"Backseat drivers don't know the feel of the wheel, but they sure know how to make a fuss" - Bob Dylan Let's Keep It Between UsMaybe I haven't wrote in a while because there hasn't been much to write. Or perhaps it's because I have run out of things to write. Still otherwise I may have spent the last three plus weeks laid up in my bed to sick to type. Maybe, you're thinking, I've fully exhausted the therapeutic tool of blogging...
I think Mister Bobby Dylan is more accurate.
I think I haven't written a post in a while because my dedication to write honestly and openly has met the crossroads of delicacy of the emotions of others. Let me be more clear. To write truthfully about living (and dying) with cancer is a subtle tightrope one walks in which he must balance unbridled truth against the delicate nature of the unaffected readers' psyches. In essence, in order to be effective I must be truthful and forthcoming with how I detail my personal battle, but I must also consider the idea that (hopefully) the overwhelming majority of the people reading will never understand what it truly feels like. As I scan back over that last sentence I am surprised by the tone of the sentence and its seeming superiority, as if none of you has ever endured anything as difficult as I; however, I have restrained myself from editing the sentence because there is nothing wrong with what I have typed. You will never understand even one micrometer of what it is like to live my life, but similarly I will never understand what life is like for you. Inevitably, all people are destined to be separated by the very thing that makes our lives worth living: our individuality.
Since I am an individual and there is no one in this world that is even somewhat like me, every person outside of me is incapable of fully understanding any description of my life and the things that happen inside of it. That is why metaphors, similes, personification, and symbolism are so effective in story-telling from memoirs to Hollywood films. These artistic devices rely on communal knowledge and primal instincts and feelings to establish common ground in the efforts of bringing the audience to a more comfortable and accessible environment. The truth, nonetheless, remains unchanged. I can never make you understand what it is like to receive chemotherapy treatments if you have never had it. Moreover, even someone who has had chemotherapy treatments (even the same exact type of treatments) will fall tragically short of sufficiently understanding my trials with the medicine simply because we are individuals. Sure, we may be able to establish some common area of understanding, but since we cannot get into one another's head, and since we will always maintain our own minds, we will always be inherently incapable of fully understanding another person, cancer patient or otherwise. This phenomenon has lead to cliched phraseology such as "one man's trash is another man's treasure." If one forgives social and economic differences, this phrase is true simply because people experience the world differently.
The task of explanation becomes more cumbersome when it details individuals who experience certain extremities or boundaries that lie outside of the general norm. For instance, most people can actively participate in an open discussion about college life, since most people of our generation have actually lived the college life. Though the experiences may be dramatically different, "college life" is an environment that most people would view as normal. Even those who did not directly experience college life understand the themes and experiences that it entails either through hearsay or through media portrayals (see Animal House). On the other hand, there are experiences that fall so far outside the accepted norm that their discussion is rendered much more difficult. For example, most of us will never fight in a war such as the war in Iraq. So, soldiers, Marines, Navy men, and other members of the armed services have such an extreme experience that it is increasingly difficult for those individuals to relay their experiences to those who have not, and likely will not, experience them. Thus, we see the pains to which the military goes to readjust servicemen back into society and we are seeing more and more servicemen who are ostracized from society because of their experiences and diagnosed with various mental illnesses. As a result, the average non-war-fighting individual is at a loss to understand the experiences of a servicemen and often times we look at these individuals just as they look at themselves: different than the rest of us. Within our own difficulty in trying to relate to these individuals by establishing some common ground, however, we sometimes make the individuals feel as if they cannot be as open and honest as they would like. And so, the men and women of extreme experiences are at a crossroads between truth and the comfort levels of others.
There are some things that we do not want the soldiers to tell us. We want to know how they gave the children toys and soccer balls, and we want to know how the American troops stormed a building and foiled a key component of the plans of our enemies, but we do not want the whole truth. That is, we do not want to know about when a platoon fired through the windshield of a car who failed to stop at a military junction and upon inspecting the vehicle found only two infants and a local Christian missionary who was assisting the U.S. military efforts. This is the truth, yet this is the truth we do not allow the person to feel comfortable saying.
By no means am I trying to equate my circumstances with the bravery and courage displayed by the hundreds of thousands of men and women who protect our beliefs and our freedoms by fighting our wars. Yet I do believe that I have reached a point in these writings where I am forced to compromise the truth of what I write for fear that someone will believe that what I write shows that I have given up, or given in, or that what I type is too much honesty for my loved ones to handle. In my honest discussions with some people about my situation, I am constantly met with replies of what I must do in order to get through this difficult time. I am constantly bombarded by people who are telling me what it means that I have cancer or why I have cancer or what is the proper way for me to live my life with cancer. I am told by my loved ones that these people are only overcome by an uncomfortable feeling of not knowing what to say, but I don't understand why this gives them the right to spew verbal diarrhea at me. I am so overwhelmed by the notion that so many people care about me, and are about me enough to try and give me words of encouragement, or help me through tough times...
...but too many backseat drivers wraps the car around a tree.
