The longer I live, the shorter life seems. The more responsibility I adopt, the less time I have to do it in. Perhaps that’s why time seems to go by so much faster as I grow older. It’s like sliding down poles and walking on rails when I was a kid. It seemed so much higher and playgrounds seemed so much larger. Looking at the same now that I’m older, it all seems so puny. Just another shade of jadedness it seems.
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Choose Dignity
After exhausting all avenues of treatment, my uncle and his family are now faced with the decision to either leave my aunt in hospital in the hope that something about her condition may change, or take her home and make her as comfortable as possible since any treatment she’s currently receiving can easily be administered at home. Inevitably, the first concern that was raised was how would they (the family) feel should something go horribly wrong if they took her home.
I think that’s the wrong way to look at this. Similar to death, and I don’t mean to sound insensitive or morbid here, but the real issue is that this is not about the family, it is about the patient. This is not about appeasing the conscience of the family or creating sufficient disclaimers regarding their culpability in the face of a bad outcome, but instead it’s about giving an ailing person the dignity of choice to decide what circumstance she would prefer, especially since she is still lucid and competent enough to make such a decision.
Consider the alternative. Should things take a turn for the worst, would anyone consider the fact that her last wish to spend time in her own home and depart peacefully was actually ignored because of the selfish (albeit sincere) considerations of those around her? Again, like death, this is about the person that is affected, and not about the effect it has on those around them. It may seem like a cold and cruel position to take, but in our grieving and concern, we often make things about ourselves when in fact it is not.
We’re still hopeful for a positive outcome, but I wish people would start looking at this from her perspective rather than how it affects everyone else around her.
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By all accounts, I am indeed a madman. I have desires and yearnings that appear to be normal but reflect a weakness of spirit that is pitiful. I have been painfully tutored about the nature of people, yet my belief in their inherent goodness and potential wholesomeness remains strong.
A wise physicist once said that the definition of insanity is repeating the same behaviour and expecting a different result. So by definition, I am a madman. I see and experience the hypocrisy of the closet sincerests among us, yet I continue to believe that there is an inherent goodness that lurks beneath. Not only do I believe it, I plan on it, I count on it and I expect it.
There are exceptions of course. But here’s the coup de grace of it all. In believing in this flawed human spirit, and in living a naively misguided life, my reputation has been tainted because of good intentions associated with bad outcomes. And these exceptions that I admire and appreciate so much would rarely feel inclined to be acquainted with the likes of such a tainted soul. From afar I’ll continue to desire and yearn, but I dare not step close enough to tarnish them with the putrefaction of a decaying soul.
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It’s a noisy night again. Despite the stillness and the silence, there’s constant crescendos of clutter raging in my head. But I do not wish to release them tonight. Perhaps it’s time they were allowed to rage and fester until they finally assumed a form of their own so that the tangibility of it might yield something more than just the taunts of days gone by.
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Ramblings
I have so many thoughts racing through my mind tonight. I regret the tone that my blog has taken recently because it has made me far too aware of the presence of others that read my posts. I regret indulging myself so much in the opinions and praises of others. I feel shallow and insincere in any efforts to write anything meaningful in order to feel some release from the cacophony of restlessness that keeps echoing in my head.
I visited my aunt in hospital tonight. I’m usually a very composed person even in the face of extreme trauma, but tonight I found myself actively subduing the tears and the lump in my throat when my uncle explained to me how he had to lie to his ailing wife to convince her to remain in hospital a little longer so that they may be able to find out what is causing her excessively high fevers.
Her condition has been worsening by the day for the last few weeks without any indication of the underlying cause, and her appearance is a far cry from how I remember her to be. It reminded me of my late grandfather that also pleaded with his family to take him home when he was rushed to hospital for a lung infection. He was 93. All he wanted to do was die peacefully at his home, in his bed, but out of sincere care his family failed to see what was really happening and instead insisted on keeping him in hospital. He died in a cold ward without any of the simple comforts he had grown to appreciate in his humble surroundings at home. Truly humble surroundings because he was a simple man. A man that literally gave his fortunes of wealth to his siblings in order to establish them in life before he made a comfortable home for himself and his own family. He died a poor man, while his siblings owned half the town. Literally.
At some point I wish we would stop and listen to what people want rather than what we want for them. At some point I wish others would stop to listen to what I want instead of what they want for me. This post makes no sense, nor does it offer any comfort from the thoughts that plague me tonight. At times like this I find myself easily annoyed by the games people play in their pathetic efforts to appease others. Sad games of lies and deception, mostly to themselves just so that they don’t have to face the disappointment of their parents or significant others. We find it so easy to lie, and even easier to justify it. But we spurn anyone that lies to us even though their motivations are not very different from our own.
It all reminds me of two quotes. The first is that we cannot awaken someone that is pretending to be asleep. The second is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.I pray I never become that pathetic shadow that is oblivious to the purpose of my existence, strutting like I own the world and fretting as if I am being persecuted whenever I don’t get my way. I will not be that idiot that takes it all for granted in the name of optimism that tomorrow is another day, and I need to give myself a break. Tomorrow is not another day. Tomorrow is simply today again, only with less time than I had yesterday, never being able to achieve what I needed to achieve today, because I’m still trying to achieve what I should have achieved yesterday.
