I have tried to gather a few different perspectives on what it feels like to die or go through the process of dying, including my lengthy interview with Michael March just prior to his death not long after I met him online. Below, I present a different perspective entirely from Claire Wineland, a Cystic Fibrosis patient who had been advocating about her disease for quite some time. It is a video I found on YouTube that she uploaded a while back, explaining her own experience with technically dying on a number of occasions from complication arising from her disease. Continue reading Dying, Redux
Category Archives: Fear
Emotional Illness
Let’s get one thing straight: emotions do not cause disease. The fault of your physical illness very likely lies with something other than you. The whole notion that anything from kidney stones to cancer could be traced back to an emotional block, repressed anger, wrongs un-righted, or any other random psychological hurt from this life or a past one, is so corrupt that it should never be given credence by any rational being. Yet throngs of people with well-intentioned sounding titles like “life coach” or “healer” spread these malicious little bits of victim blaming as if they were offering salvation in a bottle of snake oil.
That said, I want it to be clear that not everyone who identifies as a healer is guilty of either victim blaming or willfully misleading those who they are trying to help. I’ve known incredibly sincere, warm, compassionate people who do their absolute best to improve the health and well-being of others through a wide swath of tools and approaches, arguably with strong results. And, frankly, many people need some form of guidance in their lives and have relied successfully on many such “coaches” to get where they need to be. I’m not condemning whole industries or forms of practice or even job titles here; this isn’t about valid occupations, but rather about those who choose to exploit the fears and insecurities of patients under the guise of offering miraculous cures through attitude adjustment. Continue reading Emotional Illness
A Christmas Story
Christmas morning, the family was gathered in the living room making quick work of the presents under the tree. French toast was going into second servings and mine was fresh in the pan, filling my mouth with anticipation. Then my wife noticed the old woman on the sidewalk outside our window.
She had been pushing a shopping cart up the hill we live on. At first, it was hard to ascertain what she was up to; the cart was empty, she seemed to be well put together, her head was wrapped in a clean scarf and she carried a purse that looked barely used. But she was clearly struggling with the incline. Still in my pajamas, I slipped on a pair of moccasins and stepped out to see how — and what — she was doing. Continue reading A Christmas Story
Some Thoughts on Death and Dying
The past few days have been interesting, in the way that might make a person both sad and angry, and hopefully also touch into a compassionate spot. After a lot of attention had been given to the hurricanes that battered our nation last month, highlighting both the devastation of nature and human resilience, it seemed that we were due a period of celebration. Instead, music icon, Tom Petty, died (prematurely reported, retracted, and ultimately, with some finality, reported again). And just before that, on the last night of a big music festival in Las Vegas, a so-called “lone wolf” gunman managed to use a stash of roughly 20 weapons (at least some of which were modified to be more deadly) to kill in the neighborhood of 60 innocent people, wounding hundreds of others. He did this from a hotel room in a very fancy casino across the street, using long-range rifles. It’s enough to get a person ruminating on mortality. As if living with stage 4 lung cancer wasn’t enough.
Before I get too self-indulgent, however, I should put my thoughts into perspective. Death doesn’t bother me so much; I do not hold onto a fear of dying and I cannot recall a time when I did. But I do have a deep and consistent anger about enabled murder, preventable deaths and injuries (both physical and psychological), and the lack of public will to address the underlying issues that allow such things to continue happening. And in that regard, I suppose, I do have a fear of getting shot. In almost 50 years, I’ve been lucky enough to have been directly threatened with a gun only once — but I’ve still been threatened with a gun. It is hard not to think about these things when a mass shooting happens just a few blocks away from where you had been lying poolside about a month earlier. Continue reading Some Thoughts on Death and Dying
A Conversation About Critical Thinking
Why is Critical Thinking important?
Arguably, we live in a time when it has become increasingly important to carefully parse data, even, as it turns out, in casual conversation and friendly communication. The rampant spread of misinformation in the Age of Social Media is nothing new. Conspiracy Theorists and intentional hoaxsters have been an ever-more-apparent online presence since the rise of newsgroups. Even in those near-forgotten days of Lost History prior to our every moment getting logged for “posterity” in the cloud, we had plenty of access to active (and more easily identifiable) paper sources of deliberate misdirection ranging in credulity from The Weekly World News to The National Inquirer — publications finding a non-ironic insurgency in recent years as their online brethren like NaturalNews, InfoWars, and WorldNewsDaily have added to the fodder for the less-Luddite paranoid contingent.
For the sake of reason, it is essential for all of us to adhere to certain standards of Critical Thinking. Just for purposes of general, civil communication, we should all want a basic, coherent understanding of the facts of our world. Philosophical differences aside, it should be a simple task to understand the foundations of science and recognize pseudo-scientific rhetoric as what it is; it should be easy enough to discount rigorously anti-intellectual arguments and logical fallacies
Lately, I have written a few posts on critical thinking and promised an interview on the topic. Although I recorded this some weeks back, I have finally delivered on the promise to upload it.
Click here to listen to The Deep Breath podcast.
Logical Fallacies, the Enemy of Critical Thought
Following are a few fun pages that list logical fallacies. They present them differently, so it is worth visiting a few of the sites to get a feel for how they lay them out or categorize them, but generally speaking, they cover a lot of the same ground. Enjoy the journey!
Master List of Logical Fallacies
Drake’s List of the Most Common Logical Fallacies
Wikipedia List of Logical Fallacies
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logical-fallacies
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Time to End the Anti-GMO Fearmongering
Here’s a thought that needs to be considered. Since the United States is not doing its part to fight global climate change, nature will not be able to keep up. This REQUIRES us to be open-minded about the advantages science offers to help our species adapt. Science-denial is one of the biggest reasons we are in this mess, but science can help mitigate the damage if it is embraced and supported in a reasonable, methodical and pro-active manner. One of the areas that must be re-evaluated by many is the use of GMO crops.
There is overwhelming evidence from unbiased sources that show the safety of these crops, many of which are modified explicitly to be able to grow under hotter and drier conditions, or in soil that would not otherwise support proper plant development. Already, without the use of GMO crops, it would be difficult to keep up with the food production needs of the planet. Within the next decade, there is little doubt left that human food will be largely reliant upon GMO crops for minimum sustainability. I propose that it is time to look at the science objectively and stop reacting to fear-based marketing that mostly just serves alternative health websites and their advertisers or overpriced processed food manufacturers.
Fear of Fading Vision – Losing Eyesight, or Just Losing Sight of What Matters
I’ve lived with a fear of going blind my entire adult life. As a writer and filmmaker, vision has always seemed essential for my career, an important tool in the creation process. But my father lost the majority of his sight, inexplicably and very slowly, as I emerged into adulthood — his retinas detaching in both eyes with doctors unable to either figure out why or stop the process. Just as my identity as an artist and my career aspirations were taking hold, he was pushed into an uneasy acceptance of his fate that left him bitter, angry, and defiant. I watched this, mostly from afar, and never could shake the question of whether the condition would prove hereditary. Then I became a cancer patient and began chemotherapy, knowing full-well that it very likely would affect my eyesight.
Two days ago, I realized that I couldn’t focus with my right eye.
It’s nothing new for me to have a passing problem with my vision. Yes, my prescription had remained the same for over ten years — my glasses gave me better than 20/20 vision and I was content to wear them, never considering surgery to correct my vision. Six years ago, my daughter had inadvertently elbowed me in my left eye, causing the retina to scar and several ophthalmologists had prepared me for the likelihood that the retina would detach at that time. Admittedly, I was freaked out, and over the course of two years, my retina was heavily monitored as doctors prepared a means of preserving my vision in that eye. The scarring was carefully observed and then it did the most unexpected thing: it healed itself. Where there had been fuzzy abnormalities in the center of my vision, one day everything was more or less clear and back to normal. I breathed a sigh of relief and eventually stopped going back to the eye clinic. My prescription remained unaltered. Continue reading Fear of Fading Vision – Losing Eyesight, or Just Losing Sight of What Matters
Death, Death and More Death, Naturally
My mother had recently received news about five friends and relatives dying within a four-day period. It seemed really stacked up, and then she got a call that her last remaining uncle was going into hospice care. While it would be another couple of days until he died, the early warning essentially brought the total news to six in under a week. Granted, she is “of a certain age” at which it is expected that her peers and associates will be ending this existence at an increased rate, especially those markedly older than herself. It happens. It’s a part of life. And it isn’t talked about enough.
As a culture, death makes us squeamish. It’s hushed up, spoken of mainly with euphemisms and generally avoided for its awkwardness. Worse, it is often treated as an embarrassment. Oh, why did Grandad have to die so…inconveniently? Perhaps he should have just gone on vacation and disappeared… “I’m sorry for your loss,” they all say, pitying you for being unable to arrange a cleaner exit for the dearly departed. But death is messy, sometimes. Death brings hurt, upends the cozy lives of the living, leaves an overwhelming amount of loose ends.
But death is a natural part of life — one that cancer patients often have staring at them right over the proverbial shoulder. In February, I interviewed Michael March about his, as he put it, “Final Journey.” Michael is dying from throat cancer that migrated to his lungs, after eight years of dealing with various cancer issues (including periods of remission). Our conversation ran the gamut, from the lack of education that people have in talking about death to the spiritual comfort some seek during their period of decline. Michael also opened up about the fear of suffering that still remains after having made peace with the idea of dying. Continue reading Death, Death and More Death, Naturally
Chemotherapy Horrors for Halloween and the Truth About Cancer
I take the commitment of a Halloween costume seriously. When I was a kid playing with stage makeup, I made myself look like I had been beaten so badly one Halloween that people forgot I was in costume and wanted to take me to the hospital. This year, I contemplated going as my cancer diagnosis. It seemed appropriate, after all, because I had the serendipity of getting my infusion on Halloween day this year. Just seemed perfect. But then I was thinking about it and, quite frankly, cancer just isn’t as scary as it used to be.
So I went with the most frightening costume I could come up with: a candy fiend. After all, little is as horrifying as someone coming off of a sugar binge. And my paunch is perfectly highlighted by the tight-fitting shirt that I have now worn for somewhere in the range of 6 to 10 Halloweens. (What can I say, some things are simply classically insidious.)
While a few years ago the idea of a giant tumor might have been amusing to me, and the notion of cancer in general seemed like a properly frightful subject, the story around these has changed for me. Hollywood, of course, still relies on cancer as it’s go-to meme for unsettling disease requirements, but then Hollywood is creatively lazy and uses the most basic shorthand it has for easy emotional manipulation.
The Truth About Cancer Continue reading Chemotherapy Horrors for Halloween and the Truth About Cancer
WHO on EMF and EHS – Will Wi-Fi Cause Cancer?
In this modern world, there are plenty of reasons to be cautious. Digital devices almost seem to control our lives. They take up our time, luring us into the virtual world for entertainment, allowing us to be more productive by keeping us linked to our work 24/7, lulling us into a world of social networking that never requires us to physically interact with other humans. It is no wonder that authors of speculative fiction depict alternative worlds where we are literally plugged in.
In offices and homes across the developed world, it is more likely than not that there will be active Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connections running all day long, often from multiple devices. In the past twenty years, as wireless connections have become more prevalent, concerns have been increasingly raised about their safety. The World Health Organization (WHO) took notice in the late 90s and began looking at all the evidence that was piling up from studies in many countries. Key to this awareness were the growing trend of Electromagnetic Hyper Sensitivity (EHS) and the concern that Electromagnetic Frequencies (EMF) could cause cancer.
Continue reading WHO on EMF and EHS – Will Wi-Fi Cause Cancer?