Only when we've lost everything are we free to do anything
Wednesday, 15 March 2023
phlebotomy
Before the advent of surgery, many illnesses were treated with phlebotomy, also known as bloodletting.
Bloodletting is the withdrawal of blood from a patient to prevent or cure illness and disease.
It was one of the most common medical practices performed by surgeons from ancient Greece until the late 19th century.
The practice has largely been abandoned because we now know that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the use of bloodletting is harmful to patients.
And yet, we did it as a standard medical practice for over 2,000 years.
It wasn't a blip in the history of medicine. It was an era.
For decades, many doctors were convinced that bloodletting was harming more than it helped. But just as many were convinced that it was the only cure.
Doctors, like most human beings, are risk-averse. They prefer the safety of what they know over the thrill of new innovations.
change requires incontrovertible proof, which is not always easy to come by.
It has been theorized that surgery itself is just an era that will pass. But that's a long way away.
And in the meantime, there are eras within eras.
We discover new science, we posit, prove new theories. And then we bang our heads against the wall trying to convince ourselves to actually change our practices in line with what we know.
Because the end of an era is easier said than done.
Monday, 13 March 2023
The four Zen mottos
“special transmission outside doctrine,”
“not to establish language,”
“direct point to the mind,”
and
“seeing into one's nature and attaining the Buddhahood,
The essence of Zen
attempting to understand the meaning of life directly,
without being misled by logical thought or language
Zen
enlightenment is achieved through the profound realization that one is already an enlightened being.
Zen
simplicity,
present-moment awareness,
nonduality,
nonconceptual understanding,
and zazen (“just sitting”) meditation
Zen philosophy
the denial of the ego,
the focus on interconnectedness in the universe,
the recognition of attachment as a source of suffering,
and the realization that human perception is faulty
Slide
No distractions.
The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.
needs to let things go.
To allow yourself to not be bothered by everything.
| when tidal waves hit, there are often people watching on shore. They see the disaster coming, see the horizon disappearing. They don't really see until it's too late. while it's good to plan for the worst, you can't really know how you'll handle it until you're smack dab in the middle of it, under the wave, trying not to drown. Disaster has a tendency to melt away everything else in life. So if you want to know who you'll be in a disaster, ask yourself, "Who am I now?" |
Life expectancy.
And what is a heartbeat if not a ticking clock?
A clock that's always counting down.
The heart beats until it can't. Our limbs move until they don't. Our brains imagine futures we'll never see.
We're struggling to overcome a simple, inescapable truth: everything ends.
But for every clock that counts down, another restarts.
Time goes on, and when one thing ends, something new always begins.
If only life's variables were as cut and dried as the rules of mathematics.
If only there were clear answers, certainty, clarity, right or wrong.
But all you can do is eliminate as many unknowns as possible.
Then pick an answer and hope.
Hope that at the end of the day, it's an answer you can live with.
"Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should."
That's how records are broken, how moons are stepped on, diseases are cured, by people who are willing to try.
We call these people innovators. Fearless. Genius. We call them reckless. Thoughtless. Dangerous.
It's hard to know which one we are.
It's hard to know if what we're doing is just crazy or if it's going to change everything.
Blood is thicker than water
Blood is thicker than water.
It means the family you're born into is important above all else, right?
Wrong.
The original proverb goes a little differently. It actually says,
"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."
Meaning the bloodshed on the proverbial battlefield bonds us more than simple genetics.
DNA matters when it comes to medical history.
family is family.
don't give a crap whose blood you have.
Time
Time is a strange thing.
When you're waiting for something good to happen, it can feel like time is dragging on.
But when you want it to slow down, it goes by in the blink of an eye.
The odd part is time isn't real. It's a concept imagined by scientists based on the imperfect movement of the Earth around the Sun.
So why do we put so much importance on something that's just a theory?
Because it's all we have.
There's never enough time. Work. Kids. Life. Death. Something always cuts our time short.
So our best bet is to make the most of the time we have. Or make up for lost time.
But sometimes, if we're really lucky, time stands still.
In the early days of medicine, surgical students would perfect their sewing techniques on tree branches.
Because when looking at an exposed bone in an amputation, human instinct is to recoil, not cut.
get out of the habit of listening to instinct.
So what about those times when there is no road map? Should we go with our gut then? If instinct is all we have, it's not always a bad thing. It can bring us wonderful places, joyful places.
And it can also serve an important service, 'cause our gut is usually what warns us when trouble lies ahead.
Just like we need food and water, humans need each other.
A brain study revealed that when placed in an MRI, a patient's reward center lit up when another person sat in the room.
Neurons fire when we talk to someone, think about someone, and they go haywire when we hold someone's hand. Our brains and bodies are actually programmed to seek each other out and connect.
So then why do so many people prefer being alone? Why do we often run for the hills when we feel the slightest connection? Why do we feel compelled to fight what we're hardwired to do?
Maybe it's because when we find someone or something to hold onto, that feeling becomes like air. And we're terrified we're going to lose it. And trust me, you can get pretty good at the alone thing.
But most things are better when they're shared with someone else.
There is a portion of the cerebral cortex of your brain folded deep within an area between the temporal and frontal lobes.
It's called the insula and it's where desire starts.
The insula is only about the size of a pea, but what it triggers in our bodies, and by extension in our lives, can be epic.
We'd like to imagine that we're in control, but more often than not, the chemicals in our brain control us. The insula lights up and we're compelled to change our lives.
Compelled by longing.
Compelled by yearning.
Compelled by desire for more.
In Japan, when a piece of pottery breaks, some potters fill the cracks with gold.
The potters, they see the repair as something beautiful. They know that the unexpected happens. Change happens. They know that nobody gets through this world in one piece.
That doesn’t have to diminish us. The cracks are part of our history. They will always be with us. They made us better. They made us stronger.
They made us something new.
Friday, 10 March 2023
Life doesn't owe us a thing.
It just is.
Like a river, it goes where it goes.
You can try to fight against the current. Or you can learn to ride it.
All day, every day, we fight against the current.
Sometimes we lose, sometimes we win.
Sometimes, the current carries us exactly where we need to go
. And sometimes, it slams us right into the rocks.
24 hours.
1,440 minutes.
86,400 seconds.
One day can bring you back from the brink, change your entire life in one heartbeat, one single breath.
That's all it takes to save your life. To change your life.
One single day can pull us from the depths of despair.
And one single day can fill us with more possibilities than we could imagine.
On average, a healthy heart beats 115,000 times per day.
When excited, the heart rate can double.
The heart pumps 2,000 gallons of blood through your entire body 24 hours a day.
It never rests.
The heart is the hardest-working muscle in your body.
But when it’s damaged, it’s just like skin. It scars, and scar tissue can be very dangerous in a heart. It weakens it. And eventually, a heart full of scars stops working.
Scarred hearts don’t heal, but over time, the scars can change.
They can become smoother, softer.
And some scars can even fade away.
We've all heard the quote: "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."
Easy for Thomas Edison to say. He had all the good ideas.
Inspiration is not some mystical, unattainable thing. Inspiration is a seed. That seed turns into vision. That vision turns into a goal.
And hopefully, that goal turns into victory.
I said, hopefully.
Job
In the course of one day, Job received four messages, each with separate news that his livestock, servants, and ten children had all died.
He continued to be a faithful servant. He still prays to God. He persevered.
Job's faith was tested and he passed the test. And for his faith, God rewarded Job with twice what he had before.
“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” That's what Jesus said on the cross before he died.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Job asked the question, too. But he kept the faith. And what did he get for it? Replacement children. PTSD.
Was it worth it to have been a faithful servant?
Or would it have been better to just curse God's name from the beginning? Where was God throughout all of Job's suffering and pain? He was winning a bet with Satan.
Makes you wonder where He is through all of the unfairness and inequity and cruelty in the world.
Where is He now?
Thursday, 9 March 2023
Something for the Pain by Bon Jovi
Happiness, it's been no friend to meBut forever after ain't what it's all cracked up to beYeah, I had a taste, you were my fantasyBut I almost lost my faith when I hit realityI don't need no Guru to tell me what to doWhen your feeling like a headline on yesterday's news
Loneliness has found a home in me
My suitcase and guitar are my only familyI've tried to need someone, like they needed meI opened up my heart, but all I did was bleedI don't need no lover, just to get screwed, They don't make no band-aide that's gonna to cover my bruise
Pull me under (Help I'm falling)Run through my veins (Night is calling)To a place (Feels like I'm flying)Where I feel no pain (Christ I'm dying)Be the pillow under my headCover me when I'm in your bedTake me higher than I've ever beenTake me down and back againCome to me, be my disguiseOpen your coat, let me crawl inside
Come on, come on, come onGive me something for the painGive me something for the bluesGive me something for the painWhen I feel I've been danglin' from a hang-man's nooseGive me shelter from the rainGive me something I can useTo get me through the nightMake me feel all rightSomething like you, come on, come on, come on
"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."
maybe they didn't mean physical pain.
Maybe they meant the other kind, the worse kind.
Maybe they meant the kind of searing, seething, boiling pain that tells you you're a failure and a fraud.
Suffering is optional.
That person didn't know what the fuck they were talking about.
Turbulence.
It means anything from a few little bumps to a catastrophic weather system that could knock your flying tin can right out of the air.
We've hit a snag, a bump in the road.
Turbulence. So, you know, you better buckle up.
One of the most unpredictable things about encountering turbulence is its aftermath.
Everything's been shaken up. Undone. Turned on its head.
So, if you have the choice to avoid the plane crash, do you take it? Do you play it safe?
Or do you get on board and take your chances?
Entropy
Stuff comes apart.
An eggshell's never gonna come back together. A window will never unbreak.
It's called the second law of thermodynamics.
It's also called life.
Stuff rarely comes together, but it will always come apart.
Everything comes apart at some point. We all will. It's the law. It's what we're designed to do.
We have to face it and accept it, and try to hold it together, for as long as we can.
Reunions
I don't do reunions.
I don't need to make superficial conversation with a bunch of people I barely remember.
If I wanna keep someone in my life, I keep them in my life.
Or, maybe it's just that I don't know how to get rid of them.
I don't do reunions, but I can see why people do.
They can make you feel like you haven't felt in a long time. It's comfy. It's familiar. It's kind of like coming home. You see how people turned out, if they realized their hopes and dreams, or if they have lost their hopes and dreams.
Or maybe you see that they have found what we all should find: brand new hopes and dreams.
We all have heroes.
People we look up to. People we aspire to be, who teach us how to be greater than we are because they are greater than we are.
They're great if we don't look too closely. 'Cause if we get too close, we realize heroes are just regular people. And regular people can fail us.
Our heroes aren't special. They're just people. They're like us. They're just trying to survive. They're trying to be happy. Trying to do better. Be better. Feel better
Heroes aren't more special, more courageous than the rest of us. After all, they're only human. They hurt. They break. They bleed.
But sometimes, every once in a while, when it matters, they get it right. And that changes everything.
A hero is only human, but that's the point. If they can do it, so can you.
So, you keep going. You don't give up. You stand tall. You fight.
You always show up to save the day.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
It's hard to admit when we're wrong, but even though everything looks fine, there's a problem.
Something is broken and you have to see where it's broken and set about fixing it or it's all gonna come apart.
Backaches, jaw pain, nausea.
In men, these things are probably exactly what they seem like.
But in women, they're all symptoms of a heart attack.
Sometimes, the symptom is hiding what's going on underneath. It's all in the way it presents itself.
What happens when the gloves come off and you stop hiding behind your mask? What's your next move? Do you take your best shot and see where it lands? Or do you hang back, wait a minute, and see if you get sucker punched?
It's your move.
You can either retreat or go out swinging,
so whatcha gonna do?
Wednesday, 8 March 2023
. Any day you wake up and your body's still moving is a good day.
You can start over. You can forget your past mistakes. You can make a new start. Live everyday like it's your last. All that crap they put on pillows and car bumpers, it's all true.
You're alive. Respect that.
Not everybody is.
We can start over. Every day, we get second chances to become who we always wanted to be. We can leave our past behind or we can learn from it and honor it.
We can decide.
It's never too late to change
12 12
They say you fight fire with fire
We stoke the flames, but playing with fire is a dangerous thing.
When we strike that match, we like to think we can control the burn.
We like to think we have any control at all, but fire is wildly difficult to contain.
And just when you think you've extinguished the blaze, it reignites.
It sucks in air and burns hotter and brighter than ever.
“I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.”
“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
“If we possess our why of life we can put up with almost any how.”
“A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.”
“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity.”
“That every will must consider every other will its equal — would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness.”
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
“The lonely one offers his hand too quickly to whomever he encounters.”
“Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.”
“Ascetic ideals reveal so many bridges to independence that a philosopher is bound to rejoice and clap his hands when he hears the story of all those resolute men who one day said No to all servitude and went into some desert.”
“Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.”
“We often contradict an opinion for no other reason than that we do not like the tone in which it is expressed.”
“They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.”
“There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.”
“Most people are far too much occupied with themselves to be malicious.”
“He who humbleth himself wants to be exalted.”
“In the end things must be as they are and have always been — the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare.”
“A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling.”
“Forgetting our intentions is the most frequent of all acts of stupidity.”
“Many people are obstinate about the path once it is taken, few people about the destination.”
“People are always angry at anyone who chooses very individual standards for his life; because of the extraordinary treatment which that man grants to himself, they feel degraded, like ordinary beings.”
“If a man has a great deal to put in them, a day will have a hundred pockets.”
“The first opinion that occurs to us when we are suddenly asked about a matter is usually not our own, but only the customary one, appropriate to our caste, position, or parentage; our own opinions seldom swim near the surface.”
“Truth tends to reveal its highest wisdom in the guise of simplicity.”
“A strong and well-constituted man digests his experiences (deeds and misdeeds all included) just as he digests his meats, even when he has some tough morsels to swallow.”
“Everything good, fine, or great men do is first of all an argument against the skeptic inside them.”
“Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach honesty.”
“Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?”
“All great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity.”
“What does not kill me makes me stronger.”
“Disobedience — that is the nobility of slaves.”
“Untroubled, scornful, outrageous — that is how wisdom wants us to be: she is a woman and never loves anyone but a warrior.”
“Virtue has come to consist of doing something in less time than someone else.”
“I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity.”
“A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength — life itself is will to power.”
“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded.”
“Even the most beautiful scenery is no longer assured of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some distant coast attracts our avarice: possessions are generally diminished by possession.”
“Freedom means that the manly instincts which delight in war and victory dominate over other instincts, for example, over those of 'pleasure.'”
“The free man is a warrior.”
“That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts.”
“Danger alone acquaints us with our own resources, our virtues, our armor and weapons, our spirit, and forces us to be strong.”
“Every profound spirit needs a mask.”
“It is not the strength, but the duration, of great sentiments that makes great men.”
“The belly is the reason why man does not mistake himself for a god.”
“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
“At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.”
“The best friend will probably acquire the best wife, because a good marriage is founded on the talent for friendship.”
“A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles.”
“My formula for happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal.”
“The sick are the greatest danger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to the strong, but from the weakest.”
“One must need to be strong — otherwise one will never become strong.”
“How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which must be overcome, by the effort it costs to remain on top.”
“Life is continually shedding something that wants to die.”
“Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today.”
“No power can maintain itself if only hypocrites represent it.”
“One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.”
“Happiness is the feeling that power increases — that resistance is being overcome.”
“All in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.”
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