Carpe Diem

In October 2007 my son was diagnosed with what turned out to be a fatal brain tumor. After 16 months of long hospital stays, chemotherapy, radiation, stem cell transplants, remission and palliative chemotherapy, the tumor overtook his 4 1/2 year old body. He died at home in our family room.

For a very long time now, I've listened to the words that others issue regarding the comfort they find in God's plan. I translate the religious into the cosmic, God into the Universe, intention into randomness. I know they care and are struggling with what to say and I appreciate the efforts.

Lately though, it's dawning on me that there is no public paradigm that families like ours can attach to help us steer through the grief and loss. We've taken deliberate steps to avoid 'hope'. Hope carries with it an expectation of what will happen. We've avoided 'knowing' that he'll make it. We focused instead on the daily tasks we needed to perform to keep him alive, comfortable and happy for the duration. We steered clear of language like 'Cancer Fears Me' or 'battling' or 'fighting'. We turned instead to a metaphor of guiding the boat down the stream, avoiding the rocks where we could and preparing for those we couldn't. We looked directly into our situation and accepted it for what is was. We worked to accept the reality of what was happening instead of looking for it to be different.

And now he's gone. No action we could have taken would have ultimately changed that. We do not have expectations to adjust. We do not have regrets about not enjoying or making the most of each moment with him. Our daughters are dealing with this well. We're sad but not angry. We miss him desperately but do not await any sort of reunion in heaven. If we were focused on preventing the inevitable we would not have been able to attend to the most important time we had with him.

To be clear, we did not expect him to die either. We suspended looking too far and pinning any sort of expectations of what we wanted or thought should be. Did I expect him to be good at sports? at school? Did I expect him to marry? All of those had to be abandoned. If they happened, great. But being tied to those was folly in the face of what we had to endure. Instead we awoke each day and were grateful for it. Each night as we lay down with him to sleep, a sadness for the day spent attended our thoughts, but not regret. Only wanting more.

So if you read this and you wonder if God has a plan and ask why He may have picked you or your son or daughter. Consider for a moment that there is no intention in the Universe. Only random faults and mutations in genes. Some are wonderful and are the reason I can write and think these very words. Some are terrible and are why I now have no son. Consider that perhaps wishing and hoping is harmful, not helpful. Consider that keeping your eyes focused on what is occurring in front of them may be the most wonderful gift you can give yourself. Consider that being grateful for what you have is a far better mental attitude than worrying about what you don't. Consider seizing this day, this day only. Yesterday cannot be changed and there will be time to take care of tomorrow then.

Carpe Diem.

Belonging

"Why should I feel intrusion?
Why be afraid of what we do not understand?
To eliminate exclusion
Cut out the differences to feel like we belong."

Dave Matthews Band From Squirm: Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King

I do a fair amount of reading about evolution and behavior. One of the questions that is often asked by evolutionists for a given characteristic of a species is "What advantage does that characteristic give to that species?"

In the case of religion, for example, why is religion so pervasive across the globe? It has come into existence independently in almost all cultures. Richard Dawkins suggests in 'The God Delusion' that it was a perhaps a function of safety. As children our minds are given to believe whatever our parents tell us without much question. What advantage is this? It keeps us from wandering out into the forest at night, from crossing the street, or from doing any other number of otherwise dangerous things of which we'd be unaware at a young age. This prepares our minds to accept religion as children and, while we stop believing in Santa Clause and the tooth fairy, we are taught the stakes of stopping our belief in God to be much more ominous.

So why is it that we feel a need to belong? A need to find a cause bigger than ourselves? One theory is that as our species became migratory and increasingly became more effective at hunting in groups versus alone, that our ability to communicate and work together evolved alongside. It is an easy extension to imagine that those who cooperated well and contributed the most to the group were valued and tended to survive and thrive. Additionally, as we migrated it was inevitable that we encountered others and classified these groups as 'them'. How can we identify 'them'? We look for differences between our group and theirs. Different became threatening. Different became 'bad'. The corollary is that the similarities became 'good'.

I believe that this persists today. People are no longer necessarily threatening, but we seek in-group identification in evaluating others. We may see ourselves as white or black, upper or middle class, women or men. He's tall, she's fat, those boys are jocks, those kids are geeks. When you meet someone, similarities are focused on. You may have the same hometown, your children may be the same ages, you may have the same favorite band, or the same hobby, or you follow the same sports team. We seek similarities and undervalue or flat out dismiss someone that is different.

In reality, the differences are what adds value to our lives. This sounds cliché but consider, really consider, that there can be no white without black. No tall without those that are short. In evolution, if things didn't change randomly, an environmental change could spell catastrophe for a species. If the peppered moth didn't adapt its color to match soot-covered industrial England, it would have been snatched up by it's predators. The same holds true for the finches on the Galapagos Islands. Threatened by drought and famine, the birds without the tools to survive died out. The total population plunged by 85% and the remaining birds were larger with deeper and longer, basically stronger, beaks. This advantage allowed them to eat less accessible seeds which became their sustenance. Nature selected them to live. Their differences became their survival.

So now our challenge as the human species is to use our wonderfully adaptive brains to realize that our survival depends less on identifying 'us' and 'them' now, but seeing that we are all 'us' and lending our efforts to cooperation and compassion rather than differences and division. We can still seek to belong, but we just need to extend the membership of the in-group to include everyone. We're more similar than we are different anyway and that's what matters. The differences just keep things interesting.

Got Inspiration?

What is your daily metaphor? What helps you to understand human behavior and why things happen? What serves as your manual for life?

For many it is their holy book; the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud. Maybe it's the more modern book of Mormon or the fully ancient Hindu Vedas, Dhammapada, the Bhagavad Gita or the Tao Te Ching. Some find inspiration for living from paintings or sculpture, some from music or nature. Some people piece together their direction from a number of these places. The quality of a good source of inspiration is its applicability to our daily lives, how well it touches the personal experience we deem to be most real, most meaningful and how thoroughly it renews and recreates us. To the extent authors and artists can do this they are successful.

True art though comes not necessarily from an attempt to inspire, but from an attempt to express. Discovering a truth deep within and uncovering a way to channel that discovery into a tangible form is artistry.

So this brings me to one source of my inspiration. While I do find truths in the Tao, in the Gita and even a good metaphor in the Bible (if not taken literally), I find regular daily inspiration in the lyrics and music of the Dave Matthews Band. There are other artists out there that capture 'it' occasionally. Coldplay for instance, maybe Iron and Wine. I enjoy Death Cab for Cutie for much the same reason, but DMB is on another plane. They consistently produce meaningful metaphors and spin them into art.

Really? A rock band you say?

Really. Just listen. Really listen. Ask yourself what some of the lyrics mean. Then you can judge. So starting now, I'm going to blog some of my favorite bits of inspiration. Some from here, some from there, but many will be coming from The Book of Dave.