loss

Three Sentences…Again

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Old age effects memory in odd ways and it is affecting* me. It’s impossible to multitask anymore as attention needs to be paid to each and every action. There are ways to help yourself remember but who can remember them?**

And is memory loss just plain “loss”*** or caused by poor memory retention and/or poor memory recovery?  Imagine an office**** with someone misfiling paper records. Who is to blame when a file can’t be found? And, more importantly, who cares if it’s a one-person office?

A current war’s stated purpose is the denial of atomic weapons to a certain country. There has never been actual proof that certain country has nuclear weapons so we bombed that certain country until we almost ran out of bombs, anyway. We won’t stop, however, because we’ll never run out of money for more bombs.

A recent news story about the United States Immunization Court***** revealed there is still some nuance available when dealing with a “good” that helps most people but is “bad” for  some others. Hundreds of millions of people get vaccinated and several thousand have a reaction to the vaccine. It’s impossible to say if the many millions were saved or helped by the vaccine but it is possible, now, to see how many were hurt, so…?

It reminds one of “Don’t Throw the baby out with the bathwater.” In our polarized country decisions about policy have become binary: yes or no, good or bad. Know anyone who “throws out” bathwater?

That reminds me, idiotic statements are hard to ignore. Who, for example, is The Media? Is it me for writing essays? When a Republican/Conservative criticizes The Media, is he/she/they criticizing the same media a Democrat/Liberal does?

And “Yeah, I mean” needs to be added to the dictionary as one word: YeahImean. Even supposedly educated politicians and professionals are beginning answers to questions with this new word. YeahImean can replace “um”, “uh”, and hopefully “That’s a very good question”****** as a time staller (sic).

Everyone should be forced to watch some version of “The History Channel”, either on TV, or streaming or by audio and other media delivery systems. Not only will we learn how insignificant our lives really are, but also how much we—as a civilization—learn and then forget. With our combined history of three steps forward and two and half steps back, it’s a wonder civilization has made any progress. Fourth sentence needed: Have we made progress?

Okay, what am I forgetting? Oh, ending. Note that it’s getting harder to write just three sentences.

Regarding the last paragraph: I almost typed “harder and harder”, but caught it just in time and made the sentence more simple. How simpler (sic) is that?

Apologies for another three sentences, but Ai says “simpler” means “more easy”, “less hard”, and “less busy”. Really. Sadly.

Enjoy the foot note error. Its more simple for me to leave it. Less worky (sic) for me,

*Can’t remember the rule for affect and effect, so used both rather than spend time asking Ai.

**A Dana Carvey movie about Goldfield’s Syndrome deals with memory issues by having him write notes and tape them all over his home. One of the notes had to be a reminder to write notes.

****An Old School Office with a fax and file cabinets, like the show.

***Vision: A brain with a small hole leaking words and pictures.

*****Google or Ai the court.

******Our current president speaks his mind about “stupid” questions, but who purposefully asks such a question and is our president a good judge of it?

Fun With Quotes and Such

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There are lots of people’s opinions floating around this world in the form of “quotes”. Especially from dead people. Some have become bromides, axioms, truisms, or some other form of important saying. These quotes have become “shorthand” for making a point about life in general without using too many words, and some people spout them at odd times in discussions. Let’s examine four of my favorites.*

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates. Is Socrates talking about physical or mental examination? He couldn’t have envisioned full body scans or PSA tests, so he must have been talking about the mental questioning of life. But can animals examine their existence? Trees?  Are babies given a pass on examining their life until a certain age? And how is “worth” measured? Happiness? Dollars? How long your quote is? I understand and appreciate the brevity, but If Socrates had added a few more words we might make better use of it. In fact, he added lots of words as this came from testimony at his trial. Time took some of the words after he drank the hemlock…look it up, yourself.

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”” TS Eliot. Who wants to know how “far” they can go? And how is this one measured? Miles or time? What about the disabled population? And is going a long distance the only reason to risk going anywhere? Kierkegaard’s unusual ideas about “going far” seem to be the opposite of the quote. He found his Moral Imperative ideas walking his city’s streets. And who ever begins a trip trying to find out how “far” they can go?  The quote must have something to  do with Flat Earth Conspiracies. Think about it. But not too hard.

“A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.” Rod Stewart? No one knows where this one came from but since it appeared on a Rod Stewart album it’s never left my mind. First, how do we know the horse cares about either signal? Maybe the horse was Mr. Ed.** And who would nod or wink or wave or otherwise signal a blind horse? unless it was to test the accuracy of the quote? And who would care? I have a vision of men sitting around watching a blind horse and laughing at people nodding and winking. Ever do either, yourself? PS Further prodding of Ai “suggests” the quote means “don’t make a larger effort when a smaller effort will work.” If you understand what Emma means, comment please.

“It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”  Per Ai: “This famous sentiment comes from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1850 poem, ‘In Memoriam A.H.H.’ It suggests the profound beauty of human connection outweighs the agony of grief. While the pain of loss is real, love leaves an indelible, enriching mark on our lives.” Not much needs to be said about this one since every reader will have their own opinion, depending on the stage of the current “love”, especially if they have loved and lost many times.  Or love rooting for the New York Yankees. Lost must be the key word. Would you rather be in love or be lost? And what about a person’s love of God? Can it ever be lost? And if it can be, would it be “better” for the individual involved? Of course, we have to consider our plant and animal friends, again. If you adopt a rescue dog, for example, has it felt love and loss and then love, or are dogs only capable of adoration? Have you ever entered into a “love affair” thinking about how it will feel when it’s “lost’? Honey, I’ll love you until February 3 of next year and then it’s over, okay?*** Or is the quote about actually mislocating love, like car keys?

Enough frivolity. Get back to living a good, sensible life.

A sad PS: in my last essay I pontificated on living life to the best of our abilities, forgetting to point out some people never even get the chance.

*Basically, ones stuck in my head. Enjoy the ambiguity.

**The Talking Horse from early television. There might have been a film about a verbose donkey, too. Really. Not making it up. Google it. Ai is long-winded about something so trivial.

***Not a bad idea for both parties to guard against unplanned abandonment, but you would need some variation of a pre-nuptial in case one party doesn’t want their love to be lost.

 Death. Death. Death. Death. Not again…

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It’s typed four times in clearly readable Calibri* because typing it three times didn’t make the word sound as ridiculous as it should. Say it four times really, really fast…you’ll get an idea of how strange it is to worry about The Word. We accept a lot of things in life out of our control, why is “that one” any different? If I was 6 feet 8 inches I’d be a retired, rich former NBA basketball star, in the Hall of Fame. Being normal height hasn’t made me fall on the floor lamenting and grieving.

In “Slaughterhouse 5”, Kurt Vonnegut introduces the Tralfamadorians who view death as simple transport, a journey to another place, a minor station in life. Their view is life is never-ending since they exist in 26 dimensions representing all stages of their lives, and they can transport into any stage at any time. Want to revisit your gestation? No problem. Death? Only take a second, unless you want to stay longer. Any time in any individual life is always being played out in some dimension, somewhere, sometime. Death is merely another pearl in a necklace to be enjoyed, admired, and revisited. Neat, right?

Philosophy, science, and science fiction are not as far apart as the rational among us might think.  Learned and tamed Quantum Entanglement could explain the mechanics of the Tralfamadorian dimension travel, for example. But it might be wise to not expose young minds to any of these thoughts, as they leave a lasting impression with sometimes controversial side effects. Billy Pilgrim’s story of travels to his other dimensions was learned when I was 16, when death was not only unnecessary to consider, but touching life anyway, with car accidents, drugs, and the Viet Nam war…in the 1960’s dimension.

It isn’t any pedantic puzzle to solve, then, how an attitude towards death can be skewed, and become slightly comic. Sure, death is inevitable, and could come suddenly, but so what? If we simply move to another dimension, what’s the problem? In religious arguments with all sects, it was the same question: if the dead are actually going to the heaven you describe, why are we sad for them?

From then on, at funerals, I was a reasonably handsome, silent man in a nice suit with tissues in every pocket. The paper product’s sole purpose was to allow grief to transfer from the breaking hearts of grieving widows, mothers, daughters, sisters, and anyone else, to those flimsy papers, then the pockets, and finally, disposal. Rarely were more words than these exchanged: “It’s so nice of you to be here for______.” Accidents, the unlucky military draft, and suicides caused the scene to be repeated often and ended with a final straw**, the death of mom. I didn’t need to be the strong silent Man With Tissues. Where she was going would be a lot better than where she’d been. I was happy for her.

It’s easy to understand grief and loss surrounding death. They have been companions often, but when Death suddenly appears, the theory or assumed reality of where the dead are going should outweigh any selfish sense of loss, shouldn’t it? If given a choice, especially for eternity, we’d all choose heaven instead of sticking around to keep relatives and loved ones from crying. Wouldn’t we? Wait, if everyone went to heaven…

It’s hard to see how the medical world fits into a discussion of death. When doctors cure cancer, it is only a temporary victory, a battle won even though the war will be lost. Is our happiness for the cure and few extra years really that big a deal? It helps to wonder about what would have happened if the world never became “developed”, and we lived the laws of nature, not medicine and man. Is living with someone else’s heart, for example, worth it? Is donating your organs to someone else your goal in life?

Only until we know for sure, only until we have made that journey, it’s open season on end-of-life issues and we will discuss them forever, by ourselves or our progeny.

Conclusion: The journey matters. Not The End. Say it four times really, really fast.

Final note: The Calamities of the past three years stress-tested the opinions expressed in this post. Winning the battle rang the bell that saved them for another round. Can’t wait to see what’s next.***

And apologies for bringing this subject up for the umpteenth time. It’s not my fault if people keep dying.

PS Looked it up and the last time you were lectured about Death was January 11, 2026, when Bob Weir died, a Grateful Dead. See? It’s not my fault.

*Which the wordpress gods will change to New Times Roman.

**There is never a “Final Straw”. And loss never ends.

***Sarcasm?

Death as an Equation

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Several past posts have been about The D Word, but this post will be more objective, less emotional, almost dry, in discussing the impact of Death.

In youth, there was lots of death (sic). Pets died, farm animals died, insects got squashed, and fish got caught…and eaten. Very few of those deaths were looked at as Death (sic). Insects don’t deserve to live, anyway, and pets, well, pets came and went. Many dogs and cats wandered off the farm never to be seen again. Often, we’d find bones in the farm fields but never made any connection. At least the adults said there wasn’t any. The only emotional loss on the farm was when we shipped a favorite calf or piglet to the slaughterhouse, and as young’uns we didn’t actually knew what it meant at the time.

The facts of life don’t take long to be revealed, however, and around the eighth grade an emotion surfaced in talking about Death. What happened to Uncle Carl was defined as “passing”, per mom. It was her brother and a favorite uncle. He smoked cigarettes from packs rolled up in his tee shirt sleeves, drank, used hair product, and liked to lean on the hood of his convertible. In the 1950s and 60. He visited the farm regularly and called me “Sport”. When he stopped coming, it was weeks before I asked mom. She set me and my brother on the couch and announced “Carl won’t be coming anymore”, and as we kids pondered what we did wrong she added, “He has passed on.”

Death made itself known eventually, and we had some disagreements, but I came to understand and accepted it which was easy since my death was so far away. An early and now long-gone girlfriend said I was a great comfort at funerals. As a big, strong, quiet man woman liked to cry on me, no matter their age.

Now, an approaching Death needs to be an arbitrary factor in equations and discussions about End of Life. Input all known variables and solve for X. The word death meant nothing to the young mind and now means nothing to the old mind. In fact, Death, now, is simply the next event, the next inevitable stage of Life. Some of those were turning 13, turning 16, kissing a girl (thanks Cousin Debbie), buying beer, college, marriage, kids, marriage again, marriage again (Yes, sadly, not a typo), grandkids, and retirement. These were most of the major events looked forward to and anticipated. The first beer, by the way, was so bad, how could anyone drink it?

But beer might help with Death, if you think about it. I love beer, now, so maybe, after death…?

Naw. The equation aspect of death is a result of living. When someone near my age dies, and when someone older than me dies, there are two different equations: How much longer than the former have I lived, and do I have as much time left, as the latter. I’ve mentioned before, the age of Death and how it had to be determined for End of Life Financial Planning. Mine is 84, the age mom died. Dad died at 51, so…

The Death Equation became harder to solve when The Calamities hit. They skewed the values of certain parts of the formula, at one point even suggested a final solution, variables be damned. In sharing my experiences with friends/cohorts in my age group, it seems we all suffer something, eventually, and don’t know what to do about it. Sharing experiences has a warning implied, and several cohorts have learned of a new calamity thanks to the exposing of someone else’s old one. I learned about my new calamity, one I never would have suspected, from the reported trials of a friend in Florida.

Another friend has a better description of the equation: we are all old cars. Any car lover worth his clicking torque wrench knows there comes a time when it doesn’t make any sense to repair an old car. You fix one thing, and something else fails. Just let it go.

A recent afternoon text back and forth with a friend whose PSA is over 4 was about the worst calamity to get in old age. My choice: Cognitive Impairment (CI). Cancer, Arthritis, AMD, none seem as bad as CI. But later, as I thought about all this, I asked myself: what if I had Ci, would I not have Death to think about?

No one knows. Or at least has ever mentioned anything.

Maybe I’ll look up that Psychic I dated in the 70s…as long as she doesn’t mention marriage, again…