Yes, and!

“I learned there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead, others come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see. Now my troubles are going to have trouble with me.”

– Dr. Seuss

So where was I?  Ah yes,  my oft accused fatalism.  Why did I find it necessary to share my personal medical details with you?  Well, for one, I had nothing else to write about last week.  But also, I wanted to give a very clear illustration of a few of the enormous shortcomings of our medical system as it currently stands.  And not simply this, but the flaws in our attitude towards medicine and health, living and dying.  After all, we created the system, it didn’t just appear.  We just LOVE creating institutions.  But perhaps that is another post.  The present institutionalized medical juggernaut is a reflection of our values, rationale and fears as a culture- perhaps arguably inherent to our species.  Where these things intersect, we have intervened to create this now disfigured     monster of protracted suffering that no amount of corrective surgery can “fix”.   Of course we had the best of intentions.  Of course we want to map out a clear answer of what it is to live a happy (healthy) life; how to do it.  Because of course that’s what we want, and a simple desire for happiness shouldn’t lead to anything bad, right?  I won’t go too far into this, but I would issue a gentle reminder that good intention alone can run amok if it is not guided by a thorough understanding of the larger context.  I’m sure we’ve all experienced this at some point or another.  Unfortunately, even “understanding” is a tricky pickle.  A long, well-considered look at what it is to “know” a thing eventually reveals a permeable, viscous reflection of yourself, the knower.  To “know”, you must bravely and consistently question what you think you already know.  Ha!  It’s tough!  That makes no sense!  In fact, understanding the biggest context is, dare I say, impossible.

The other reason I wanted to write about my hospital stay is was to drive home the cheery point that illness extends beyond the hospital stay, beyond the period of time that we are “sick”.  It goes well beyond our physical bodies, well beyond the temporal notion of “the past”, and of course as anyone who has had an ill friend or family member knows, it even goes beyond the individual experiencing it.  These are some important things that our currently structured medical system does not consider and therefore could not hope to address.  But enough of my criticisms.  I promised to speak this week of uncertainty.

When I asked the doctor what I could do to prevent this from happening again, the answer I received was, “Nothing.”  It might happen again next week, or it may never happen again for the rest of my life.  Doesn’t matter how many miles I run or leaves of kale I consume.  It’s just a matter of chance.  How do you (I) deal with that??  What do you do when the face of unyielding uncertainty shows itself so pointedly?  I mean, you knew it was there all along, but here now it’s suddenly pulling at the hems of your pants like an obnoxious child.  Play with me! Pay attention to me!  Deal with me!

Well….deal with it, then.  Since uncertainty is woven into the very fabric of life, sooner or later, we all have to deal with it in one of it’s many manifestations.  For example, Uncertainty and danger are often great pals.  They hang out, they drink too much, and they produce worry.  And worrying consumes a disgustingly disproportionate amount of time when considered next to the actual amount of harm in which we find ourselves.  People worry about all sorts of things because fear is a thing that takes hold any way it can, statistically probable or not.  It thrives in uncertain conditions…if you let it.

I say that I struggle with uncertainty, but in reality it’s not the state of uncertainty that is the problem.  It is the multitude of assumptions and expectations I employ in reaction to an uncertain situation (and all situations are, believe this).  I’m not dealing with it in a healthy way.  It is when you resist, when you try to force certainty, to exert control over a situation…it makes sense why we do it, it’s because we have an incomplete understanding of the biggest picture.  It’s like trying to force up out of down.

There is something like an infinite number of ways a potential situation could go down, but only one way it does.  I often trouble myself with trying to prepare for them all, which is frustrating and ridiculous, because the resolution can only occur in the present moment.  And the present moment is happening.  What happens what you say, “I’m yours, Rhett, er, Destiny!  Take me!”

Why do I watch what I eat?  Why bother educating yourself or going to work so freaking stupid early at all?  I know this is what you get to thinking when the uncertainty overwhelms you and you refuse to feed it fear or other fuel.  Here you are doing your best not to react, and you just turn to bleh.  I know.  Resignation is an easy but improper response in the face of an unknown future.  And I think somewhere deep down we all feel that or resignation wouldn’t make us so sad.  There is an important difference between resignation and acceptance, between fatalism and recognition of what it it is you’re stepping in.  You might say that’s obvious, but trust me, in certain light they are nearly indistinguishable.  Choose the latter in both cases.  To be clear, you are not in control, but you can still make choices.  Resignation won’t bring you the liberation you desire, acceptance might.

In improv comedy, there is one cardinal rule, and that is called “Yes, and…”.  The idea is that whatever the other person in the scene throws at you, no matter what, you react with agreement, and take it one step further.  This deceptively simple rule is the basis for every hilarious “Who’s Line” or long form improv scene ever performed in the history of the world. (That would be a really long form…)  And I think, as usual, that comedy has a lot to offer in the way of instruction and solace when dealing with the unknowable biggest picture.

Life is uncertain.  Yes, and!  Uncertainty wants to play with you. Great! (little asshole…)  What shall we play?  When I think of uncertainty as a force or a law, like gravity, I wonder about early Hominids.  When they first began to walk upright- to lift their weighty skulls and straighten their hunched, aching backs, enabling them to evolve into the formidable and geniusly self-destructive species that we are today.  (To believe that we have reached some sort of pinnacle and have finished evolving, as a species or as individuals, is quite foolish in my opinion).  But the process of some still hidden and some now revealed laws guided their transformation.  Without an understanding of gravity, I wonder if they were very perturbed by this force that held them down, made them heavy, seemed to oppose them.  Uncertainty is a sort of “evolved” higher concept that we can cogitate now, thanks to our big fat brains.  It is a reality in which we live, through which we continue to change even daily, each moment to the next.  You must end resistance to it through a healthy diet of acceptance, because if you are not dealing with uncertainty, uncertainty is dealing with you.  I know it’s heavy, but stand up.  Learn to walk upright amidst uncertainty.