Cancer and positive thinking
My father’s (stomach) cancer has spread from his gullet, to his lungs, to his bone joints and it is now tucking itself in to the base of his skull. All in the space of four weeks.
He is currently under the knife – having a procedure which puts a drain into his lungs because the cancer has blocked normal drainage pathways. Hopefully, after the lungs have been drained and re-inflated, he will be able to walk again. In about 4 days. There’s a 2-20% failure rate. He signed the consent form. I’m not holding my breath.
And how long does he get to walk for anyway? A few months at best?
Everybody around me has suddenly turned into a stupid dunce. They all seems to believe in God / and or New-age incarnations of positive thinking. It would be lovely to believe in fairies and their leprechaun elders, right now – but (and some will have real problems with this one) . . . there – is – no – evidence.
I’m getting crappy chain-emails and messages with poems about soldiering on and fields of daffodils - and stuff. That can get fucked as an idea. Do you idiots realise that these emails are designed simply to harvest your email addresses for spammers? Or in some cases, ones with attachments (like that click-on-my-fairy powerpoint slideshow) are designed to install key-depression tracking software on your computers. Are you complete morons? . . . Look. I apologise. I’m feeling very emotional right now.
BUT . . . I do have problems with the so-called power of positive thinking. Positive thinking can be a really close relative to denial. By thinking positively, all one is doing is shoving what’s really going on – into the subconscious – and feeding the fear. Is that what you really need to be doing right now?
IMHO, God exists (or, rather doesn’t) because of the fear of death. He is an existential invention. By thinking positively – all we are doing really is focusing on the negative. The sooner Western society grabs a hold of the almost alien idea of now, the better off we will be. Or – for those of you who prefer stupid email chain-letter poems . . . “Yesterday is but a memory, tomorrow a dream.” I forget how it goes, but here’s the original source for those even vaguely interested in research and source.
But Kahil Gibran is right. There is only now, readers.
Right now my Dad is in horrible agony. All I can do, with my family, is try to help lessen that.
