The best part of this cancer "gift" is not in discovering our strengths, I think we know those pretty well. It is in discovering our weakness, how frail and temporary, fragile and powerless
life really is. We do not cause everything, stuff happens. Traditionally you are supposed to go through a "Why me?" phase, although I skipped this step. I have been extremely healthy most of my life and hadn't seen a doctor but four times in my entire life! But I smoked for 47 years, drank a lot until twenty years ago (I have the coin to prove it!), been around all kinds of obnoxious fumes and even drank water out of plastic water bottles! The voodoo doctors don't think any of this caused my cancer, it's just a gift, they don't know what causes Hodgekin's Lymphoma.
Cancer opens a million doors. It is as if I will show you my weakness if you show me yours. except there are no conditions, we are hungry to tell our stories. This blogging world makes it so easy and I have heard stories from all over the world: "I also have cancer, have fears and tears
and struggles and dreams" We are all connected by this "Human Condition" and, stealing a quote from another blogger, "We can live dieing or we can die living" those are the options.
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
The Blog is for Me
Blogging is like a modern day confessional. Maybe this whole computer thing allows an opening into the soul? When I Blog I am telling you what I am concerned about today, what is bothering me, what I am doing, the art I am producing, my hopes and dreams and the way I look at life.
We are told not to put too much on Facebook, be careful of what photos we post, and are reminded that the whole world is watching! We email people we hardly know and tell them things we wouldn't want others to know. The computer remembers everything! Every keystroke is permanently recorded! We can hit the "delete" button and empty the recycle bin and wish we hadn't said that, but it is still there! Hidden in some obscure cranny. The forbidden fruit once picked can't be put back on the tree. It is not necessary to get a computer expert to fish this out of our operating system, we know it is there. We have lost the art of communication
with people, afraid of being politically incorrect or hurtful, we become milktoast, would rather be bland than misunderstood. Except for this computer that doesn't talk back, has no reaction, can't be critical, can't cry and doesn't care to. We bare our soul to this machine, sometimes forgetting that someone might read it and always forgetting that it is not real. I am reminded of an elementary school teacher who shortstops a note from a boy to a girl and proceeds to read it to the whole class!
I think we have a need to be understood in our entirety, at least a need to understand ourselves that way. I am an artist, a welder, a gardener, a father, a friend, and so much more. It is a complex road system and some aspects of self-discovery lead to dead ends. No, that wasn't me:
hit delete!
There are no secrets. I was about 12 years old when Superman shot himself and my world changed forever. When David Carradine died (we all know how THAT happened!) I lost the KungFu guru I grew up with. Both of these bring a reality to my life and that is a wonderful thing about computers and the internet. I love Wikileaks and hate its destruction on how I view the world! Both. I think the internet will eventually bring a truth to the whole world. It still remains for us to separate truth from fantacy: in the World, in our relationships, with ourselves.
We are told not to put too much on Facebook, be careful of what photos we post, and are reminded that the whole world is watching! We email people we hardly know and tell them things we wouldn't want others to know. The computer remembers everything! Every keystroke is permanently recorded! We can hit the "delete" button and empty the recycle bin and wish we hadn't said that, but it is still there! Hidden in some obscure cranny. The forbidden fruit once picked can't be put back on the tree. It is not necessary to get a computer expert to fish this out of our operating system, we know it is there. We have lost the art of communication
with people, afraid of being politically incorrect or hurtful, we become milktoast, would rather be bland than misunderstood. Except for this computer that doesn't talk back, has no reaction, can't be critical, can't cry and doesn't care to. We bare our soul to this machine, sometimes forgetting that someone might read it and always forgetting that it is not real. I am reminded of an elementary school teacher who shortstops a note from a boy to a girl and proceeds to read it to the whole class!
I think we have a need to be understood in our entirety, at least a need to understand ourselves that way. I am an artist, a welder, a gardener, a father, a friend, and so much more. It is a complex road system and some aspects of self-discovery lead to dead ends. No, that wasn't me:
hit delete!
There are no secrets. I was about 12 years old when Superman shot himself and my world changed forever. When David Carradine died (we all know how THAT happened!) I lost the KungFu guru I grew up with. Both of these bring a reality to my life and that is a wonderful thing about computers and the internet. I love Wikileaks and hate its destruction on how I view the world! Both. I think the internet will eventually bring a truth to the whole world. It still remains for us to separate truth from fantacy: in the World, in our relationships, with ourselves.
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