The Gameshow Known as Life...

We return to a popular theme. Why do things in this world happen? Do we have control over our actions and over our futures, or has everything been predestined by God making the future unavoidable. This is the main problem we have with the Judeo-Christian ideology of predestination. It would seem that by subscribing to it, we cannot determine who is culpable for the actions of man. Does man have free will to choose whatsoever he wishes, thus making him responsible for his actions and therefore condemnable to eternal suffering for his moral violations? Or, if God knows already what will happen, then it must already be determined what will happen, therefore we are not in control over our decisions, thus we are not liable for any wrongdoing we might commit. This is where people have a problem, and the problem makes sense. There are passages in the Bible that support both the ability of man to choose his future and the foreknowledge of God coupled with the powerlessness of man. So what’s a person to do?

I think first we have to secularize the conversation. We need to shift the discussion away from religion. It is difficult enough to consider the existential philosophical dilemma of causation without also engaging in a theological debate. So let’s rethink the situation:

You are randomly selected to participate in a game operated by a super-intelligent alien from another planet. This super-intelligent alien is unique in that he can accurately predict the future, he is not a psychic, rather he actually knows exactly what the future will hold, he is infallible, and he is incapable of making an error. Whatever action you choose to take in the game presented to you has nothing to do with why the super-intelligent alien has made the prediction he has made.

The game is as follows: There are two cardboard boxes labeled A and B. You can choose to take the contents of both boxes or you can choose to take only Box B. Taking Box A only is not an option. Box A contains $1,000. The contents of Box B is determined as follows: before the game starts, the super-intelligent alien makes a prediction as to whether you will take only Box B or you will take Boxes A and B. If the alien predicts that you will take both boxes, then Box B will be empty, but if the alien predicts that you will take only Box B, then Box B will have $1,000,000.

By the time you are asked to make a selection, the alien has already made its prediction and the contents of Box B is already determined. So once the game starts Box B has either $0 or $1,000,000, and not a single entity has the power to alter the contents of Box B. As the player of the game you know that Box A contains $1,000 and that Box B contains either $0 or $1,000,000. You also know that the contents of Box B is based on the prediction made by the super-intelligent alien and that the super-intelligent alien has the unique ability to infallibly predict the future. The only piece of information that you do not know is what the alien actually predicted, so obviously you don’t know what is in Box B.

Which option do you select? Box A and Box B or just Box B? Your goal as the player in this game is to maximize the payout, to get the most money. The two choices represent two logically valid strategies that yield conflicting answers to which option will maximize the payout. All of the people reading this blog post who choose to select one of the options in this thought experiment will have a perfectly clear idea of which option you should select. The problem is that half of the people will choose to take both Box A and Box B and the other half will choose to take only Box B, and both sides will be absolutely convinced that they are right and that the opposing half is being irrational. 

Strategy number one says that no matter what prediction the alien has made, taking both boxes is always best. If the alien predicts that you will take Both A and B, then you are choosing between $1,000 (Box A and B) or $0 (Box B only). Obviously the preference would be to take both boxes. But, even if the alien predicts that you will choose only Box B, then taking both boxes gives you $1,001,000, whereas taking only Box B gets you $1,000,000. With the strategy of always taking both boxes you always get more money.

Strategy number two says that you should always only take Box B. These people recall that the super-intelligent alien is INFALLIBLE, thus his prediction must be correct. If the alien must be correct, then you can ignore the possibilities of getting $0 or $1,001,000 because both of these require that the alien made an incorrect prediction. So for these people, the decision comes down to choosing between $1,000 (Box A and B) or $1,000,000 (Box B only). In this case it is obvious that always choosing Box B maximizes the payout.

So does man have free will or is life predetermined? Well, if you believe that you should always choose Box B, then you are suggesting that the alien can know the future with certainty, as such, the alien is not so much making a prediction as it is observing an event and then describing it. In this case, the alien's knowledge of the future is determining its actions in the present, thus future events are causing effects in the past. Your choice will have already caused the alien's prediction. In this scope, free will does not exist, and you are not really making a choice, you are just doing what you are supposed to be doing. If you believe that you should always take both Box A and B, then you are suggesting that future outcomes are continuously changing moment to moment because of our ability to choose, thus at the time the alien makes the prediction it may be true, but things may change between the time the prediction is made and the time the box selection is made.

The paradox presupposes a perfect predictor, implying that you are not really free to choose; however, the problem simultaneously presumes that you can freely debate and decide on a choice. This is the same difficulty many people have with mediating a belief in Christianity and the omniscience of God with the belief in free will. And the debate ends very much in the same way as the above game: both sides of the dilemma have equally logical arguments that strongly support them. In either case, you are going to do exactly what it is you are going to do. I mean, either you are going to fight or you are going to give up, either do the right thing or do the wrong thing, either go left or go right, either study for the test or not study for the test, either believe in God or not believe in God. The discussion of free will versus determinism is illogical since both sides prove equally valid and the answer will forever be unknown. So why worry about it? Just go and try and live your life right. That's all anyone of us can do.

"God does not play dice with the universe." - Albert Einstein

"Freedom is the right to live as we wish." - Epictetus

“Try Viagra, now with a NEW and IMPROVED soft-tablet, slow-release formula for extended…”

I've always tried to figure out how something could be both NEW and IMPROVED. I mean, if it's new, then it never existed before now. If it never existed before now, then how could it have been imrpoved? Inversely, if the something is improved then it must have existed in some form and it has since been altered in a way that is believed to be better. If it already existed and thus improved, then how could it be new? Sure you could argue that it had existed but now it's better (improved) therefore the final product is something other than what had existed earlier, thus it is also new. You could, but that makes no sense. I cannot take my 1997 Infiniti Q45 with 220,000 miles on it to the car shop, give it an orange pearlescent paint job, adjust the suspension, add "Spinners" and then walk away and call the car NEW and IMPROVED. It existed before, but now I changed it and made it better so for sure it is improved, but the car is not new just because now it exists in a manner different than before I fixed it. At the same time, if I drive my broken down Q to the infiniti dealership and drive off with a 2009 G35 I certainly have improved my car SITUATION, but the car itself is NEW but it is not also IMPROVED. My point is either something is new or something is improved, but it is not both new and improved.

People spend a lot of their time trying to make themselves new. After a nasty break-up a girl rallies around her girlfriends, they head out to a club, make a dance circle around their bags and shoes, and inevitably at some point between the fourth or fifth Jolly Rancher shot the girl will tell her friends that this is the NEW whatever her name is. Or when a man quits his job and goes out to buy himself a new wardrobe in the hopes that his Prada shoes will make the difference in his NEW life. Somehow their is a correlation that we make between severing the ties with the past and enjoying a more pleasurable life experience.

But I think that most people don't want to become new people. I think what they really want is to become an improved person. What I want to do is take an experience and then use it to dictate my actions in future experiences. Even when you leave behind your old ways or if you move out to a new town and abandon old acquaintances and family, it's not about abandoning or leaving behind the things that you have already learned. It's more about taking what you have learned and using it to make your future more pleasurable.

They say that when a man experiences cancer that he comes out on the otherside a new man. Well, I don't want to be a new man. I just want to be an improved man. I just want my cancer to build upon the myriad other lessons I've already learned. I don't want my cancer experience to be generative, forging a new creation through fire and smoke. In fact, I know cancer is not making me a new man. I appreciate the catharsis that is my cancer, because through it I have rid myself of self-pity and no longer am overcome with fear. Cancer may have been the catalyst through which the change was brought about, but cancer is not the vehicle of change. Cancer is merely an occurrence, like getting a hang-nail; it is something that happens. It is no more in control of itself than I am in control of developing cancer. The human being is the vehicle of change. I can choose to mentally change my outlook, and I DO choose. The ability to choose makes me infinitely more powerful than the cancer.

It is easy to press the reset button and start a NEW game when your tetris blocks stack too awkwardly together; it is much more difficult to choose to IMPROVE the unfavorable board you find in front of you. You cannot both start the game over and still be playing the same game. Don't look outwardly to find the help, just look inside yourself. Don't ask for a miracle, be the miracle and remember that all of life is nothing more than a hang-nail...

"If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make the change. You gotta get it right while you got the time 'cause when you close your heart, you close your mind." - Michael Jackson, Man in the Mirror

A Rebel Without a Cause...

I often think about the antagonistically symbiotic relationship between life and death. It might seem paradoxical to say that two things are antagonistically symbiotic. How can two things be both hostile towards one another and also cooperative with each other? It occurs much more often than you might think. Oil and vinegar have a natural aversion towards one another, yet oil and vinegar go great together on salads and sandwhiches. Cold water and warm water are not exactly best friend either, but the warmth of one liquid cooperates with the chill of of the other by highlighting its characteristics. Take a chillingly cold shower and then immediately jump into a pool and what happens. The pool waters feels warm compared to the cold shower water. Take a warm shower and then jump in the pool. The pool water feels cold compared with the warm shower water. In essence, even though the warm water and the cold water are in opposition to one another, they also cooperate with one another through their opposition by magnifying the characteristics of the other. Life and death are in opposition to one another; however, they are also cooperative as the experience of either life or death magnifies the characteristics of the other, just as the one liquid magnifies the qualities of the other.

Intuitively we know life and death are in opposition to one another, but are they in oppostion with each other in a fundamentally logical manner? The American Heritage Dictionary defines life as the "property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organism and inanimate matter." So, "life" itself is defined as an opposition between those things that are said to be alive and those things that are said to be dead. Moreover, scientifically life is understood as objects that are composed of systems that "tend to respond to changes in their environment, and inside themselves, in such a way as to promote their own continuation" (Witzany). I think promoting their own continuation should be understood as avoiding the ending of their continuation (death). So, it seems that intuitively and logically life and death are in opposition to one another.

In addition to being in opposition to one another, do life and death have a hatred towards one another that causes their opposition? We have to understand this one through thought experiments only, because there is no way to prove life hates death or that death hates life. Religiously, philosophically, scientifically, biologically, and logically we can conclude in a general sense that life and death hate one another. At the very least, if life got along with death, then life would not try and avoid death to the extent that it does. In other words, organisms do not gravitate towards pathways that would lead them towards death. In fact, all species adapt in order to sustain life or else they risk extinction. If life and death got along this would not be the case. So, not only are life and death in opposition to one another, but they also have hatred for each other, thus they are antagonistic.

Being in opposition, though, does not mean that the two things are opposites. What are the opposites of the following things or ideas: hot, left, high, light, life.......... My guess is that more likely than not you thought: cold, right, low, dark, death. These, however, are NOMINAL opposites. That is, they are opposites only in name. Opposites only because we think of them in such a way. The opposite of HOT is not COLD, but rather the opposite of HOT is NOT HOT. Anything that is NOT HOT is the opposite of HOT, whether that be warm, temperate, cool, or cold. Those are LOGICAL opposites. Even though life and death have an opposition to one another, they are not LOGICAL opposites of one another. Therefore, life and death can have a symbiotic and cooperative relationship with one another, even though they have an antagonistic relationship as well - like oil and vinegar.

Confused? Allow me to elaborate: Kurt Cobain, 27; River Phoenix, 23; Sid Vicious, 21; James Dean, 24; Sharon Tate, 26. These are all examples of people whose death magnified the qualities and characteristics of their lives, perhaps disproportionately. Without the prevalence of death, and in these cases premature and tragic death, the lives of these people are glorified in ways that they potentially should not be glorified. Each of these people show how life and death are antagonistically and symbiotically related. Antagonistic because their lives were blossoming just as the derangement or coincidental or unfortunate circumstances of death took hold. Symbiotic because the rising stars that were their lives caused their deaths to be commercialized and even maniacal, meanwhile it is their deaths that magnified the promising qualities of their lives. James Dean was an up-and-coming star projected to have every bit of the career that Marlon Brando ended up having. As such, his existence as a young actor and a rising sex symbol catapulted the news of his death into the mainstream and, consequently, into American lore. Moreover, his instant death in a car accident disproportionately magnified the acting skills Dean showed in his three major films.


Their lives made their deaths seems impossible and tragic. Their deaths, however, left their lives gilded with 24-karat leafing. It isn't accurately known whether their deaths were made famous by them being famous or they were made famous by their deaths. It has always perplexed me how a tragic and often times premature death can commodify that person's life. Yes, literally the life is turned into a commodity. The person in particular (and more tragically the family and loved ones of the person) is taken hold of by the population and made into something other than what he or she is.

To clarify: I am not a tragic case, nor am I unflawed. Much of my life has consisted of errors and flaws. If God punishes us for living unrighteous lives, then I cannot argue with my disease. If I die it should not be said that I was a great man or that I was a righteous man or that I was the model man. The truth should be told. When it comes to tragic death, though, the truth gets lost somewhere in between the "Story" and the "Memory." Jim Morrison is remembered for being the Lizard King, the singer-poet of a generation, the man who said what you thought. He isn't remembered necessarily for being a degenerate drug-abusing man who overdosed on heroine.

Before I was sick, people used to say, "I like Andrew, but he thinks he's better than everyone" or "he never lets anyone else be right" or "he's selfish." Since then, I'm some sort of inspirational story. A young and tragic look at the iniquities of life. A bold critique of the health industry's inability to explain medical ailments. I've become a prayer. I've become a plethora of candles lit in innumerable churches. I've been taken across the continental United States, and to Europe, and taken to the Middle East and put into monastaries and churches and temples. I've become the questions of so many friends and loved ones to nomadic street psychics and tarot-reading gypsies. I've become a compartmentalized conversational commodity. My disease, my cancer, has taken me from a living, breathing human being and turned me into a fucking t-shirt.

That's what death does to life. That's what even the potential of death does to life. If you aren't careful and if you aren't watching it can steal your identity and turn you into something else. My life until this point has magnified the "tragedy" that would result in me dying from cancer. Similarly, the potential that I can die TOMORROW from cancer has made Andrew Samuel into "Andrew Samuel." Still, in the end, I don't know the best way to measure a life. I think, though, the best measure of a man is in knowing how many people measure themselves by him. Measure using this, whether in "life" or in "death":

"I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victory or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit." - John F. Kennedy

The moment of truth...

One of the most difficult things to deal with as a person going through the throws of cancer is how people speak TO you in one way, but speak ABOUT you in another. I'm not the type of person to tell someone that they have to agree with the same thoughts that I have, but I am the type of person that asks for some semblance of consistency when talking to me and when talking about me. When people talk to me, that is when we are in a conversation, the general feeling always seems to be that I will somehow and some way defeat my cancer and go on to live a long, fruitful, and otherwise normal life. There is not a single person that is even willing to recognize the possibility of death. On the other hand, when people speak about me, that is when I am not actually around, I understand that there is an altogether more somber tone to the conversation. Suddenly, the persistence of my disease, and even significantly premature death, are not only options, but inevitabilities. Not only do I have a problem with the Orwellian double-speak, but I have maybe an even bigger problem with the fact that neither things that the people are saying to me is the truth.

You see the fact is, the people around me do not know if I'm going to beat my disease, but they also do not know that I'm not going to beat my disease. For those of you joining the game late, it has pretty much been a running theme of this blog that your life can change from one second to the next. So, why does me having cancer automatically make my future predictable, moreover, what makes people think that THEY can accurately predict my future? If I live - for however long I live - it will not be because my friends and family constantly tell me that I'm going to live. The support from loved ones is an undeniable part of my ability to fight this cancer, but that's because those people are there for me. It has nothing to do with what they are or are not saying to, at, or about me.

You know, watching things on television about people suffering with cancer, or listening to the stories of people who have battled cancer, you normally hear or see very dramatized or very commercialized versions of the stories. I am not saying that to be disrespectful, but only as a matter of observance. What I have found is that the general consensus is that saying SOMETHING, even if it is the wrong thing, is better than nothing. I am sorry, but I have to thoroughly disagree with this sentiment. As a child, when your mother caught you in the act of violating one of her rules and she said "What exactly were you thinking?" it was  NOT an acceptable option to just say anything whatsoever. In fact, it was very important that you chose your words wisely, not necessarily because you had to say the perfectly right words. The important thing for your mom was that no matter what you said, you just had better make sure that you didn't flip-flop your story later on. You see the thing that your mom hated was when you told her one thing one minute, but said something different the next, because then momma knew you were full of shit. 

I find that when you don't know what you feel or that you don't know what to say, saying nothing is better than making a friend feel betrayed when you say you're confident in them one minute, but then they hear that you doubt them the next minute. The funny thing is that no one even blames people for having doubts or for second-guessing. Some days I feel like I'm going to live forever and other days I feel like I can't even make it a few more hours. So, can I really judge someone who feels absolutely certain that I will be okay one day, but has doubts the next day? I know that people are just trying to say the right things and are trying to make sure the cancer patient doesn't lose faith. To me, the number one way that the cancer patient loses faith is when people only want to be honest when they talk about him and not when they talk to him. 

"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 Us

Maybe 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. 

"I have always believed, and still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value." - Hermann Hesse

My most recent trip to my regular cancer doctor did not go well. If I'm being completely honest, my last trip left me with no clue what to write about, which is why it has been so long since I've posted. I've had ideas, but in selfish light of the bad news we got at the doctor's office, I was sufficiently unmotivated to create a blog post. Thinking about it now, I believe that is a very sad perspective to have, but I must admit it was my point of view. 

The doctor basically told me that it did not appear that my disease would ever be resolved. I should mention that the overwhelming insinuation was not simply that I would always have cancer, but rather that I would expire in a relatively short period of time. These words, that news, depressed me in a way that I did not anticipate even though I knew that was already the case judging by the way my body was feeling progressively worse. There are still treatment options like the chemotherapy that I am on now, and when that runs out, there are clinical trials that can be enrolled in ad nauseam (pun intended), but somehow I felt uneasy about the future.

Be not afraid and do not feel sad because of what I have written above; only through the darkness can we understand the light. I have finally remembered that I am not in uncharted territory. That is, I have been here before. Perhaps, not all the circumstances are the same, but I have endured this situation already. I have been told that I would be dead shortly. The MEDICAL FACTS have already "guaranteed" my departure. Science and reason has previously divested me of every ledge upon which I could grasp a hold. The end for me has already come many times before and yet I remain among the living. I allowed fear to take hold of my head, but that fear was never able to get to my heart since my heart has seen these darkened days previously. I have risen from the medically pronounced dead more than once before and that means that there is no reason why I cannot continue to do so moving forward. The law of averages be damned, beating the odds once does not increase the odds against you. No, the odds remain the same and those odds are as we've discussed before: 50%/50%. 

I apologize to my fiancee and to my family for having forgotten this recently. I apologize to all of you for hypocritically posting messages here of thinking and believing in certain things and then allowing myself to be overrun by ignominious thoughts. Then I think - that's why they have so many cliches about failure: if at first you don't succeed, try, try again; it's not how many times you fall, but how many times you get back up; get back on the horse; it's not how hard you can hit, but how hard you can get hit and keep getting up; etc. Even Jesus Christ walked around for three years preaching the good word of the Lord, speaking of self-sacrifice; yet, on the night before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion, while alone in the garden at Gethsemane prayed three times asking God not to make Jesus have to endure the pain, suffering, torture, and death. Though each time Jesus prayed to be relieved of his suffering, He eventually returned back to his original beliefs saying to God "nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done" (Lk 22:42).

My purpose is not to liken myself to Jesus, but to make the point that questioning beliefs and wavering strength is not only human, it is also divine. Jesus Christ, the leader of the Christian religion displayed the desire to ease the pain of his life. The Buddhist Gautama Siddartha, or "Buddha," similarly was described as having had many failures and moments of weakness in his quest to reach Nirvana. I spoke in elevated tones of strength, motivation, an living for now and yet I stumbled in my support of those things (it is not the first time nor will it be the last, I'm sure). But I am back on the horse, I took the hit and I got back up, I took a lickin' and I'm still tickin', you pick whichever cliche works best for you and insert it in this sentence. The point is not whether or not you suffer, but as Hesse says in the quotation at the top, its about whether or not you make that suffering into something of value. Faith in one's self is invaluable so I have to thank my doctor, and not be bitter, for giving me that bad news. His words caused me to remember how to fight back against the world. 

No doubt bad news will come. No doubt this treatment regimen will continue to be one of the more brutal combinations I have experienced. No doubt my physical strength and energy will be stripped again and again. But I have been reminded once again that though this disease and the associated treatments can take away my body, they cannot take away my mind unless I allow it to be done. It is the ultimate "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." I cannot be hurt by what I will not allow to hurt my will.

I must thank my fiancée Katie for re-awakening all of these things inside of me. If not for her, I may not have remembered what I promised I would never allow this disease to make out of me. I thank her for allowing me to hide my moments of weakness in her. I also need to thank my dad, mom, and brother for doing the same. "Don't worry guys, I may sound weak again moving forward, but my heart is in the game. Give me my moments to fall down and I promise that as long as I can I will ALWAYS get back up again."

"You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, single power, a single salvation... and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else."

I'm Better Than an Actor; I'm Really Real...

Can we go ahead and agree that we have all felt, at one time or another, that giving up would certainly be a hell of a lot easier than continuing? I think at some point, whether as children or as adults, we have all concluded that the road ahead just appears to difficult to travel and so along the way we have all sat down on the side of the road, refusing to navigate the course. I am making it a point to say that we all have done this because I believe it is a very human reaction. Humans instinctively shy away from difficulties and lean towards the easier of two choices. This time I say this not as an indictment of mankind, but rather as a characteristic that is shared amongst us all. I cannot say whether it was quitting a sport as a child, or giving up on a particular section in geometry, not bothering to talk to that girl for fear of rejection, refusing to argue with a friend just for the sake of keeping the peace, or accepting one's place in life because it affords comfort even though one deserved a better slot. There are so many different ways that we give up in life, which is why I can say with absolute confidence that we have all done it before.

My REAL concern, however, is when the giving up, the sitting by the side of the road, is done when it comes to life and death. I think this has become somewhat of a recurring theme on this blog, but I think that's because it is a subject that is so near and dear to me. It also happens to be a subject that we take for granted more often than we would like to admit. What amazes me is that people tell me that somehow I'm amazing because of what I have to go through in fighting cancer. 

That sounds silly to me. And it sounds silly because the assumption made by calling me amazing is that by fighting as hard as I can against my disease, I am somehow doing something different than what most people would do in the same situation. It is amazing for me to believe that anybody else in my position would NOT display the same fighting mentality as I. That is, I expect that they WOULD fight just as hard as I am fighting. If that's true, then what I am doing can hardly be said to be amazing; rather, it should be considered the norm. I understand if someone wants to connote that my reaction to my disease, although normal for anyone in a similar situation, is not normal because most people do not experience that situation. In that case I would classify my struggle as respectable, not amazing or inspiring. Any man who choose to sit himself down on the side of the road when the path in front of him is a choice between life and death is the one who is amazing to me. The man who chooses life rather than death, and to keep pushing forward no matter what the difficulties are is the man who is smart, logical, normal though not amazing, inspirational, or extraordinary.

(Before moving to the next topic I want to post a disclaimer stating that each individual cancer patient experiences even the same cancer in drastically different way, just as multiple individuals can experience the same event in dramatically different ways. As such, my opinions here are geared more towards the willingness to accept defeat, rather than an inquisition or assessment as to the relative difficulty to the particular people mentioned below).

It is also amazing to me the number of public figures who publicly announce their unwillingness to continue with cancer treatments. For instance, Farrah Fawcett, an extremely well known "actress" and individual, has had a difficult battle with cancer. Originally, she was diagnosed at the end 2006 and after chemotherapy treatments and radiation, she was declared cancer-free in the beginning of 2008, roughly a year and a half. When she was told that she had a malignant polyp return, she responded saying that she no longer wished to deal with the difficulties of treatment. Or Patrick Swayze, who was diagnosed in in January 2008, has experienced the spreading of his cancer to critical areas of the body by the end of 2008. It was reported that he, his wife, and his doctors believed that the countdown towards death had already begun. In response to the news, it is reported that Swayze has begun saying his goodbyes to family and friends ahead of what he believes is his imminent death. 

I don't mean to scare those who care about me, but over the last two years and nine months, I have both been told that various areas of my cancer have returned or gotten worse and that my already aggressive, deadly cancer had spread to more critical areas of my body. I have been told on more than one occasion that I was on my road to death. I do not say this to bolster myself or to indict Fawcett or Swayze; I am only saying it to explain that bad news is a part of cancer. Reaction to the bad news makes all the difference. 

Don't call me amazing. Don't call me a hero. Don't call me an inspiration.

Just call me what you have all always called me: a stubborn kid who hated to lose at anything. 

I don't plan to start losing now. Just know, though, that you don't have to lose either...