are on-sight caregivers and assistance with all the tasks around the house that might prove too challenging for an older person. The other major solution is hospice care. Not that palliative care is new, but it’s increasingly being show to be a preferable option for all concerned. Another important outcome resulted from a major insurance provider’s decision to allow individuals to pursue palliative care while they were still being treated. [Historically, one only had the option of hospice once one had given up on treatment.] At any rate, the intriguing finding was that the insurance company actually ended up paying less because more people signed up for palliative care and those individuals used expensive health care elements like emergency rooms and intensive care units (ICU) less.
While I can’t say that I enjoyed reading this book, I would recommend it for everyone. It’s very readable. The approach is case-based. Dr. Gawande talks not only about his own patients and the patients and caregivers that he interviewed (his practice is not geriatric in nature, so he spoke with several experts), but also about the end of his own father’s life. It’s a short book of about 300 pages arranged into eight chapters. There are no graphics, and endnotes are the only ancillary matter, but nothing else is necessary for this book.
Read it.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 