#the words in that book affect immigrants people like me women etc

[steelthroat]

The fanatic-crazy-eyed-Catholic-mother strikes again, wuhuuu! I knew that she couldn't contain herself much longer!

So... here in Italy there's this fucking military asshole who wrote a book. This book contains things that would make the Republicans smile like proud fathers. And obviously, all the news outlets just NEED to invite this piece of shit to "debate" his fascist opinions on every television channel ever. I fucking hate the word debate nowadays omg, forget the Greek philosophers, those debates don't even exist anymore, they're just the perfect excuse to let fascists speak their mind freely and hate minorities publicly.

Now, what happened today? So we have both our Literature/history teacher (let's call him MVP because he's great) and the Fanatic in our classroom. And MVP makes a comment about how he can't stand this dude and how ridiculous it is that our media has made him famous and now he's trying to get into politics (I fucking hate it here, our piliticians are getting too many inspirations from the USA and I reallydon't like it)

And this woman... THIS GODFREARING CREATURE starts saying how "something in his liglfe must have led him to his conclusions and ideals" and "maybe he is voicing what Italians think" and then... the anecdote. She tells us how her son had reacted to seeing so many foreigners when they were on holiday on a famous ITALIAN location. And her logic conclusion was that "for having such a reaction he must be tired of the forced incusivity and kids must feel affected by this" or some shit instead of worrying about our politic landscape nowadays.

So now both me, ALL my classmates, and the MVP are looking at her like the freak that she is and each other trying to suppress either laughter or homicidal intents. I'm done with the load of bullishit she's spewing, and I say

"Well, no, I don't think that's the problem... the priest who married my parents was black, I've played for years with my mother's best friends sons who are Japanese, I literally learnt what racism was when im elementary school they thought me about ANTIRACISM and geography. So, no, kids don't just inherently hate foreigners if they aren't taught to in the first place. Also, no. This is not some kind of vox populi, and it's worrying that he felt so comfortable writing this kind of book"

Listen, I probably wouldn't win a Twitter argument with this, but that's what I felt I needed to say. And she doesn't even care, it doesn't affect her, she ignores what I said and keeps talking about how her viesw might be interpreted as "bigoted racist or homophobic BUT..."

It's not even about age, I WILL NOT FREAKING EXCUSE HER. She's not even 50 probably, and the MVP is almost 60+ but is one of the smartest, open minded people I've ever met in my entire life and a far better parent than her. Fuck it those children of hers are either going to become bigoted assholes or will end up developing religious trauma.

She's failed (at least me) as a teacher.

[rotationalsymmetry]

In an attempt to not overload one single post: Feminism has been a major theme in fantasy and science fiction for longer than I have been alive. Identity politics have been part of geekdom for generations. I freaking learned feminism from science fiction and fantasy books.

Lack of representation, it’s not an anger thing. It’s not an offense thing. It’s a *hurt* thing. It’s an, “am I really a person?” thing. “Do I really exist?” Lack of representation isn’t, you know, something people get angry about? I mean, it is, but it takes a while to get to the anger. Before the anger, there’s “wait, am I really a person? Am I really who I think I am? Why don’t I see anyone like me?” And there’s the intersectionalities: I left out the queer aspects. I saw queer characters in my dragon books long before I saw them anywhere else, or knew any queer people in real life. I got my first queer *protagonists* in speculative fiction. Not only are not all geeks men, the geek men aren’t all *straight* either, and the geek women aren’t all straight, and sometimes nonbinary people find their representation in speculative fiction when it isn’t anywhere else. (Although that might be changing, so that’s pretty cool.)

There’s race: I used to think “fantasy racism” was a good way to explore the topic, you know, and...I mean it’s a way to explore bigotry in the abstract? But a lot of race issues is about specifics, and a lot of fantasy racism reinforces the idea that white people are normal and people of color are other. Most of the speculative fiction I’ve read has been heavily white with POC characters showing up as a small minority, often exotified/appropriative. The fantasy equivalent of the Chinese-American who grew up in LA and barely speaks two words of Chinese almost never gets seen. But, some speculative fiction books have an actually diverse cast (where white people aren’t the majority or always the protagonists) and some fantasy is based on a non-Western culture without being all weird about it. It can be done well. Religion is complicated: I’m not thrilled about how Brandon Sanderson handles religion in the Mistborn Trilogy for instance -- so many different religions, and they’re all basically just palette-swapped from the same “one god with one focus” template. Which kind of reinforces the idea that religions that aren’t Christianity are still basically Christianity, just a little different (and/or, just not true) whereas in the real world, what it means to be a religion varies a lot. (Some religions are a lot more tied to culture and/or geographic location, one deity/many/none, focused on faith vs focused on practice, etc.) And there’s sometimes anti-Semitism and/or Islamophobic stuff (Tolkien’s dwarves, C S Lewis’s Tash worshippers, Mercedes Lackey’s Karse.) OTOH fantasy can be a great source of inspiration and guidance for pagans, even fantasy that wasn’t written by pagans, and science fiction is often a home for atheists. There’s some Jewish influence in Star Trek: TOS although none of it is overt. TV shows in particular tend to have non-Christian Christmas equivalents, which again normalizes Christianity and downplays real religious diversity. Disability...dunno, I’m still pretty new at analyzing ableism. I know some books etc handle it really badly. Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra do some interesting things with disability and disabled characters. There’s a widespread tendency across visual media but especially in superhero stories to use disfigurement to indicate villainy. More generally, the “outsider looking for a place to belong” trope comes up a LOT in speculative fiction, which can be a real magnet for people who are marginalized in all sorts of different ways. Look at Harry Potter: the magical/muggle dichotomy could be seen as an analogy for all sorts of different ways people are marginalized, minority cultures and being queer and being neuroatypical. The idea that geekdom is the natural habitat of people who are privileged on every nameable axis -- white, male, able-bodied, straight, non-immigrant, English-speaking, not a member of a minority religion, often middle class and affluent and well-educated -- and only those people by default, that’s just...so wrong. I mean, people who are very privileged do have a place in geekdom, but if that’s you, you gotta share, OK? Lots of other people find our home in geekdom and need that home as much as you do, if not more. Anyways: if you’re reading this and thinking “well, you’re preaching to the choir, but what do I do?” It starts with deliberately introducing more diversity into what you read (characters and authors), then into what you recommend to other people (including people who are privileged on axes where you’re marginalized.) What you write, if you write fanfic or original fic (but: sometimes bad representation is as much of a problem as lack of representation, so do some research.) The general advice for writers is to have beta readers of whatever marginalized identities you’re writing about when you’re writing about other communities -- in general, if *you* get paid a significant amount for your writing you should pay your beta readers, if not, swapping labor is fine. Sharing articles or posts about this stuff. Writing letters to publishers, TV producers, people who put on cons etc. I tried to write this and especially the other post to be accessible/not too offputting to people who aren’t already in the choir, so if you know someone like that who might be open-minded feel free to pass the post on. Thing is: yes, there are total assholes, but there’s also people who aren’t assholes who just, their worldview is missing something. Some people are persuadable. I think. (Other people can be shamed out of siding with the bigots; I’m not saying that the shame approach is wrong, but that works best on people who haven’t already staked a claim; for people who have and might get talked down, talking about feelings and appealing to empathy might be more effective than an “if you take this side, you’re a misogynist” approach. That’s not how *they* see themselves.) OTOH I’ve never actually been able to talk someone down on the gender front with the gentle approach, so idk. I’ve heard it’s doable though? One thing I’ve heard about that is, it does tend to be more effective when someone from a position of privilege is doing the talking. Men talking to other men about feminism. White people talking to other people about race. Basically: when you’re privileged, you should 1. read/listen to what marginalized people have to say and 2. pass that message on/amplify their voices to people who are privileged in the same way that you are. This is kind of counterintuitive: I know I’m a lot more motivated to talk about gender and sexual orientation (things that affect me) than about race or culture. It takes some intentionality to see onesself as part of a broader movement for inclusivity, and not just fighting for the things that affect you personally.

[szopenhauer]

What one event, big or small, are you going to tell your grandchildren about? I won’t even have kids...

What is your least favourite thing about your full name? it’s long, it’s polish, it’s feminine, it starts on a letter Z that is rarely used, people don’t know how to write my surname down, it reminds people of a stupid song that I hate etc. 

Do you like sunglasses? it’s complicated Do you think dreams can give us insight to things? sorta, sometimes Besides your computer, what else is cluttering your desk? what isn’t...

What is your favourite glass to drink from? prefer a mug When did your family immigrate to wherever you live now? they were born in Poland where we still live What time is it in the country you get the most of your heratige from? 14.42 Would you rather live in the 1960’s or the 1910’s? 60s  Is the computer your only current light source? window/sun too Do you think you look good with a hat on? I’m ugly no matter what so...

Do you have anyone you fully trust? not fully, not even myself, some I just trust more than others  When did you last talk on the phone with someone? yesterday with M.

Have you ever deleted Facebook friends for a significant other? kinda When did you last receive a hug and who was it from? mom, this day Was the last movie you watched a horror film? noooo Do you own a lot of tee shirts? shitload Do you handle pain well? been told  Have you ever been so nervous you threw up? I never threw up out of stress, I can feel nauseous though Do you enjoy your hairstyle? not really atm but it’s not the worst How much make up do you wear on a daily basis? none, ever Do you have a leather jacket? fake

What is the worst insult someone can call you? I’ve already heard everything I suppose... Do you write on your hands a lot? not anymore Do you think hugs are awkward? often Ever play Angry Birds? flappy bird only How late did you stay up last night? till mornin’ Has anyone ever been weirdly obsessed with you? mhm Are you afraid someone might steal your identity someday? they would have to be really stupid to choose mine tbh Is there a place you’d rather live right now? on my own... Do you go out often? lately Is there anyone who is overly nice to you? my current partner, I don’t deserve her If you’re reading a book, what page are you currently on? I’m not reading anything Do you have a job you like? I don’t have a job How many scarves do you own, if any at all? uh oh :x

What is one way in which this year is different from last year? where should I start... Do you feel like you have too much on your plate and your life is too hard? for me it is too hard Did you do anything you regret within the last 24 hours? probably What is your favorite day to go grocery shopping? I don’t have a favorite day to go but I don’t shop on Sundays and Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays are usually the hardest to get anything  Would you follow God even if it meant losing your home, your source of food, all of your friends, or even your life? jeśli byłabym 100% pewna, że Bóg tego chce i co mam robić Who’s death has affected you the most? my brother’s Have you ever grown sunflowers? they didn’t turn out well Are you scared to stand up to a police officer? no idea What is your doctor’s first name? which one?

Do you hate political posts on facebook? when there’s plenty, especially wrong  How many pictures do you have stored on your computer? omg  Which type of camera do you prefer: digital or Polaroid? hard to tell Have you ever had a camera that took film? we had when I was still a kid Do you ever squirt whip cream onto a plate and then eat it by itself? disgusting Have you ever had a hot flash? common Are you ok? my heart hurts badly Would you rather wear purple glasses or black glasses? black If you’re a girl, do you ever shop in the boys or mens section? absolutely If you’re a guy, do you ever shop in the girls or womens section? I’m a woman What do you think of when you hear the word “Christian”? religious person lmfao How many pullover hoodies do you own? bunch Which do you take more: videos or photos? pics What is the most embarrassing thing you can think of happening? my imagination is vivid What are two names you used to get mixed up when you were younger? for example - Ada and Adrianna What do u think of the quote “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing” I disagree Do you wear earmuffs when it’s cold out? I don’t own any

If you type for awhile, do your fingers start to hurt? on my phone, not computer What do you smell right now? luckily nothing much If you were an instrument, what would you be? smth annoying? Do you hate the usual 100 questions surveys? EX: Eye color boring Does your house have a doorbell? of course Do you know someone who has dropped out of high school? my classmate  If you were to get a pet turtle right now, what would you name it? mine was called Bob and I don’t want a new one  What’s your most hated commercial to watch? most of them are shit What was the last thing you charged? cellphone When you were younger, did you believe you could fly? if I did I would be dead by now (jumping out of window or smth) Favorite farm animal? chicken What’s your favorite name that begins with B? I don’t like polish names starting on B letter If someone payed you $500 would you take a bath in milk? why not Do you enjoy having time to yourself? :3 Can you do a cart wheel? still but crappy Do you like Ed Sheeran? blergh Would you rather become an author or teacher? author How many people are you currently texting? just 1 This time tomorrow, what will you be doing? hopefully spend time with @jonasz-cat Would you rather get money or gift cards for your birthday? money Have you ever been inside a recording studio? I have not Would you rather visit Mars or Neptune? Neptune Does it bother you when people keep talking to you and you want to leave? very Have you ever texted a landline phone by accident? my sister did Do you like quotes about love or life better? love is part of life What color is your garage? not applicable Do you like it when people give you compliments? they’re lying Was your hair straight today? my hair is wavy Do you ever share things on Facebook? quizzes from buzzfeed, music link from yt and selfies Do you pick out your outfits for the next day the night before or the AM? am What color was your swim suit this year? bluish Do ladders scare you? I’m cautious

1 through 10, how would you rate your day? low Any specific reason why? how I feel physically and those mirror demons mostly + some minor things

Salt or pepper? salt If you look to your right & then look down.. What do you see? bag Did you use swear words today? sigh... What did you buy today? food

If you had the choice to meet three famous people, who would you choose? dead or alive? Do you own any animals that aren’t domestic? dog is domestic ;)

Do you think people under fourteen should have sex? hell no How old were you when you had your first alcoholic beverage? 20+ What is something most people think of as lame, but you don’t? my interests? Have you ever feared that you would lose a body part? just my teeth, fingers or eyes Do you like gore? no thx Would you rather receive a kiss on the cheek, or on the forehead? neck :P Have you ever had a friend’s boyfriend/girlfriend flirt with you? someone who seriously tried to become my friend’s bf flirted with me and her sister and that’s one of reasons I say that you can lie with both actions AND words Where is your biological mother at the moment? kitchen Do you enjoy going places with your mother, like running errands? ... Do you have any annoying siblings? she indeed annoys me  How many people are in your immediate family? I count my parents and eventually my sister as immediate family Would you say you have good or bad luck? bad Do you like your laugh? uh... Do you hate it when people ask you how their survey was at the end? because they should do better, be more unique, sorry not sorry What are your plans for the rest of the day? we’ll see

Have you ever unbuttoned your ex’s pants? ... buttons? not zipper?... What does your last text say? it was the link to the article

Do you ever think about the past? I’m nostalgic and an overthinker Is math your favorite part of school? even in middle school when I was getting high grades for math I didn’t like it that much Have you held hands with anyone in the past 24 hours? yesterday  You’ve taken fifteen shots of vodka, what are you doing? exactly, WHAT AM I DOING?! Do you regret any of your relationships? yasss but I guess I learned yadda yadda yadda Whats the last taste in your mouth? stomach acid :(

What are your countries staple dishes? (Italians - pizza, pasta etc) *shrug* What was the last thing you felt disappointed by? my very own self Do you play games on your phone? nothing else but Choices Do you have music on your cellphone? spotify Name three black things that you can see? necklace, cellphone, calculator Do you like your best friends parents? Could you even tell me their names? I liked my elementary school’s bestie’s mom - Mrs. Krysia she was like an aunt to me and still recognizes me on the street, I miss her  Are you more of a mums kid or dads kid? dad’s Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn? Marilyn Monroe forever anything silly that annoys you? (i hate hearing nails being clipped) for example - someone scratching their plate with a fork, jak ktoś sztućcem zgrzebuje resztki jedzenia mam ochotę go zamordować >.<  would you perfer to do the dishes or hang washing? dishes

[mediaeval-muse]

Book Review

A Dangerous Invitation by Erica Monroe. Quillfire Publishing. 2013.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, The Rookery Rogues #1 of 4 (and a short story)

Summary:  She’s given up on love, and wants only independence… Torn from her life of privilege by her father’s death, Kate Morgan survives in London’s dark and depraved rookeries as a fence for stolen goods. The last man she ever expects, or wants, to be reunited with is her first love, who promised to cherish, honor and protect her, and instead fled amidst accusations of murder. He’s the reformed rake determined to win her back… One drunken night cost Daniel O’Reilly the woman he loved and the life he’d worked so hard to create. If he ever wants to reclaim that life–and Kate–he’ll not only have to prove he’s innocent of murder, but convince the pistol-wielding spitfire that he’s no longer the scoundrel he once was. Together, they’ll have to face a killer. Time is running out…

***Full review under the cut.***

Trigger Warnings: violence, sexual content, sexism, forced prostitution, rape, sexual assault, alcoholism, being buried alive

Overview: Another recommendation from the website Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I decided to give this one a try because I’m a sucker for a spitfire heroine, murder plots, and the criminal underbelly of late Regency/pre-Victorian London. But while the previous recommendation was a hit, this one was somewhat of a miss. I think the bones of the story are good, as well as the character archetypes, but I wasn’t personally a fan of Monroe’s writing.

Writing: Monroe’s prose is fairly straightforward with some dramatic flairs here and there to heighten the emotion. It’s easy to read, and you can skim it quickly, if that’s your style. For me, however, it bordered a little too much on the melodramatic, and it became a bit repetitive when the same sentiments were evoked again and again. For example, we’re told a lot how much our heroine, Kate, can never trust a man again and that she can’t have a future with our hero, Daniel. After the first few times, I wished Monroe would move on to explore more complex emotions to develop her characters a little more. I also think the dialogue is a bit unrealistic, as characters tend to say exactly what’s bothering them or what deeper issues are plaguing them without much prompting, and real people don’t exactly talk that way. Some metaphors and choices of words were also a little awkward, which made for a confusing read at times.

By far, the biggest issue I had was the way Monroe handled the exposition and the details of her mystery. The action of the story starts out fairly quickly, which would have been fine except that I felt like I was being asked to care about characters’ histories without getting to know them first. Daniel runs into Kate after a long absence on page 2 of the first chapter of the novel, and I wish we were given a chapter where we saw Kate fencing some stolen goods or something else first to get us invested in her as a character. Also, because things happened so quickly, I felt like I was being told a lot of information rather than relevant details being shown to me organically. For example, a character might do or say something, then there’s be a kind of aside that explained the significance of the thing. Or Daniel would reference something about his quest to clear his name, then the author would take some time to tell us how he started his journey, how he knew people helping him, etc. As a result, there was a lot of setup jam-packed in the first few chapters, and I wish more had been done to create a flow that didn’t rely on duck info-dumping. Maybe if we had a chapter showing us Kate completing a sale (as I said) while Daniel is contacting his rogue friend, Atlas, who agrees to help him clear his name. Then the action between them could begin.

Plot: I love the idea of former lovers teaming up to solve a mystery, and at its heart, I think the premise of the plot was interesting. I did think, however, that some of the details and steps along the way weren’t handled as well as they could have been. There’s a lot of going to talk to witnesses or persons of interest, which makes for a lot of info-dumping, and there’s also some random chases which seemed to be inserted for the purposes of action rather than a logical unfolding of the mystery. During the first chase, for example, I was constantly wondering whether their pursuer was just a night watchmen or someone more nefarious. If the latter, how in the world would someone have known Daniel and Kate were snooping around the warehouses at night unless someone was following them? The thought that someone must know they are investigating the murder from the onset (and thus, know that Daniel is back in London) doesn’t really occur to the characters, which I found a bit frustrating.

Overall, I wished the events that made up the main narrative had been strung together more meaningfully. Every encounter that was related to solving the mystery had the potential for some interesting social commentary, and while it was gestured to, I ultimately felt that it was rushed. For example, there’s one scene in which Daniel and Kate go visit a prostitute, and Kate thinks a lot about how the girls are more than just objects and how women have to do what they can to survive. Soon after, she discloses her own rape after being tricked into prostitution. It seemed to me like the author was trying to cover a lot of things at once when the personal lives of the characters and the unfolding of the mystery could have revolved around one or two themes: the link between minorities and crime (due to poverty resulting from prejudice), for example, and the way gender also affects how women experience the criminal world. Or, given that the main undercurrent of the book is the existence of body snatching, every aspect of the story could be tied to the concept of “selling bodies” and disregard for the poor. If the bodies of the poor are being exploited to sell to medical facilities, that kind of matches up nicely with the idea of poor women “selling their bodies” via prostitution or Irish immigrants “selling their bodies” by becoming laborers. But alas, it seemed like the novel wasn’t quite interested in diving deep into those issues.

Characters: Our heroine, Kate, is a headstrong woman who has used her knowledge of her father’s shipping company to fence stolen goods following her family’s bankruptcy. I rather liked how her ruthlessness and street smarts were connected to this aspect of her life rather than the author throwing up her hands and just asserting that Kate was a badass. Kate was also pretty likable as a street-smart protagonist who knew how to navigate the criminal world of 19th century London. I liked watching her get out of tricky situations and disappear at opportune moments, and I especially liked that she had a practical, active role to play in the investigation. She’s enlisted for her quick mind and encyclopedic knowledge of her father’s company, and I found that enjoyable and well-done. However, she was a bit back-and-forth in her affections for Daniel. One minute, she’d be proudly declaring that they can’t be together and values her independence, and the next, she’d kiss him or let him touch her while thinking about how she wanted to be protected. While it was understandable, given her traumatic history on the streets, I did find it a bit frustrating, as a reader, because rather than there being some evolution or development to her character, Kate seemed to be on a more cyclical track.

Daniel, our hero, is an Irish immigrant who has returned from abroad after being accused of murder years before. I liked that Monroe set him up as a struggling former alcoholic and as having PTSD as a result of having found the murder victim before he died - it made it seem like reform was a continual process rather than a quick fix, and that men can be emotionally vulnerable in more ways than just being lovesick or abused. I didn’t quite see what Kate saw in him, however, as her main attraction to him seemed to be physical, especially when recounting their past. Why, for example, did she fall for him before the murder when she says she was concerned about his alcoholism? What drew her to him? I also think Daniel was written as a bit too jealous. He would hate a man he just met just because he potentially got to know Kate while Daniel was away. There was more than one time where his jealousy almost ruined his chances of clearing his name, which I found ridiculous.

The supporting characters were a bit of a mixed bag. I liked Kate’s barmaid friend, Jane, and Atlas, even though neither had quite enough “screen time” to be anything other than a convenient plot device. Other characters just outright got on my nerves with their general disregard for women. The villain, in particular, was poorly done in that he monologued a bit and sexually assaults our heroine for reasons that seem to just be “because I’m evil.” It made for a rather up-and-down reading experience.

Other: There were some interesting political aspects to this book in that many references were devoted to the mistreatment of Irish immigrants. There’s such potential there for a deeper exploration of prejudice and life as a “second class citizen,” including the brief references to Daniel’s code-switching (which was delightful) and his complicated feelings about being Irish but barely remember living in Ireland. I think, however, that a lot of the prejudice was left to stand on its own and generate some automatic sympathy for characters without actually thinking about how it could enhance the story. For example, are Irish people scapegoated for crime in Monroe’s world? How is the stereotype of the alcoholic Irishman subverted by Daniel’s struggle to be better or how does his past make us think more deeply about why people turn to drink (as opposed to judging everyone as uniformly “amoral”)? Just because the novel is a romance doesn’t mean that these issues can’t be explored (one has only to look to someone like Courtney Milan, who weaves social commentary into her romances brilliantly).

I also think more could have been done to enhance the romance itself. While I did like that Daniel was intent on proving himself to be a better man than he was when he left, I also didn’t think the romance was built on much other than their past and physical attraction. Daniel’s reasons for loving Kate seem to be that she anchors him, which is a bit selfish and frustrating, but he also admires her independence and intelligence, which prevented me from giving up on him entirely. That being said, their relationship doesn’t evolve as much as it’s cyclical. They fight a lot and Kate is constantly back-and-forth about whether or not she wants to be with him, so it felt like I was reading about the same issue over and over rather than seeing how trust was built between them. Daniel’s arc could have been more about accepting Kate for who she is now - not reminiscing about a past that couldn’t return - and Kate’s arc could have been about learning to trust again or valuing living people over the memory of her dead father. While Daniel’s acceptance of Kate’s past was well-done, I really wanted more insight as to how each person made the other’s lives better and more emotionally fulfilling, not just how they’re a good person for overlooking the other’s flaws or how the love interest “anchored” them or whatever. In fairness, Daniel does learn that he needs to “save himself” rather than rely on Kate to do it for him, but there was very little lead-up for him to get to that point.

Continuing with the Series? No.

Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in historical romance (especially set in the 19th century), criminal underbelly of London, Irish heroes, reformed rakes, disinherited heroines, former lovers, and murder plots.

[perennialphilosophy]

Identity Issues and Terrorism

First, I will point out that my PhD circulates around the Arabic language and interpretations of it in different socio-political contexts, hence the topic of this post (as well as others coming in the future).

I don’t know if you’re familiar with a woman called Shamima Begum, but I will give you a quick overview. Shamima Begum is a British citizen, of Bangladeshi heritage, who was born and brought up in Bethnal Green - a part of London that has a large South-Asian Muslim community. In 2015, at the age of 15, Shamima and two of her friends left the UK to join IS and their ‘jihad’ in Syria. Shamima married an IS member out there and had two children, who passed away. Earlier this year, after the capture of her husband and IS having been defeated on the most part, she applied to return to the UK so that she could give birth to her third child here. Britain was unwilling to take her back as citizenship is automatically revoked when you join a terrorist organisation. There was widespread debate about this, as the child would still be the responsibility of the UK, even if Shamima was not as well as discussion around her not ‘understanding’ what she was doing when she left as she was ‘a child’. The long and short of it is that she was not allowed to return, and gave birth in a refugee camp. Unfortunately, given the circumstances of the birth and surroundings, the child also passed away a month later of lung infection.

Shamima is not an isolated instance. Over the years, there have been numerous young men and women leaving the UK to join IS in their fight. I began to wonder why this is. What is it that causes these people to feel something so strong that they abandon their own families, friends, country, to join another? What makes them want to adopt new names and identities? Admittedly, there is no one answer to this, but there may be a few that together make the right combination.

I spent today reading British Muslims and the Call to Global Jihad by Kylie Baxter, which really opened my eyes a little.

One thing that is clear, not just in this book but in the facts also, is that the Muslims that are getting radicalised, and ‘brain washed’ come mostly from a South-Asian background (by which I mean mostly Bangladeshi and Pakistani), which is what I will concern myself with in this post. Looking at these South-Asian Muslims, we can then also narrow the demographic down to second and third generation Muslims. It is never those who immigrated to the UK in the first place who take up these ideologies, but rather their children, or their children’s children.

One theory presented for why the second and third generations seem to be affected so much and why they make journey is an issue regarding a lack of identity. Following World War II, South-Asians (and others from the British Empire) were welcomed into the UK to help rebuild it, and take up working class jobs. As members of the Empire, they held the status of ‘British subject’ and upon entering the UK were offered full citizenship. This role to them, however, was purely economic and political, and viewed as a temporary phase. Those of South-Asian backgrounds, therefore, tended to group together in parts of London. Many did not feel the need to learn to speak the language and held on to their own cultures and traditions tightly as this is what they identified with. Their Asian background was their identity.

Once they had children, however, the religion that the children were asked to practice was one that was splattered with cultural norm and speckled with the opinions and judgment of the first generation. Without a good or proper understanding of their true culture and religion, as well as feeling isolated from the British society (as their practices were different), this leaves them little to put to their name and claim as their identity. Baxter says

It ‘appealed predominantly to young religious-seekers. Generally, the organisation’s recruits had a poor understanding of Islam, a dissatisfaction with the often culturally influenced religious tradition offered by the older generation and a sense of alienation from the British societal system of which they were meant to be a part’.

Is this all just one very serious identity issue?

I think the identity issue runs deeper than just now knowing if you belong more to the Asian culture or the British one that you are born and brought up with, and stems back to the parents themselves. If the parents make an attempt to ‘assimilate’ (for lack of a better word), it would make the task of combining Western and Asian living more cohesive. However, with parents who often do not speak the language or mix with people that are not Asian themselves, it is hard to draw on the two yourself to create an identity for yourself.

In a study conducted in 2005, it is reported that 3% of the British population is Muslim. But if you look at the dispersion of the 3%, you find that 38% are living in London alone, which is quite a high percentage (though I’m not one to judge, being from London myself) but it makes some sense as this is the capital and most diverse and welcoming of other cultures. Looking at the dispersion within London also, if we look at the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham, their Muslim population is 38% and 36% respectively, perhaps indicating ‘ghettoisation’.

Speaking from personal experience, my grandmother has been in the UK since the late 70s, that makes it forty years, and she is unable to speak or understand any English. Why? Because she lived in Tower Hamlets, where over a third of the population was Muslim and a large majority of Bangladeshi heritage. She did not need to learn because wherever she went, there were people speaking Bengali. Her neighbours were Bangladeshi, the shop assistants were Bangladeshi, as were the doctors and teachers at her children’s schools. There was nothing to compel her to learn and she had no desire.

Not only this, but in 2002, a report found that 48% of Bangladeshi women and 40% of Bangladeshi men were unqualified, as well as 40% of Pakistani women and 27% of Pakistani men. This would make it hard for these members to join society openly and mix with those in qualified jobs (which were mostly held by you typical Anglo-Saxon English man or woman), even if they wanted to. This alienation is passed down to the children who are then faced with the task of overcoming this alienation not just for themselves but for the parents too, and introducing them to British culture and norms.

Just a quick analogy: I have an aunt who has been in this country now for twenty five years. She can just about say common things like ‘how are you’ and ‘shut up’ (the latter I’ve heard her use a lot) but other than this, her knowledge is basically zero. She is a housewife that never leaves the house. She has made no attempt to make friends, not even with other Asians. I recall going to a wedding once and she was there, it was a big fat Asian wedding. The bride invited some of her colleagues and friends, who were you typical Anglo-Saxon white men and women. My aunt commented saying “look at that show off, inviting white people”, because she does not want ‘white people’ there. It is the role of her children now to introduce her to Western society, as this will become a barrier for them, when their mother will not want them inviting ‘white people’ to their weddings.

And I will leave you with that. I feel like I have rambled a lot, but I hope my point comes across somewhat clearly, and if it does not, you will have to excuse me, I have a raging fever at the moment.

N.B. Again, for the keyboard warriors, these are only my opinions. There are also many more reasons that I could list, such as certain ‘cultures’ being more deprived, funding, education etc. There is a lot to be said. Perhaps I will speak about those in separate posts, if anyone is interested.

[frederickwiddowson]

Exodus 23:20-33 comments: a comparison between ancient Hebrews and modern Christians

Exodus 23:20 ¶  Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. 21  Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. 22  But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. 23  For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off. 24  Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images. 25 And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. 26  There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil. 27  I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. 28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. 29  I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. 30  By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. 31  And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. 32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. 33  They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.

Here is an important doctrine regarding what an angel is, a spiritual representative, the presence of someone, in this case God. God’s name is in the angel.

Isaiah 63:9  In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

Judges 2:1  And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.

Verse 24 reinforces God’s disgust with worshipping gods, little g, and idols. They are either figments of man’s imagination or devils.

Deuteronomy 32:17  They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

Do not think that because you don’t worship Thor or Kali that you are not worshipping a false god. Any time you think, “an education will make me successful,” or, “having that man or woman will make me happy,” or, just constantly wanting something other than what you have you are creating idols, not much differently than ancient people. You are one step away from giving your dependence on education, sex, or material possessions a name, an identity to worship.  Anything we place as more important than obedience to God and faithfulness to Him is an idol. We are to do right, to do our best, and to trust God only for our success and happiness. Education is a good thing, intimacy between a husband and wife is an honorable thing, and we need food and shelter but we must not depend on them rather than God.

For instance, in regard to wealth, Paul warns Christians;

1Timothy 6:6 ¶  But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7  For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. 8  And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. 9  But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10  For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

And Jesus admonished His disciples using the Syriac word for the personification of money.

Luke 16:13  No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

With regard to sex as an idol the ancients had goddesses like Ishtar, the goddess of immigrants and prostitutes, a version of which we have in the harbor of New York City also called the goddess Liberty, popular among the Enlightenment thinkers like James Madison, the so-called Father of the Constitution, along with Providence, a reference to a vague universal power but certainly not the God of the Bible. The Greeks and Romans of Paul’s time had Venus and Aphrodite, goddesses of sex, who were worshipped in temples like those of Acrocorinth in Greece with short-haired priestesses, the reason why the Corinthian Christians demanded that their women have long hair which Paul approved while stating that it was not an issue in other churches. See 1Corinthians 11.

Idolatry is and has been one of the prime sins of man against God throughout history. This has been the cause of the perverted, sexualized religion of the ancient world and the decadence of mankind. Idolatry results in sexual perversion and it is the byproduct and result of idolatry.

Romans 1:19 ¶  Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21  Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23  And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25  Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26  For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27  And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28  And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29  Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30  Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31  Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32  Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

In that passage we can see why society decays and who is responsible for its decay. God gives delusions and permits our more decadent natures to take preeminence.

Whether our idol is the flag or Constitution, which Mormon Joseph Smith convinced patriots was divinely inspired by God, or whether it is money, sex, or education idolatry is one of the prime reasons that American Christianity is so powerless to impact a dying world in any way other than providing humanistic drivel to control a congregation under the guise of fundamentalist, right-wing or liberal, left-wing preaching.

Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.

God is promising these physical, literal Hebrews coming into a physical, literal land blessings and prosperity and protection and the written words of God are a vital part of those blessings. By the way, don’t let some wicked preacher tell you that if you attend church whenever the doors are open you won’t ever get sick or have trouble in your life. We cannot apply literal, physical promises to the Jews before Christ to the Christian as they are not promises made to us under this dispensation. For all of your slavish devotion to a fundamentalist preacher’s will and whims you will have trouble in your life and you will get sick at some point and you will probably have a child that goes astray, etc. etc.

Joshua 1:8  This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

While Christians were not promised an earthly country we would do well in life to honor these admonitions and warnings that God has given. Idolatry will destroy your walk with God and make you a caricature of a person of faith to the unsaved, a cartoon, a joke. You cannot uplift an idol in one hand and God in the other without looking stupid, a hypocrite, or just plain evil.

Even though Christians do not have a country on this earth the historical principle laid down in Romans, chapter one, applies to nations as we know them. Let me give you a brief religious history of America to show you how idolatry can be poison. America’s self-worship as idolatry has its roots in the country’s earliest times. The good thing, which was the belief and faith that this new land was to be a nation set apart by God for a divine purpose was a common thread preached throughout. However, a specific millennial belief, that Christ would set up a kingdom on earth without being present Himself to last for literally a thousand years or with the millennium as just representing a long time was the standard, evangelical Christian view until the 20th century. This is called Postmillennialism, with Christ returning at the end of the thousand years. With a few exceptions it was believed that Christ would rule through His church. But there was no doubt that America would be the location where this period would begin. Men like John Cotton, Ephraim Huit, Increase Mather, John Davenport, John Eliot, Samuel Sewall, Cotton Mather, and Joseph Morgan preached an imminent millennium and Eliot, combining the fervor of what was called Fifth Kingdom Monarchyism prevalent in England, was especially hopeful that the New Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation would descend upon America itself.[1] Sermons were preached before Congress that said that America was the Promised Land and that the events of Revelation would take place here before we converted the world and established Christ’s kingdom for Him.[2]

An actual, historical Kingdom of God was expected, with the millennium, a thousand years of Christ’s reign through His church, coming soon.[3] Jonathan Edwards, the Congregationalist preacher so important to the series of revivals in 1700s America called The First Great Awakening, viewed the millennium not as Christ physically returning to save a ruined world, but a gradual process where righteousness and the control of Godly men became prevalent as Christ ruled through His church.[4]

Millennial ideals were also preached during the time of and after the American Revolution pointing more and more to America’s God-chosen role in the bringing in of Christ’s Kingdom, linked to evolutionary progress. President of Yale College Ezra Stiles said;

It may have been of the Lord that Christianity is to be found in such greater purity in this church exiled into the wilderness of America, and that its purest body should be evidently advancing forward, by an augmented natural increase and spiritual edification, into a singular superiority, with the ultimate subserviency to the glory of God to converting the world.[5]

The nineteenth century was an era in secular and religious thought of a progress that was inevitable.[6] In Protestant evangelical faith, Postmillennialism, that mankind would create a millennial kingdom without Christ’s physical presence, was, “the commonly received doctrine,” of the century.[7] The documents, the speeches, the sermons are available for you to read, mostly free. Don’t take my word for it. During this period this doctrine was the intellectual compromise between the devastation of God’s judgment on the world portrayed in the book of Revelation in the Bible and the evolutionary theory of constant movement upward to better and better times, and a utopia.[8] Liberal religious thought in collusion with the growing atheism of science brought about a weakening of the hopeful, religious viewpoint of a coming golden age created by Christians dependent upon their own righteousness but it was the nightmare of the Civil War and the calamity of World War One that drove the nail into the coffin and, “it became a relic of a lost world.”[9]

But, at the time of the Civil War’s commencement most evangelical Christians in America believed that the United States was God’s Promised Land and white, Anglo-Saxon Americans His chosen people, destined to bring in a ‘golden age’ of peace, prosperity, and righteousness as Christ ruled the earth for either a literal thousand years or for just a long period of time, represented by the word millennium, through His church. Lincoln himself referred to America, not Christ, as the last best hope of earth.[10]

It was not unusual for nations with a state church to view themselves as God’s chosen people. England, Russia, and Germany were notorious for this view. German sermons during World War One even likened the German Army to the Holy Spirit moving in the world and ‘God With Us’ in German was on the belt buckles of soldiers. Glorification and even deification of the state was one prime motivator in the half-century of war.

President Woodrow Wilson’s mentor at Johns Hopkins University, Richard Ely, put the thought of the elite and great planners whose government was God’s agent on earth or His replacement even like this;

Now, it may rationally be maintained that, if there is anything divine on earth, it is the State, the product of the same God-given instincts which led to the establishment of the Church and of the Family. It was once held that kings ruled by right divine, and in any widely accepted belief, though it be afterwards discredited, there is generally found a kernel of truth. In this case it was the divine right of the state.[11]

But worshipping the state as a “Christnation,” as the Redeemer Nation of the world, was America’s undoing. With the leadership making government God’s agent on earth rather than God’s people and with the common Christian expecting that we could create a perfect world without Christ physically present we had this great religious expectation that was blatantly false.

That’s why today so many think that they are electing a pastor or a messiah when they vote for a president and then try to Christianize their candidate if elected to make him look like something he is not. It all boils down to state-worship.

           World War One, the Jazz Age, the automobile, the sexual revolt of the 1920s, the triumph of evolution in science, the growing importance of the Entertainment industry all figured in to God’s judgment on the nation for its idolatry. As an example, where women who wore makeup were derided as ‘painted city women’ before the war, with strong suggestions of immorality, the demands by boys returning home that their women look like French girls has resulted in the fact that Christian women wouldn’t dare leave home without makeup on today. In addition, the lax morals produced by boys and girls being able to go off alone in a car and listening to Ragtime and Jazz watching Hollywood movies glorifying decadence was a chilling reminder that something was very wrong in America. We had the Great Depression, remember? Then, another devastating war and a so-called Cold War for 50 years pounded away at our families and our institutions. Look at today. Do you not doubt we are under God’s judgment? Look at Israel in Kings and Chronicles. Don’t you see America in every page? Ancient Israelites, like Americans, believed that they were special and by virtue of their exceptional place in God’s ordained world they deserved peace and prosperity, both of which were taken away over time for their idolatry.

Fundamentalism came about in the early 1900s because America, under God’s judgment, appeared to be descending into chaos and darkness. The King James-only movement came about in 1964 because fundamentalism had gone crazy with regard to its denial of the Bible we had in front of us. The problem, fundamentalists wrongly assumed, was non-Christians polluting God’s country. The actual problem was Christian idolatry and not venerating God’s word above our ambitions. This is how idolatry, in this case, worship of one’s country as a god on earth, can do horrible damage.

We are held to the same standard as everyone else and we have been found wanting. I refer you to the passage I quoted earlier from Romans, chapter one, again to find out why things are the way they are.

But, it must be said, unlike the Hebrews assuming control over an area of land the promise to Christians is an eternal inheritance. We don’t get a utopia here, a millennium without Christ’s physical presence, but we can get an awful mess.

It is interesting in Verse 28 how God promises to use creatures to drive out the inhabitants of the land He has promised to the Hebrews slowly. God has used many naturally occurring events as weapons. Remember the plagues of Egypt?

Compare what ancient Israel was to be with what America was to be to see a difference dispensationally. Israel was not to permit idolatry in its borders and was to drive out the idol-worshippers lest they pollute the Hebrew religion, which their existence did, as we can see by reading the Bible. America is a pluralistic nation with many different religious traditions or no religion at all. We cannot remove everyone from the land who does not believe exactly what we believe or how we believe, no matter how much you would like to do that. The Hebrews didn’t do that either, but it was their apostasy that garnered them God’s wrath.

I think it is important to realize that every Christian now is a type of the nation of Israel then, as the children of Israel then were a type of every Christian today. Our land is a spiritual land and our Canaanites are our sins. God promises us that He will drive out our sins if we obey Him as He promised the Hebrews He would drive out the wicked, child-sacrificing, bestiality practicing, temple-prostitute patronizing Canaanites if the Hebrews obeyed.

But, having said all that, I would go on to say that if Christians themselves would repent and turn from their sins and obey God in the best way they know how, believing His word, they would not be deceived by lying, gutless, and corrupt politicians and their land would not be given over to the perversion, violence, and decay that is so prevalent. God honors obedience, not obedience as defined by some fundamentalist whack-job preacher or evangelist who just wants to control them but obedience and righteousness as defined by the Bible. The problem with America is not homosexuals, left-wing demagogues, drug-dealers, or liberal judges. The problem with America is the faithlessness of Christians who regard the Bible as a type of Emily Post’s book on etiquette to be observed if convenient and who regard God as more of a concept or idea than a real, living entity who controls every aspect of reality from their living room to the edges of the universe.

[1] David E. Smith, “Millenarian Scholarship in America,” American Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 3 (Autumn, 1965), 539. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2710907. (accessed 10.28.2015), 539.

[2] Fountain E. Pitts, A Defence of Armageddon or Our Great Country Foretold in the Holy Scriptures In two discourses, Delivered in the Capitol of the United States, at the request of several members of Congress, on the anniversary of Washington's birthday, 1857, (Baltimore: J.W. Bull Publishers, 1859), 90.

[3] Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), 29.

[4] Ibid., 30.

[5] Ezra Stiles, “The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor,” in The Pulpit of the American Revolution, or, The Political Sermons of the Period of 1776, John Wingate Thornton, ed., (Boston: D. Lothrop & Publishers, 1876), 405, 472.

[6] Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, 52.

[7] Henry Boynton Smith,”History of Opinions Respecting the Millennium,” The American Theological Review (Boston: Charles Scribner & Son, 1859), 642. https://books.google.com/books?id=hWrUAAAAMAAJ&vq=millennium&pg=PA642#v=snippet&q=millennium&f=false (accessed 11.14.2015).

[8] James H. Moorhead, “The Erosion of Postmillennialism in American Religious Thought, 1865-1925,” Church History Vol. 53, No. 1 (Mar. 1984), 61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3165956 (accessed 11.14.2015).

[9] Ibid., 77.

[10] Jean H. Baker, “Lincoln’s Narrative of American Exceptionalism,” in We Cannot Escape History: Lincoln and the Last Best Hope of Earth, James McPherson, ed., (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 42.

                      [11] Gary M. Pequet and Clifford M. Thies, “The Shaping of a Future President’s Economic Thought: Richard T. Ely and Woodrow Wilson at “The Hopkins,” The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy 15, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 262, 266.

[gemmayim]

Interview with Colin, a librarian in Walthamstow library in 1980s

I had an In-depth interview with Colin, who worked in library in Walthamstow for 5 years in 1980s to better know more about libraries and books in the past. 

Question: It has been a long time since you worked in library, is there anything that you still remember and feel important to you?

I still remember clearly the reason why I quit my job in library. In 1985, the library in Walthamstow started to introduce computers to replace the card index system for borrowing and returning books and the trend started in most libraries in London since 1980s.. I needed to help with making the barcodes and the admin for that back then and I could feel that my job was going to be replaced by the computers. What I don’t like most about computerisation is that it took away the connection between the public and the staff. It was an important way for people, especially elderlies who live by themselves to meet people.

Question: How would you run a library?

I think libraries nowadays have become souless because there is a lack of interaction between users and the staff. If users need to interact with staff when they borrow/ return books, it creates a community. I used to make friends with the users and staffs in the library. People would say hello to me on the streets in Walthamstow because they knew me from library. I really enjoyed interacting with the children there.

Question: Who are the regular users of the library?

Elderly women, who are around 60-80s, visited the library more often. They normally borrow romance book like Mills Boon, which is some kind of slashy, tame romance stories. Jacky Collins is another popular choice among the elderly women. Some of the elderly women would ask his friend in the library Linda to find erotic romance fiction for them. I guess if the users can find books on the computer system, it would be more private when they want to find books that are more personal.

Question: Was there any event in the library that you really liked or disliked back then?

We didn't usually have events in the library. Sometimes there were talks given by some author, like Michael Rosen. I remember we had a Children's Book week to encourage kids to read more book, and I wore a clown costume and promoted the event with a girl who was wearing a teddy bear costume. That was the only book week for children in the 5 years that I worked there. They did have book weeks for other groups but it didn’t happen that often.

Question: How was the reading culture in 1980s?

Reading culture was much stronger back then. When I was young, I regarded the libraries as churches because of the silence and the atmosphere there. Staff would tell you off if you spoke loudly in the library. And I think the attitude changes over time.

Question: What’s the difference between the reading culture in the past and nowadays?

I think, in the past, we only had radios, magazines, one channel on TV and maybe records to listen to music and no other kinds of entertainment in the media. Nowadays, we have computers and the internet that offer different kinds of entertainment to us and I think that definitely affects the use of libraries, less people go to the library nowadays.

Question: Was it common that people stole books from the library?

I don’t know how common it was but they used to have agents knocking on people’s doors if they haven’t returned the books to the library after a certain time. They probably called reprocessing officers, who worked for the council for collecting rent or other kinds of duty. After the book were overdue for weeks, the library would send the user a warning letter/ reminder and if it was overdue for months, the reprocessing officer would then go knock on their door to collect the fee and the book. I remember there was a time that a reprocessing officer went to the user’s house and found that the room was full of books that were borrowed/ stolen from the library.

Question: What do you think about books in general?

I love the feeling of a paperback and I treat books with reverence. Even I own the book, I treat it as if it is not mine and with utmost respect and very carefully.

I think books exercise a lot of power and transport someone to have a variety of feelings. It conjure different feelings and emotions and it is magical how words take readers to different parts of the world at different times, having different experiences. Books set light to our imagination and there is no limit to the way you think and feel.

Question: How do you get your book?

I normally buy books in bargained bookshops, or charity shops like Oxfarm

Question: How will you treat your book after reading it?

My sportsbooks accumulate at home and find it difficult to give books away to someone who are actually interested in it. And I am reluctant to give away my books because I am quite attached to my sport books. I do give them away to my friends, but only occasionally

Question: Is there any story behind a book that you really like?

In 1960, I was about 9, Arsenal bought a player George Eastham and I was very excited because I thought George Eastham would greatly improve the team a lot. Then Geroge wrote a biography about himself and I managed to get a copy through a supporter club, which is a signed copy written “Best wishes, George Eastham” (see the photo)

Question: Do you think the signature gives more meaning to the book?

Yes, I think so.

Question: What do you think about books in a digital world?

I feel sad that books are taken over by the internet, but the internet can make it much easier for people to find information and from an environmental perspective, the internet is better because it takes much more energy to print and produce a book than posting it on the internet.

Takeaway and Afterthoughts:

I was very intrigued to hear Colin’s story of working in the library in Walthamstow, especially his perceptive of library being soulless after computerisation. Despite his personal resistance to computerisation of the library system, he is actually open to the changes of the society and agreed with the advantages Brough by technological advancement. Yet, if library is actually becoming soulless due to the lack of human interaction, if we need to repurpose and rejuvenate library in our society, what more should we do to make it more accessible with a “soul”? How can we bridge the distance between individuals when they come to library? And how can we attract people to go to library again?

Out of curiosity, I searched on Google to see if there is any existing project that try to bring library alive again and found that a library in Ireland, dlr LexIcon, actually become a local attraction and important community centre since they renovated and reopen in 2017. 

Shared by a librarian and event programmer from dlr LexIcon in an interview, 

“Regarding challenges or opportunities for the future, I would list the following; the changing concept of the library model, upskilling of staff and the public to embrace the evolving culture of libraries, technological developments and digitalisation, a recovering economy, employment support and adapting and supporting changing demographics in the area i.e. older people, immigrants, young families etc.”

“Our current ambition is to connect and empower people, inspire ideas and support community potential”

“We couldn’t do what we do without all the teamwork and passion. Bring in writers, musicians, storytellers, digital curators in-house as they bring new life and energetic perspectives. We are always trying out our spaces in different ways and it is amazing how many people will come and look at an exhibition that has been on display for a while if you just move it to a slightly different location.”

Source: https://princh.com/how-can-a-new-library-connect-and-inspire-communities-dlr-libraries/

From the look of it, no radical or outrageously innovative changes made in the library, but as Colin mentioned in the interview, they strive to promote the connection and empowerment in the community. If connection and empowerment are the key ingredients to rejuvenate a community and is there a “smarter” way to do it? Also, does human interaction have to be happened in library? if library is just being renovated into a community centre, and physical books are not the main characters anymore, why do we still keep it as a book library? What is actually the right question to ask if changes has to be made?  These questions reminded me of the tool library project Lara mentioned in the lecture and the discussion in our first group meeting, Of course! More than books! But Tools and resource! 

In that case, back to the main topic about books and library, do library really need physical books anymore?

[swainlake]

Hello! So now that got has ended I'm looking for some tv shows that I could watch after I'm done with my exams. Do you have any suggestions? I'm not looking for anything specific, although if you have watched some good period dramas, I'd love some recommendations. Also wanted to add how much I love your blog, it's really beautiful

tysm that’s so sweet!! i love giving recs so i’ve got a bunch that you might like under the cut; i’ve put a ♡ next to my favs

period dramas:

NEW WORLDS (2014)this one is a mini series, only 4 episodes long, but please don’t let that stop you! it’s about anti-monarchism and rebellion and forbidden love in the 1600′s & is set in both england and america. i cried more than once but the ending is so bittersweet and hopeful!! 

POLDARK (2015—)i have a love/hate relationship with this one tbh. i started watching because of the main relationship but i ended up really into it for the side relationships instead?? the actual political plot doesn’t interest me but i love the drama between the family members. also i adore the women in this show, every single female character is well-written and realistic and you’ll love them all (even if at times you hate them). the men tho? the men are pretty much collectively the worst. “what’s wrong with the women in this family?” “the men.”

SPARTACUS (2010—2013) ♡i started watching this before i ever got into game of thrones but if you like the fight scenes in got, you’ll enjoy this! great characters, great fight scenes, great friendships. this one is based on gladiators who are fighting for their freedom.

THE WHITE PRINCESS (2017) ♡okay firstly and most importantly: jodie comer stars in this so you know it’s good. it’s also got michelle fairly (catelyn stark) in it though tbh she wasn’t my favourite character in this and i didn’t find her likeable at all. it’s not very historically accurate ofc but the relationship between henry/elizabeth is honestly the perfect enemies to lovers rep & always lowkey reminds me of book!sansa/jon possibilities

PAN AM (2011—2012)this one isn’t like game of thrones at all but it’s only one season and it’s super cute and has a lot of famous actresses in it like christina ricci & margot robbie. based on the adventures of a crew of pan am stewardesses, this is a good combination of lighthearted fun and chilling cold-war drama. an old favourite. 

THE MUSKETEERS (2014—2016) ♡i’ll be gushing over this for years to come tbh it’s really just that perfect. the relationship between the musketeers is so lovely, the personification of ‘brotherhood’ really, but also the romantic relationships are really good too?? which for some reason i personally hadn’t expected. my fav couple is aramis/anne (anne is played by the actress who played roslin frey!) because the forbidden love & the respect and adoration between those two is just perfect but really every relationship (even the ones that don’t become endgame) are written very well

OUTLANDER (2014—)i haven’t watched every single episode of this one but from what i have seen it’s very good, and has some similar themes to game of thrones!! the sex scenes are epic, the main relationship is lovely, and overall its a very realistic show that features supernatural elements!

THE LAST KINGDOM (2015—) ♡i’m not going to lie: i started this series by skipping straight to 2x7 because i’d seen gifs of the relationship between aethelflaed and erik but it was so good i ended up going back and starting from the beginning! this show reminds me of ‘vikings’ more tham game of thrones but it’s not as gory and the characters aren’t all assholes. side note: if you love sansa stark as much as i do you’re gonna love aethelflaed, lady of mercia! she’s actually a real person but this show is based on a book series that looks super interesting! honestly the main character also kind of reminds me of jon snow

HARLOTS (2017—) ♡oh my gosh how do i describe this show?? the family dynamics are so! intricate! and! beautiful! honestly just stunning. everything about this show is s t u n n i n g. the costumes are colourful and vivid and honestly i’d recommend watching just for that but the storyline really does keep you hooked!! also: liv tyler and jessica brown findlay are love interests in this which is honestly a dream come true

BLACK SAILS (2015—2017)okay full disclosure; i haven’t actually seen this but i’ve heard very good things and it’s on my list!! it’s about pirates, i think there’s some queer rep (can anybody confirm??), and there’s lots of amazing women. again, allegedly. 

dramas:

THE SOCIETY (2018—)i literally watched the entire first season in a single night so it must be alright, right? basically all you need to know about this is that a town full of teenagers go on a field trip & then return to find all their parents mysteriously missing and their town closed off from the outside world. it’s basically lord of the flies but modern! with some kick-ass friendships! and amazing young women (one literally teaches herself to be a doctor can you believe?)! 

SHARP OBJECTS (2018)if you haven’t heard about this one yet idk what rock you’ve been living under but welcome back! this one is a m a z i n g but also hella chilling and the ending is such a shocker if it hasn’t been spoiled for you yet!

THE BOLD TYPE (2017—) ♡i always describe this one as ‘sex and the city for millennials’ but i’ve never watched a single sex and the city episode in my life so i honestly don’t know how accurate that is?? but it’s about a group of 20-something year old women who are best friends and work mates and they love each other so much?? the relationship between the girls is my favourite thing about the show but the show honestly tackles a lot of relevant issues; trump, age gaps, queer rep, immigration, racism, etc. i can’t recommend this enough!

CODE BLACK (2015—2018) ♡you know those episodes in greys anatomy where everything is life-or-death and you’re on edge for the whole episode? that’s basically every single episode of code black. this is hands-down one of my most rewatched shows ever. i love medical dramas and this one balances well written characters with action-packed medical miracles so honestly what’s not to like?? 

A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES (2018—)okay admittedly the only reason i watch this show is because of the main couple but i can’t help it when they’re just so gosh-darn cute!! they love each other so god damned much! i wasn’t completely sold on this straight away but by ep 3 i was HOOKED. if you like supernatural romances/dramas that are more mature than your usual cw show, this one is a good choice!

THE OA (2016—) ♡i can’t even put into words how much i adore this?? but also: it will confuse THE SHIT out of you. no matter how smart you are, this one will leave you scratching your head. basically: a group of people who’ve had near-death experiences get kidnapped and experimented on. it’s not as brutal as it sounds, in fact the show is exceptionally beautiful, but it does deal with some hard themes and the good guys don’t always win. 

12 MONKEYS (2015—2018)do you like time travel? do you like forbidden and yet totally-still-devoted-to-one-another-anyway love? then this is the show for you! this one is dark and gritty and deals pretty realistically with the concept of time travel & self-sacrifice and what people will give up to create a better world. it’s got a happy ending & you wont regret watching!

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (2018)oh this one will make you cry. in a good way though! long story short a family grows up in a haunted house and it affects them in ways they cannot imagine. it’s hauntingly beautiful and poetic and everybody should watch it at least once imo

comedies:

THE MARVELOUS MRS MAISEL (2017—)okay so this one counts as a period drama as well but it’s about a COMEDIAN so i put it in the comedy section lol. okay so long story short, a woman is left by her husband, she’s worth 1000 of him & everybody else knows it because you seriously can’t help falling in love with this woman but ofc there’s period-typical sexism she has to face as she struggles with being a single woman, a single mother, and an up-and-coming comedian. def recommend.

SANTA CLARITA DIET (2017—2019)drew barrymore is a zombie!! who lives a normal life but also eats people!! it’s only weird for the first couple of eps. the family dynamics are snarky and witty and they manage to make gore funny?? honestly this entire show is legit laugh-out-loud darkly hilarious.

[drcolumbosnotepad]

Being Mortal | When Breath Becomes Air | How We Die

The Fighting Temeraire  -  J.M.W. Turner 

Introduction  

Prelude III: Mortality – Santiago Wu

 At the break of dawn begins a new day,

Now I am one with the world,

To be part of something greater, I pray.

All of us part of the same mystery unfurled.

 Time past and time future,

Everything that came before,

To everything that follows.

All my love to long ago,

And my hopes for days to come.

Heart selfless, soul mindful.

Live, laugh, love —this  the meaning of life?

My candle burns at both ends.

All the places I’ll never see,

All the people I’ll never know.

This might be how it ends.

 Memento Mori - Remember that you have to die. 

Vanitas – Philippe de Champaigne

Death is inextricably entwined with life, hidden in the shadows patiently waiting to take us on the day we take our last breath.  Reading the accounts of dying men and women is truly humbling, whether it be in their twilight years or prematurely - death comes for all of us. All their stories and memories of human life and emotion: all the joy, love, laughter, tragedy, sorrow and regret willing us all to live more fulfilling, meaningful lives. 

If I were a writer of books, I would compile a register, with a comment, of the various deaths of men: he who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.

That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die – Michel de Montaigne

 I think you always know the moment when you finish a book whilst digesting the last words and the text as a whole, its impact and importance in your personal life. The books I am writing about all discuss mortality – a taboo topic normally hushed about and swept underneath carpets. To read and understand the writings of these books in such a raw and honest fashion was a welcome albeit overwhelming change in gear. These books have had a massive impact personally and have formed an epoch in my life and attitudes to life and death. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi and How We Die by Sherwin Nuland are books which have the rare privilege of being read more than once, truly understood, annotated to grasp every fragment of detail of wisdom shared in their pages. The authors are doctors (American surgeons, all sons of immigrants). These men had the privilege and the burden of looking after and treating people with fatal illness in their daily practice. Their accounts are beautifully written, one from the perspective of a doctor looking after patients in their end of life and the other written as a patient facing his own death and one written in his twilight years recounting his medical practice and patients and sickness and death. I have heavily quoted all three books because I believe they offer profound wisdom which is literally life-affirming, in fact I have written this for myself as much as my reader in order to truly understand the essence of the lessons of what these three books and their themes can teach us.

I was first introduced to Atul Gawande from the 2014 Reith Lectures on BBC Radio 4 which were a series of four excellently given speeches on life, death and medicine. His deep research on medicine for the dying draws upon many different threads with a surgical precision. His striving to be better and to constantly improve is remarkable and sets a paragon of medical practice. I was humbled by his admissions and failures and his striving to be a better surgeon. The lectures provided a grounding to my burgeoning clinical experience and taught me to never take anything for granted – never to be complacent of my abilities because to have another human being’s life in your hands is a huge privilege which some say is playing god with a small ‘g’. He understands the fine line between offering false hope and deciding when to cut your losses which is never a clear choice. I immediately related to Paul Kalanithi’s love of literature. It is rare in medicine to meet someone who loves literature so much – stories of humanity, emotions ranging from highest peak to lowest ebb… I can tell this deep affection directly influenced his writing and indeed his medicine and approach to life. What made him unique was his relentless quest to search for life’s meaning. With his juggling of both art and science, I immediately remembered my own decision for choosing to enter medicine. Art reflects the universe whilst science explains it. Medicine married the two together. Though in modern medicine, science is king – like Paul Kalanithi, I have a strong affection for my first love of literature which I’ve come to realise expresses and sometimes even explains the universe in better ways than science can. Sherwin Nuland’s ground-breaking book How We Die has been mentioned in circles of medical humanities and referenced by Atul Gawande as the quintessential book on the medical viewpoint of death and mortality. It is easy to see why this book, though nearly thirty years old is still as relevant as ever today. The art of medicine has been revolutionised and become more efficient by multiple progressions and innovations in science and technology but at its heart remains the doctor-patient relationship which Sherwin Nuland writes about in a philosophical and humane way. He marries both medical science and the stories of his patients which from a medical point of view was an utter joy to read. Funny how things have changed since 1994 when Sherwin Nuland wrote his book and also how much they remain the same – sobering to know how despite our scientific and technological advances in medicine, our attitude towards death and dying patients is still primitive and myopic. In How We Die, Sherwin Nuland details the most common causes of death in the developed countries: cardiovascular disease, old age, stroke, infection, murder, HIV/AIDS, cancer in individual chapters with case studies based on his own patients or his family members.

The theme of death and mortality explored in these books led me to think a lot about them especially in my early medical career. When I first started this blog, I wrote of great figures in human history that have sadly left us and their medical conditions. From a great fighter to an entrepreneur to a musician, all were unique human beings with different qualities but what united all of them – and also us, is death. Death is something that is often misconstrued in our modern lives, whether we euphemise, sugar-coat or indeed fear it. The old saying of De mortuis nil nisi bonum or ‘Do not speak ill of the dead’ and Requiescat in pace or ‘Rest in Peace’ pervades our lives even today. We feel sadness when great figures die because of the finality of death – there is no return, we will never know what would have come next. We are reminded of our own lives and within our limited time we too are able to achieve something great. Of course, it is foolish to be able to condense every reference and understand them completely, that will take more than a lifetime to study, a Sisyphean task – death and ars moriendi (the art of dying) being perhaps the biggest and most universal theme of human life across all cultures. There are still works by Heidegger, Nietzsche, the Bible, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, I Ching, the Mahabharata, the Vedas, the Quran, countless poets, novelists, philosophers, scientists etc. that I haven't been able to read in this time, this of course is a study over generations upon generations who still are uncertain about the question of death. I cannot answer these questions death poses, there are mountains upon mountains I will need to ascend in order to catch the slightest glimpse of an understanding. I myself cannot even expect to offer the slightest bit of eloquence of my own voice – I elect instead to let great men and women do that for me for may I learn from them and one day pass on this knowledge. After spending the past year contemplating on death and mortality and reading around the topics from great accounts by humanity, I am certain that what this teaches us is the appreciation of life now in the present. None of us knows when we will die, only we know for certain that we will die. In our cycles of time, this is our time on Earth, our time to live. How we come to peace with death and our mortality is focus of these books I have mentioned and the lessons we can all learn from them.

As I child, I had devoured the Roald Dahl books like any other kid in school I loved his dark wit and unpatronizing creativity in his novels where they provided the first forays into my love for books and imagination. One thing always struck me in his books that I never truly understood until my youth, was his motto that preceded each and every one of his novels. I had a much loved, battered double copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory & Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator which I had read several times over. The motto that perplexed me well throughout my childhood was:

My candle burns at both ends it will not last the night. But oh my foes and ah my friends, it gives a lovely light!

How apt of Roald Dahl! Even in children's novels he never hid death from them – didn't the twits shrink away into nothingness and didn't James' parents get squashed by a rhinoceros? It's a beautiful motto, the transience and beauty of life condensed into four lines. When I look back over my life, over petty arguments, being let down and hurt by others, showing loved ones my worst side – I am deeply humbled. Life is short, I don't want it to be marred by acrimony and bitterness and regret. Those are the things that don't matter, the bitter pill you stow away at the back of the mind to learn a cruel lesson from and yet cringe at who you could be and hopefully were. There isn't room for such sourness, when you read the accounts of the dying – there is often the bittersweet feeling of regret and missed opportunity as seen in Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying

Here we must focus on the important things – the old sayings of ‘letting the little things go’, and ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ are true. Do we hold a grudge to everybody who has wronged us? If that’s the case then we’d only hold a grudge to everybody because as Bob Marley said “The truth is everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones suffering for.” Life is too short for all of the pettiness and trivialities. Forgive and love, it’s the best antidote to bitterness and the best steps to self-love for through only loving ourselves can we love others.

Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you can imagine never to arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet there is no journey but hath its end. And, if company will make it more pleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the self-same way?

That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die - Michel de Montaigne

The Starry Night - Vincent Van Gogh 

Medicine and death

The Doctor – Sir Luke Fildes

“To me, the subject will be more pathetic than any, terrible perhaps, but yet more beautiful.”

Being mortal is about the struggle to cope with the constraints of our biology, with the limits set by genes and cells and flesh and bone. Medical science has given us remarkable power to push against these limits, and the potential value of this power was a central reason I became a doctor. But again and again, I have seen the damage we in medicine do when we fail to acknowledge that such power is finite and always will be.

             We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when debility comes, but all along the way. Whenever serious sickness or injury strikes and your body or mind breaks down, the vital questions are the same: What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes? What are your fears and what are your hopes? What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make? And what is the course of action that best serves this understanding?

             The field of palliative care emerged over recent decades to bring this kind of thinking to the care of dying patients. And the specialty is advancing, bringing the same approach to other seriously ill patients, whether dying or not. This is cause for encouragement. But it is not cause for celebration. That will be warranted only when all clinicians apply such thinking to every person they touch. No separate specialty required.

             If to be human is to be limited, then the role of caring professions and institutions – from surgeons to nursing homes – ought to be aiding people in their struggle with those limits. Sometimes we can offer a cure, sometimes only a salve, sometimes not even that. But whatever we can offer, our interventions, and the risks and sacrifices they entail, are justified only if they serve the larger aims of a person’s life. When we forget that, the suffering we inflict can be barbaric. When we remember it the good we do can be breathtaking.

             I never expected that among the most meaningful experiences I’d have as a doctor – and, really, as a human being – would come from helping others deal with what medicine cannot do as well as what it can. But it’s proved true, whether with a patient like Jewel Douglass, a friend like Peg Bachelder, or someone I loved as much as my father.

Being Mortal – Atul Gawande p259-260

 Having the medical perspective of death is something strangely inhuman. The first death with everyone is upsetting and everyone reacts in their own way. Yet witnessing death on a daily occurrence begins to offset this shock to the system, becoming a routine to which medical professional need to learn how to cope with death. Doctors and nurses in A&E departments don’t stop with each death, rather they move onto the next pressing case to attempt to succeed where they failed before. Paramedics share dark humour about death and gore in order to deal with what they see every day. Porters transporting the recently deceased to the morgue don’t cry over the tragedy. Pathologists inspecting the corpses of patients to determine a cause of death don’t become overwhelmed with grief. This desensitisation to death is a double-edged sword, it allows us to function when it should overwhelm us with grief yet does it detach us from our common human empathy, forgetting or indeed denying to ourselves what it feels like? Indeed, I remember my first deaths I saw as medical student, I have always been too guarded and perhaps too detached to cry but the spectre of death haunted me where I felt its presence after seeing a failed cardiac arrest or whilst on an ambulance shift seeing an old man surrounded by his family slowly stop breathing until there were no more breaths. Often, I have reminisced and dreamt about these experiences, I still remember them freshly and yet I still do not know my own thoughts and feelings on them.

As Atul Gawande shows in the second chapter aptly named Things Fall Apart – named after the Chinua Achebe novel which consequently was named after a line in the W.B. Yeats poem The Second Coming ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;’ When we look at death as a cross sectional timeline we tend to map it in certain ways.

The first is the classic model of how we perceive our lives and death. The classic timeline of good health until old age – when health begins to deteriorate until death.

Advances in medical practice have allowed for previous fatal chronic diseases to be treated and hence the ebbing and flowing of improvements and exacerbations in health until senescence takes place. As each second becomes a minute, as each minute becomes an hour, as each hour becomes a day, as each day becomes a month, as each month becomes a year, as each year becomes a decade, we are all ageing with time. Senescence is defined as biological ageing – the gradual deterioration of function. If disease does not take us, then old age surely will.

 The third graph Atul Gawande shares with us is the graph of old age, so often medicalised given the plethora of diseases that occur in one’s twilight years. Old age and dying is the primary subject matter of his book where our medical fiddling of patching over the punctures of disease becoming a long, slow fade towards death. How then can we prepare for the inevitable? With every new wrinkle and grey hair, we know we are inching towards old age. With the 150,000 people who die on earth each day, two-thirds are due to old age. In essence, it is a miracle that medical progress has taken us this far, as proposed by Abdul Omran an epidemiologist, quoted by Dr Jonathan Reiner in Dick Cheney’s book Heart, there are three progressive stages of population longevity in the USA: age of pestilence and famine, age of receding pandemics, the age of degenerative and man-made diseases. In our modern age, instead of infectious diseases being the predominant source of mortality in developed countries with the dawn of scientific breakthroughs such as vaccinations and nutritional improvements, this modern post-industrial age presents itself with ischaemic heart disease as the number one most common fatal disease – our new sedentary, calorific lives alongside the meddling of tobacco companies have surely contributed to this. Indeed, as Montaigne wrote in the late sixteenth century. “To die of age is a rare, singular, and extraordinary death, and so much less natural than others: it is the last and extremest kind of dying”. During Montaigne’s time the average life expectancy was nothing to the years we clock up in our modern times with the average age of death now in the UK as 81.60 years.

DNAR stands for Do Not Attempt Resuscitation, it is a form filled out that I have seen in hospitals for patients who are approaching the end of their life or if they are about to have a high risk procedure. The number of times I have seen the form filled out is countless and seeing it from the doctor's perspective as a medical necessity but seeing it from the, often, elderly patient's perspective you note a sign of resignation, fear and sadness. For these patients, they are forced to confront with what might be the end. Patients who are dying will often grieve over their borrowed time left.

 The desensitisation of the significance of death from being in the medical field is an odd feeling. When something becomes routine, we become normalised to it. Countless times I have seen doctors and nurses, sign away the paperwork and send the patient to the morgue. My first time seeing someone die was indeed difficult – a cardiac arrest but there’s now a commonplace lack of novelty around death I have often wondered if I was losing my humanity.

                 I had started in this career, in part, to pursue death: to grasp it, unclear it, and see it eye-to-eye, unblinking. Neurosurgery attracted me as much for its intertwining of brain and consciousness as for its intertwining of life and death. I had thought that a life spent in the space between the two would grant me not merely a stage for compassionate action but an elevation of my own being: getting as far away from petty materialism, from self-important trivia, getting right there, to truly life-and-death decisions and struggles… surely a kind of transcendence would be found there?

               But in residency, something else was gradually unfolding. In the midst of this barrage of head injuries, I began to suspect that being so close to the fiery light of such moments only blinded me to their nature, like trying to learn astronomy by staring directly at the sun. I was not yet with patients in their pivotal moments, I was merely at those pivotal moments. I observed a lot of suffering; worse, I became inured to it. Drowning, even in blood, one adapts, learns to afloat, to swim, even to enjoy life, bonding with the nurses, doctors, and others who are clinging to the same raft, caught in the same tide.

When Breath Becomes Air P80-2

 This level of detachment I see from colleagues is understandable when we realise the alternative is to open ourselves up to our patients’ pain where we share their grief and predicament. The sheer heat of emotions we experience will also cloud our judgement that we may not be able to serve others who need our care in the best possible way. I remember a session on being taught ‘breaking bad news’ to patients where one horror story came from the doctor breaking down in front his patient and was in turn comforted by the very person he was meant to comfort. The abode to be cruel to be kind is commonplace in medicine, administering a vaccination to a young child, inserting needles to take blood from patients, using scalpels to open the flesh in surgery. There’s a lot of pain in medicine and being swamped and desensitised to it, to an outsider looking in, may see us as cold or inhuman. Indeed, I believed that too as a young medical student but now I realise, it’s just the only human response we can have.

 But it is so very difficult to tell your patient that there is nothing more that can be done, that there is no hope left, that it is time to die. And then there is always the fear that you might be wrong, that maybe the patient is right to hope against hope, to hope for a miracle, and maybe you should operate one more time. It can become a sort of folie à deux, where both doctor and patient cannot bear reality.

…

I have learned over the years that when ‘breaking bad news’ as it is called, it is probably best to speak as little as possible. These conversations, by their very nature, are slow and painful and I must overcome my urge to talk and talk to fill the sad silence.

…

I drove away in a turmoil of confused emotions. I quickly became stuck in the rush-hour traffic, and furiously cursed the cars and their drivers as though it was their fault that this good and noble man should die and leave his wife a widow and his young children fatherless. I shouted and cried and stupidly hit the steering wheel with my fists. And I felt shame, not at my failure to save his life – his treatment had been as good as it could be – but at my loss of professional detachment and what felt like the vulgarity of my distress compared to his composure and his family’s suffering, to which I could only bear impotent witness.

Do No Harm – Henry Marsh P151-3

It is a horrible feeling, that somebody’s life is ruined and is at its near end, but we still have patients to treat, our own lives to lead and life goes on…That is the burden of our professional detachment. It’s a delicate fine line to balance upon, I do not suspect that doctors signing DNAR forms find it easy – whether they empathise with the patient’s resignation or whether they are starkly reminded of their own mortality. It is never easy, but the only way is to keep moving forward.

In the medical field, we have the enormous privilege of being with our patients in their lives from cradle to grave – at their strongest but also at their weakest, where the fear of their lives are in our hands. We are bound by a sacred confidentiality to protect our patients and our duty upheld by the four pillars of ethics: respect for autonomy, benevolence, non-maleficence and justice.

Sometimes it is forgotten the fear of what patients go through whether it be a simple medication, routine operation, or terminal diagnosis. The Kübler-Ross model is an oversimplified form of the stages of grief that patients will go through when faced with a terminal diagnosis though not necessarily in this order:

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

Although oversimplified, the stages give an indication and ballpark figure to gauge what emotions patients are feeling during this difficult time. This is a difficult time for all involved, one of the most if not the most testing time in our lives. This is because we are confronted the cruel finality of death. There won’t be another story following this, this is it – the final chapter. Atul Gawande interviews various medical professionals working in the field of palliative care – the specialty of terminal end of life care. Both Atul Gawande and Paul Kalanithi mention how doctors can bombard patients with information in order to provide informed consent – as both authors say “Doctor informative”, yet both realise the limitations of this approach where the anxiety of patients can be exacerbated by flooding of information when they still do not know how to compute the diagnosis just given.

             The options overwhelmed her. They all sounded terrifying. She didn’t know what to do. I realized with shame, that I’d reverted back to being Dr Informative – here are the facts and figures; what do you want to do? So I stepped back and asked the questions I’d asked my father: What were her biggest fears and concerns? What goals were most important to her? What trade-offs was she willing to make, and what ones was she not?

             Not everyone is able to answer such questions, but she did. She said she wanted to be without pain, nausea, or vomiting. She wanted to eat. Most of all, she wanted to get back on her feet. Her biggest fear was that she wouldn’t be able to live life again and enjoy it – that she wouldn’t be able to return home and be with the people she loved.

             As for what trade-offs she was willing to make, what sacrifices she was willing to endure now for the possibility of more time later, “Not a lot,” she said. Her perspective on time was shifting, focusing her on the present and those closest to her. She told me uppermost in her mind was a wedding that weekend that she was desperate not to miss. “Arthur’s brother is marrying my best friend,” she said. She’d set them up on their first date. Now the wedding was just two days away, on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. “It’s the best thing,” she said. Her husband was going to be the ring bearer. She was supposed to be a bridesmaid. She was willing to do anything to be there, she said.

             The direction suddenly became clear. Chemotherapy had only a slim chance of improving her current situation and it came at substantial cost to the time she had now. An operation would never let her get to the wedding, either. So we made a plan to see if we could get her there. We’d have her come back afterward to decide on the next steps.

Being Mortal P234-5

 In medicine, the aim is to minimise mortality. We aim to stay up to date with research and novel techniques in order to gain a more positive outcome for all of our patients through the use of scientific data. The Kaplan-Meier curve is an estimator of survival from lifetime data. It is used in medical research, it is used to measure the fraction of patients living for a certain amount of time after treatment. In both Being Mortal and When Breath Becomes Air, the Kaplan-Meier curve was referenced citing both its usefulness but also, its limitations. The Kaplan-Meier curve is purely an estimator and the trends it gives are too general for individual cases. For instance, who's to say that our patients will not fall in the unlucky few that the trend ignores? As seen in Paul Kalanithi's account:

 The word hope first appeared in English about a thousand years ago, denoting some combination of confidence and desire. But what I desired – life – was not wat I was confident about – death. When I talked about hope, then, did I really mean, “Leave some room for unfounded desire?” No. Medical statistics not only describe numbers such as mean survival, they measure our confidence in our numbers, with tools like confidence levels, confidence intervals, and confidence bounds. So did I mean “Leave some room for a statistically improbably but still plausible outcome – a survival just above the measured 95 percent confidence interval?” Is that what hope was? Could we divide the curve into existential sections, from “defeated” to “pessimistic” to “realistic” to “hopeful” to “delusional”? Weren’t the numbers just the numbers? Had we all just given in to the “hope” that every patient was above average?

When Breath Becomes Air P133-4

Kaplan-Meier Curve example

Patients when faced with their terminal diagnosis usually do not want to discuss statistics and outcome data. The flawed approach of medical practice is often being in a medical echo chamber where we are within a bubble without yet realising there are patients who do not understand with what exactly they are going through. Most patients haven’t gone through medical training and are not well versed in medical jargon, the bombardment of information can flood the senses and alienate them.

Both Being Mortal and When Breath Becomes Air allude to a future of medicine that is more patient value driven. Of time becoming short and death imminent, what are your values? If you had a bucket-list - what would you place in your top 10, and which ones would you resign away and yet be okay if you didn’t get to complete them? Atul Gawande alludes to Daniel Kahneman’s fantastic book Thinking Fast and Slow which I cannot recommend highly enough. Here he refers to what is termed the Peak-End Rule where upon asking patients to recount an event whose memory has become blurred with time, what is remembered follows this rule. The ‘peak’ or the most memorable part of the event – i.e. a incredibly touching moment, a beautiful goal scored, a worst painful moment of a procedure, and the ‘End’ where we remember the concluding moments of the event. For example, during the 2002 World Cup qualifiers – I remember vividly David Beckham scoring the equalising goal against Greece to send England into the finals. The game had its moments but was a poor performance from the England team. Greece were leading England 2-1 into the 93rd minute and it looked like England were out of the World Cup. Then England were awarded a free kick, and what happened next was history. Even as a seven-year-old, my memories of watching that rather drab football match were elevated considerably in literally the dying seconds of David Beckham scoring that free kick. Atul Gawande notes the story we write ourselves – the narrative of our life. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. We distinguish our experiencing self – which is absorbed in the moment with the remembering self – recognising the peaks of joy and valleys of misery but also how the story works out as a whole. As we know from all stories, endings matter. And no more so than the ending of our lives.

In Abraham Maslow’s A Theory of Human Motivation, it is proposed there is a hierarchy of needs with basic needs for physiological survival, and safety at the bottom, above this is the need for love and belonging, and above this is the desire for growth – attaining personal goals, mastering knowledge and skills, recognition and reward for our achievements. At the crest of the pyramid of this hierarchy of needs is what Maslow terms ‘self-actualization’ – self-fulfilment through pursuit of moral ideals and creativity for their own sake. This is all good and well when we believe we are invincible – everybody wants to live forever but once faced with death – what then becomes important to you?

 How we seek to spend our time may depend on how much time we perceive ourselves to have. When you are young and healthy, you believe you will live forever. You do not worry about losing any of your capabilities. People tell you “the world is your oyster,” “the sky is the limit,” and so on. And you are willing to delay gratification – to invest years, for example, in gaining skills and resources for a brighter future. You seek to plug into bigger streams of knowledge and information. You widen your networks of friends and connections, instead of hanging out with your mother. When horizons are measured in decades, which might as well be infinity to human beings, you most desire all that stuff at the top of Maslow’s pyramid – achievement, creativity, and other attributes of “self-actualization.” But as your horizons contract – when you see the future ahead of you as finite and uncertain – your focus shifts to the here and now, to everyday pleasures and the people closest to you.

Being Mortal p97

 We need to discuss what is important to a patient who is dying with the utmost importance, we know what one wants at twenty will be drastically different to what one wants at sixty. Similarly, what one wants now may be completely different to six months down the line, all of this even more important now that time is running out and its finite sands trickling away.

 Arriving at an acceptance of one’s mortality and a clear understanding of the limits and the possibilities of medicine is a process, not an epiphany.

 ...

“I wish things were different.”

“If time becomes short, what is most important to you?”

Being Mortal P182

 We so often deprive the elderly of choice with regimented medication schedules and restriction of even going outside the house for fear of them falling of injuring themselves. Even in this age of patient-centred care, what hasn’t been realised is what the patient wants. It is this failure in health to recognise that the sick and aged have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life.

 Wants are fickle. And everyone has what philosophers call “second-order desires” – desires about our desires. We may wish, for instance to be less impulsive, more healthy, less controlled by primitive desires like fear or hunger, more faithful to larger goals. Doctors who listen to only the momentary, first-order desires may not be serving their patients’ real wishes, after all. We often appreciate clinicians who push us when we make shortsighted choices, such as skipping our medications or not getting enough exercise. And often adjust to changes we initially fear. At some point, therefore it becomes not only right but also necessary for a doctor to deliberate with people on their larger goals, to even challenge them to rethink ill-considered priorities and beliefs.

Being Mortal p202

It is this independence and autonomy that gives a patient their dignity – their freedom and their choice to do how they wish. I think everyone wishes to be treated with respect and have their own freedom in their end of years, it is only human to do so. All it takes is basic human empathy to realise how we treat our elderly patients and elderly family members and friends and understand the golden rule in religion: Treat others how you want to be treated.

 Medicine, now no less than then, is the art of nurturing the sick to a state of health and recognizing when it is impossible to do so. Should that be the case, ways must be found to de-medicalize the final weeks or days, to nurture the dying and those who love them, and by this means to nurture ourselves. The real truth of healing lies in the nurture.

How We Die P288

 All we ask is to be allowed to remain the writers of our own story. That story is ever changing. Over the course of our lives, we may encounter unimaginable difficulties. Our concerns and desires may shift. But whatever happens, we want to retain the freedom to shape our lives in ways consistent with our character and loyalties.

             This is why the betrayals of body and mind that threaten to erase our character and memory remain among our most awful tortures. The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one’s life – to avoid becoming so diminished or dissipated or subjugated that who you are becomes disconnected from who you were or who you want to be. Sickness and old age make the struggle hard enough. The professionals and institutions we turn to should not make it worse. But we have last entered an era in which an increasing number of them believe their job is not to confine people’s choices, in the name of safety, but to expand them, in the name of living a worthwhile life.

Being Mortal p140-141

The Dance of Death

Unity of death

Michel de Montaigne, a figure so renowned he earned his place in history as one of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Reputable Men thought deeply about death and mortality amongst other topics and emphasises this point with profound eloquence. His Essay “That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die” is a serene meditation of death and life that expresses the contemplation of death far more eloquently than I could ever do it justice.

—let us learn bravely to stand our ground, and fight him. And to begin to deprive him of the greatest advantage he has over us, let us take a way quite contrary to the common course. Let us disarm him of his novelty and strangeness, let us converse and be familiar with him, and have nothing so frequent in our thoughts as death.

That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die – Michel de Montaigne

Each of us is facing the same fate; all of us united in the face of death. To death, none of us knows how to react really. Yet we know it's there hanging before us, like Cicero's account of the Sword of Damocles. Nothing in life is ever guaranteed. Our memories of the past and our hope for the future. To our love to long ago and our love for days to come.

I began to realise that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.

When Breath Becomes Air P132

Across all cultures from the Mexican tradition of Dia de Muertos (All Souls Day) and Hallowe’en – a contraction of All Hallows’ Evening, Chinese tradition of the Ghost Festival (盂蘭節), Pitri Paksha (पितृ पक्ष) or fortnight of the ancestors, the Japanese term mono no aware (物の哀れ) or the pathos of things. The veneration of the dead where descendants pay their respects to their ancestors is shared across all cultures, no matter the difference in our tongues.

We all strive to understand the mystery of death, where do we go after we die? Will this love survive of us? Was my life a life well spent? These questions are universal and unanswerable. The only thing we know for certain is the only time we have is in the present.

The fear in life is to live a life unspent. Regret is the cruellest wound, like in T.S. Eliot’s narrator in The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock, the stings of missed opportunities and paralysing neuroticism tinges the poem with the bitterness of living a life like his.

“We bones, lying here bare, await yours.” in Capela dos Ossos

 Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur,

mors venit velociter quae neminem veretur,

omnia mors perimit et nulli miseretur.

Ad mortem festinamus peccare desistamus.

 Life is short, it will end; Death comes quickly and respects no one, It destroys everything and has no mercy. To death we are hastening let us refrain from sinning.

 Ad Mortem Festinamus from the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat

 There is our fear and loathing against death – like Beethoven shaking his fist at the thunderstorm on his deathbed, or Dylan Thomas’ plea to his dying father. How many of us have been deprived of our future and dreams by lives cut short. Life is never fair when the good may suffer and the evil may revel. We’re all victim to death’s blind snatching of us.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Do not go gentle into that good night 

- Dylan Thomas

The final monologue of Pozzo in Waiting for Godot notes the cruelty of ephemeral life and a resounding cry against death and old age in his final lines in the play:

POZZO:

(suddenly furious.) Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? (Calmer.) They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more. (He jerks the rope.) On! Exeunt Pozzo and Lucky. Vladimir follows them to the edge of the stage, looks after them. The noise of falling, reinforced by mimic of Vladimir, announces that they are down again. Silence. Vladimir goes towards Estragon, contemplates him a moment, then shakes him awake.

Waiting For Godot – Act 2 – Samuel Beckett

Such in life, what we make of it is how we live. We cannot be overwhelmed by life's brevity, from the Buddhist concept of anicca (impermanence) there is still meaning to be found in life with our families and friends and our fellow human beings. Do resign ourselves to the disillusionment with the disregard of the cosmos like Meursault in Albert Camus’ L’Etranger? We can be all too paralysed with a myopic view upon death where we creep ever deeper into the rabbit-hole of existential crisis, unable to see the wood for the trees. Being inevitable, countless philosophers and wise thinkers have argued our fear of death is pointless. There is a fine line one treads between accepting death resignedly and passively overwhelmed by the indifference of the universe or fearing death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXxw-zXRqOs

And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span?

Luke 12:25

Yet death is scary, it’s terrifying in fact. It’s the finality of death that makes it so powerful and why it has been feared by our ancestors generations and generations before us. Being aware of our death makes us fearful of how we wish to live, what we wish to achieve, the opportunities we see hanging before us – the most powerful impulse in our life. We cannot escape it through fear because death is the one thing we cannot run away from. Though fear remains, it isn’t the fear of the mystery of death rather the fear of what we may not be able to do, achieve, live in our limited time on Earth.

Such is the importance of the philosophy of how we decide to live our lives, whether it is through religion, philosophy, family, community etc. we need to find meaning in our lives because our days are numbered and we need to make them count.

As Matt Haig argues in his beautiful book Reasons Not To Die “We can just use it in life. For instance, I find that being grimly aware of mortality can make me steadfastly determined to enjoy life where life can be enjoyed. It makes me value precious moments with my children, and with the woman I love. It adds intensity in bad ways, but also good ways.”

Reasons Not To Die – Matt Haig

 No matter how brief our lives are, we can still find beauty in its brevity like mayflies rising and falling where we can choose to make it a life well spent. I think all of us face this existential question at some point in our lives where we feel the sands of time trickling away or facing abject boredom as Heidegger describes facing anxiety over your life’s meaning: “Profound boredom, drifting here and there in the abysses of our existence like a muffling fog, removes all things and men and oneself along with it into a remarkable indifference.” It is this boredom when we feel the fear of a conditional life never spent. Boredom I feel is the directionless passivity of allowing yourself to be swept up by the tides and waves of time. That’s why it’s so important to have a purpose, values in life that can steer yourself to a destination where you want to reach. Carpe Diem as the old saying goes, “I am not throwing away my shot!,”

 So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

 “The universe is not pregnant with life nor the biosphere with man…Man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he emerged only by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty. The kingdom above or the darkness below; it is for him to choose” 

Jacques Monod

  Ageing and growing old

People want to share memories, pass on wisdoms and keepsakes, settle relationships, establish their legacies, make peace with God, and ensure that those who are left behind will be okay. They want to end their stories on their own terms.

Being Mortal p249

I’ve spoken to elderly patients in the hospital who are simply waiting, waiting to be seen, waiting for treatment, hopefully waiting for the family and friends that never visit. I’ve found myself guiltily detaching myself from the history taking after an hour and a half which I’ve allowed to go on for so long (the history is expected to be taken in less than 10 minutes) because I simply know that they have no one else to speak to, and I may be the only comfort they have in a place that’s too busy for them. It’s a pitiable state and I tried not to realise myself in their situation too much because I very much fear that – the loneliness of existence, your children not even bothering to pay a visit and the doctors and nurses too busy for you, may be me one day. I remember when I was volunteering at an elderly care home on every Sunday afternoon during my teenage years, this being the same care home my Grandmother went to during her twilight years, I always remembered the staff being especially friendly whenever we visited Granny and in volunteering there I hoped I could give something back to their support they gave her. Stepping into the care home, after a few months of volunteering a strange realisation dawned on me. I had never seen any of the residents’ relatives. Of course, this might be down to chance on a Sunday afternoon window where I may have missed them but the look on the residents’ faces betrayed that. They were always ecstatic (which admittedly unnerved me a little initially) whenever I came always eager to share their stories with me. Some weeks they would forget who I was briefly then the slow recognition of who I was as I handed over their tea. I saw the cruelty of dementia threatening to deprive them of their memories and realised then why they wanted to pass on their stories so eagerly so that they may never be forgotten. I met wonderful people there including one Joan Regan who struck me as a woman who was very beautiful in her prime. Joan recounted stories of her youth and her singing career with joy as I listened eagerly. Then one day after locking my bike and getting ready to serve the tea and biscuits, I realised that there was one person missing from the round. Joan wasn’t there. I heard from one of the nurses that she had passed away earlier in the week. The surprising snatching of life at death’s hands came once again, the void Joan left in that room was never filled again.

The specialty of geriatrics is the care for elderly patients i.e. all patients over the age of 65 and gerontology which is the study of the ageing process itself. The care for the elderly is in itself its own specialty given the increased complexity of the decreased physiological reserve the elderly have which in turn presents with increased complications with problems and disease. Many of these elderly patients are on polypharmacy – on a number of different drugs, many of which are to treat the side effects of a certain toxic effect of another, as Paracelsus said: Alle Dinge sind Gift, und nichts ist ohne Gift, allein die Dosis macht dass ein Ding kein Gift ist. All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison. The drugs which treat are also poisonous and hence strict monitoring of the medication is needed for fear of pushing a patient’s condition into a worse state by iatrogenic problems – problems caused by medical interference.

How we monitor the care for the elderly is measuring their activities of daily living (ADLs), a group of eight markers of basic physical independence: toileting, eating, bathing, grooming, get out of bed, get out of a chair, walking. After often a prolonged stay in hospital, the worst thing to do would be to discharge a patient unable to perform these ADLs independently and hence cause themselves further harm. A study by the University of Minnesota found elderly patients under the care of a geriatrics team were a quarter less likely to become disabled and half as likely to develop depression. This is remarkable, and it is clear why, geriatric teams have set out especially to treat the needs of the elderly and the problems of ageing which other specialties overrun with political and economic burdens on their health systems may overlook.

…In almost none does anyone sit down with you and try to figure out what living a life really means to you under the circumstances, let alone help you make a home where that life becomes possible.

This is the consequence of society that faces the final phase of the human life cycle by trying not to think about it. We end up with institutions that address any number of societal goals – from freeing up hospital beds to taking burdens off families’ hands to coping with poverty among the elderly – but never the goal that matters to the people who reside in them: how to make life worth living when we’re weak and frail and can’t fend for ourselves anymore.

Being Mortal p76-77

The values we see in young children and values which have been handed down over the years: filial piety, mutual respect, treating your neighbour as if you wish to be treated yourself, kindness, gratitude etc. These values are old and they count for something important for they teach us how to live meaningfully. The Japanese have the terms Hanami (flower viewing) where the cherry blossoms start to bloom and Momijigari (leaf peeping) in which the flowers of summer turn into a deep autumnal maple red. There’s a dignity and great beauty in entering the autumn of our years. Such are the seasons of time, we rise, and we fall for the new generation to take its place.

In our ageing population, where in the UK over 10 million are aged 65 or over, these values have never been more important. The elderly population face the trials and tribulations of old age which is a slow frustrating taunt where you slowly become more and more aware of your limitations of your failing body. The circle of life where you are dependent as a child, growing into an independent adult at our zenith, only to become reluctantly dependent in old age. As our grandparents and parents enter their autumnal years, it is key that we are always there for them. Though they may walk a little slower, stoop in their posture, their hearing and eyesight slowly diminish, they are still our heads of our family – the wise voices from the past who have learnt from experience and mistakes as they learnt from their forefathers passing on valuable advice for us in our generation now so that we may pass it on to our future generations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkoDUFNRqpw&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop

The fear is being in the predicament of those poor, elderly patients I have seen in hospital all alone. I cannot help but feel an indignant anger towards their children, how they have failed in their duties as children. And how we have failed as a society that we allow the old to die scared and lonely? Have we become a less compassionate world? I see the arrogance of the young, a contempt for the old and sick by princelings and little princesses spoiled into becoming narcissists who only care for their own needs? When we evaluate how we treat our elders in society and family, our lack of empathy and the lack of dignity we give them is appalling in many cases. The medicalisation of ageing where we sedate them with drugs and try to quiet down their ‘delirium’ whilst worst of abandoning them to isolation whereby we blame their limitations on them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww8CH62FZB0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFc19I3flJM

The elderly still have a lot to offer us, they are not castaways who no longer have any use in society – that is false. We are entering tumultuous, fearful times ahead in our world, we need their patient guiding hands to show us the way who have gone through difficult times themselves. In our age of nuclear families, we have slowly cut off from our parents and grandparents in the extended family model. This deprives us of an extended kinship that grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, family friends that can provide vital support to the family. No man is an island after all. Young men and women will speak with their grandparents and know that one day the same fate of ageing awaits them, a humbleness to forces greater than all of us and that we all want the same thing – a meaningful life well spent.

When we take photos, record in a diary, compile an album, we are trying to save the moment, whether it be a child’s first steps, a wedding, a graduation, these are the accumulation of memories that may fondly remembered for future days. Nostalgia and poignancy colour our past days so that we can affirm to ourselves that our days were not in vain.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

Meditation XVII – Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die - John Donne

Time and Life

What a ridiculous thing it is to trouble ourselves about taking the only step that is to deliver us from all trouble! As our birth brought us the birth of all things, so in our death is the death of all things included. And therefore to lament that we shall not be alive a hundred years hence, is the same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago. Death is the beginning of another life. So did we weep, and so much it cost us to enter into this, and so did we put off our former veil in entering into it. Nothing can be a grievance that is but once. Is it reasonable so long to fear a thing that will so soon be despatched? Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.

That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die – Michel de Montaigne

 Did we lament the fact we weren’t alive during the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Enlightenment, or Woodstock? Do we lament that will not be alive when the futuristic flying automobiles and hoverboards of Back to the Future II will finally be available? It is a fool’s errand to do so. How lucky we are to be living in our times, over the course of history this is our time to live and breathe – how wonderful it is to feel this gratitude of being alive now? As in Lin Manuel Miranda’s smash hit Hamilton, in the song The Schuyler Sisters – there are words that leave their mark on this gratitude of the present tense. “Look around. Look around. At how lucky we are to be alive right now!”

You were dead for billions of years before you were born, and it didn't bother you one bit. You will be dead for billions more. Your life is an aberration. Enjoy it.

- Mark Twain

 “The race of men is like the race of leaves. As one generation flourishes, another decays.”

- Homer

 “There is a ripeness of time for death, regarding others as well as ourselves, when it is reasonable we should drop off, and make room for another growth. When we have lived our generation out, we should not wish to encroach on another.”

-Thomas Jefferson

 Old men must die; or the world would grow moldy, would only breed the past again.

- Tennyson

 It is through the eyes of youth that everything is constantly being seen anew and rediscovered with the advantage of knowing what has gone before; it is youth that is not mired in the old ways of approaching the challenges of this imperfect world. Each new generation yearns to prove itself – and, in proving itself, to accomplish great things for humanity. Among living creatures, to die and leave the stage is the way of nature – old age is the preparation for departure, the gradual easing out of life that makes its ending more palatable not only for the elderly but for those also they leave the world in trust.

How We Die P87

  “Give place to others, as others have given place to you.”

- Michel de Montaigne 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=yRJBuNwQwzc

How lucky we are to be alive, and what a privilege it is to pass it on. No one can live forever, we should not lament that fact but rather seize life and live it – carpe diem before our time ends.

Everyone hopes to die peacefully and painlessly – I remember even as children we asked each other the question what would be the best type of death? And as morbid eight-year olds that we were, we all agreed to die in one’s sleep would be the ideal departure from this earth. So then with the increasing life expectancy and improved medical care from the dawn of the miracle of modern day medicine, our lives have become more stable as a result and the chance infection or illness to snatch away our lives is now much less common. This presents with a new set of challenges that Atul Gawande talks about namely the notion of how we die. This view has been romanticised and dramatized that our own expectations of the nature of our deaths has become something of a myth.  Death presents itself as one of the factors beyond our otherwise controllable lives and this places a much larger emphasis on ars moriendi – the art of dying.

Sherwin Nuland suggests:

“Death with dignity” is our society’s expression of the universal yearning to achieve a graceful triumph over the stark and often finality of life’s last splutterings.

                  But the fact is, death is not a confrontation. It is simply an event in the sequence of nature’s ongoing rhythms. Not death but disease is the real enemy, disease the malign force that requires confrontation. Death is the surcease that comes when the exhausting battle has been lost. Even the confrontation with disease should be approached with the realization that many of the sicknesses of our species are simply conveyances for the inexorable journey by which each of us is returned to the same state of physical, and perhaps, spiritual, nonexistence from which we emerged at conception. Every triumph over some major pathology, no matter how ringing the victory, is only a reprieve from the inevitable end.

How We Die P10

 The patient dies alone among strangers: well-meaning, empathetic, determinedly committed to sustaining his life – but strangers nonetheless. There is no dignity here. By the time these medical Samaritans have ceased their strenuous struggles, the room is strewn with the debris of the lost campaign, more so even than was McCarty’s on that long-ago evening of his death. In the center of the devastation lies a corpse, and it has lost all interest for those, who moments earlier, were straining to be the deliverers of the man whose spirit occupied it.

How We Die P41

 When we begin to focus on death, there is an ethical slippery slope of the myth of the good death. In certain societies such as in Holland and Switzerland who have legalised assisted dying there is the worry is that this normalise euthanasia and medicalises old age – where we’re left with a dystopian Logan’s Run scenario. There is no clear answer like any other ethical question, Sir Stephen Hawking himself who said “Where there is life, there is hope” has also said “To keep someone alive against their wishes is the ultimate indignity,” and has spoken out in support of assisted dying. There is no clear answer. In the UK, euthanasia is illegal – but there are so many levels of this question it is impossible to have a complete blanket law for everyone because all cases are not the same.

Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.

Being Mortal p245

 Assisted living is far harder than assisted death, but its possibilities are far greater, as well

Being Mortal p245

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV6fDJi_6ns 

When afflicted by disease and ageing, dying becomes less in line with dignity. We lose control and may forget who we are, we become incontinent, forgetful, weak, short of breath and in pain. Sherwin Nuland argues dignity in death is very rare, there’s the view we’ll be stoic and transcend our circumstances but within the destructive effects of disease this becomes near impossible.

Though the hour of death itself is commonly tranquil and often preceded by blissful unawareness, the serenity is usually bought at a fearful price – and the price is the process by which we reach that point. There are some who manage to achieve moment of nobility in which they somehow transcend the indignities being visited on them, and these moments are to be cherished. But such intervals do not lessen the distress over which they briefly triumph. Life is dappled with period of pain, and for some of us is suffused with it. In the course of ordinary living, the pain is mitigated by periods of peace and times of joy. In dying, however, there is only the affliction. Its brief respites and ebbs are known always to be fleeting and soon succeeded by a recurrence of the travail. The peace, and sometimes the joy, that may come occurs with the release. In this sense, there is often a serenity – sometimes even a dignity – in the act of death, but rarely in the process of dying.

                  And so, if the classic image of dying with dignity must be modified or even discarded, what is to be salvaged of our hope for the final memories we leave to those who love us? The dignity that we seek in dying must be found in the dignity with which we have lived our lives. Ars moriendi is ars vivendi: The art of dying is the art of living. The honesty and grace of the years of life that are ending is the real measure of how we die. It is not in the last weeks or days that we compose the message that will be remembered, but in all the decades that preceded them. Who has lived in dignity, dies in dignity.

How We Die P268

  Themes of death and mortality place life in perspective. Everything that is good is appreciated anew and all the bad and negativities don’t leave their impact that they used to. Not sweating the small stuff and letting the little things go comes from seeing the big picture. When we’re confronted with our mortality, we realise time is limited and that comes with getting the house in order, making sure what we leave behind will be better than before and our loved ones will be okay when we’re gone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTvTLGkWYMU  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuGwJs6NLw4

It’s the lesson of life to always be humble. The measure of a person is not how much they know but their confession of how much they do not know. Being humble is the key to constantly improving and striving to make things better for the future. Arrogance and pride can lead to a wave of egocentric complacency which blinds them to the crash that awaits them. By admitting our limitations to greater forces, admitting our own positions as mere mortals can we then realise the folly of playing god. Like the woman in Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone, karma is a cruel punishment for the proud.

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Percy Bysshe Shelley

 No one knows when their time will be cut short. In When Breath Becomes Air and Mortality by Christopher Hitchens. Both men were afflicted with the emperor of all maladies: cancer. The age-old question of why death comes prematurely denying one of a peaceful death – Why me? The answer: Why not?

In Jean-Dominique Bauby’s poetic and moving account The Diving Bell & The Butterfly, where he is afflicted with locked-in-syndrome – due to a brainstem lesion leaving him unable to move or talk, imprisoning him in his own body. It is something that I can imagine that would be like a living hell. He communicated through blinks to write his memoir and not a word was wasted. It is a beautiful book filled with pastime memories, regret and the daily routine of his new life. Life isn’t fair especially for these men, but their message they leave, is never to take anything for granted for human life is fragile and nothing is guaranteed, and your fortunes may change in an instant.

This examination of mortality has been since the times of Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici (The Religion of a Doctor) a hugely influential book that showcased his own thoughts and philosophy of medicine that elevated the profession to an art.

…this is indeed not to feare death, but yet to bee afraid of life. It is a brave act ofvalour to contemne death, but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live, and herein Religion hath taught us a noble example: For all the valiant acts of Curtius, Scevola or Codrus, do not parallel or match that one of Job; and sure there is no torture to the rack of a disease, nor any Poynyards in death it selfe like those in the way or prologue unto it. Emori nolo, sed me esse mortuum nihil curo, I would not die, but care not to be dead. Were I of Cæsars Religion I should be of his desires, and wish rather to goe off at one blow, then to be sawed in peeces by the grating torture of a disease. Men that looke no further than their outsides thinke health an appertinance unto life, and quarrell with their constitutions for being sick; but I that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that Fabrick hangs, doe wonder that we are not alwayes so; and considering the thousand dores that lead to death doe thanke my God that we can die but once…

Religio Medici Section 43– Thomas Browne

In modern medicine, we have lost the fundamentals of what it is to treat the sick. We have forgotten what it means to have the privilege to speak with and treat our patients. Sometimes have to look back to remember how to realise the future. The age-old duty-bound Hippocratic oath of medicine and its interpolation of Primum non nocere – first do no harm, embedded in a sacred duty for our patients which is at the very centre of medical practice.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html

In modern malpractice, the fellow humanity of our patients is often forgotten and eroded away to meet the target of cold political drives. The NHS (National Health Service) remains a remnant of the post-WWII desire by Aneurin Bevan to establish a brave new world – a better future for all of humanity to never face the horrors inflicted again. Free healthcare to the point of care where healthcare is a right not just a privilege for the few. I am proud of being part of the NHS and yet fearful for its future. What foundation of this wonderful system laid out in The Citadel by AJ Cronin and the fight against corruption before the NHS. I was gifted this wonderful novel by my Argentine school tutor who always was there to support me through quite a tumultuous time during my schooldays. I am very grateful for all his support and how teachers like himself are so rare nowadays, it is fitting he left me such an inspirational book to carry me forward. Seeing the NHS in crisis by political machinations makes us all realise what a special thing we have and something we should all fight for.

This anxiety and disillusionment I can see with my own eyes the day to day dismantling of what was a sacred institution and to witness the very best of humanity. In medicine, the litigation and blame culture has demanded nothing less than perfect in a beautifully imperfect human service during this consumerist age where the customer is always right because they are ‘entitled’ to the service and profit is always prioritised over people. Atul Gawande and Sherwin Nuland note this in America where Medical professionals concentrate on repair of health, not sustenance of the soul and an experiment in social engineering, putting our fates in the hands of people valued more for their technical prowess than for their understanding of human needs. When I first enrolled in medical school, I was full of giddy excitement which was soon replaced with shock then anger then disillusionment. Many of the medical students I have encountered have been difficult to say the least, of course there are countless that are lovely, beautiful, amazing human beings, yet I cannot help but feel the new age of medicine is recruiting technocrats and vastly intelligent, bright individuals yet lack basic human empathy and humility. Some of the arrogance I have witnessed has been disgusting, the blatant disrespect to others, the objectification of a patient as a mere lump of flesh by others has left me seething and wondering how and indeed why these people choose to become doctors? Unfortunately, this is something I think will only continue, the admission process can only be measured in certain ways – examination scores, grades, yet what is not and cannot be measured is the human behind the paper. The very same predicament is happening with the health system, overrun with middle men and managers who clock and measure every shred of data in order to assess performance. As Sherwin Nuland wrote in his coda to How We Die in 2010 shortly before he died:

Much of the reconfiguration of health care has been hijacked by economic needs.

…

In this New medicine, everything must be measurable. It must come in the form of a datum, to be commingled with other data in order to make the entire group of facts susceptible to quantification and analysis. Empathy, autonomy, caring, and simple unhurried kindness are not measurable and so become swept away as encumbrances to quantifiable efficiency. The individual patient, along with the complexities of his medical and human problems, is rendered invisible and inaudible by being hidden under the collective weight of some researcher’s or bureaucrat ’s protocol. Nowhere is this suffocation more effective than in stifling the care, counsel, and decision-making of those who are dying.

How We Die P279

I see some of my peers and the immense pressure they’re under – whether it be familial or institutional and often give them the ‘benefit of the doubt’ but finding myself under the same pressures I, in a lapse of my own better judgement when I forget who I’m speaking to could be my family member or a close friend, a fellow human being, and instead as mere tools to fulfil checkbox ticks proving my ‘competencies’. Whenever patients wanted to talk more about something but finding myself more preoccupied with looming examinations and hence not giving them the time I should have, or being frustrated a patient executing their right to not be seen and examined after having countless other medical students and doctors looking at their pathology. I am deeply ashamed of myself that I myself have fallen into this trap of forgetting the humanity of medicine – becoming Tolstoy’s stereotype of a doctor.

At the end, we and those who surround us cannot allow ourselves to fall victim to the imposed conditions of regimented men and women who would have us die under the unnatural conditions of a medical, economic, and bureaucratic order in which humanity and love have no place.

How We Die P282

 There was no likelihood of guidance, or even understanding, from Harvey’s doctors, who had by then shown themselves to be untouchably aloof and self-absorbed. They seemed too distanced from the truth of their own emotions to have any sense of ours. As I watched them strutting importantly from room to room on their cursory rounds, I would find myself feeling almost grateful for the tragedies in my life that had helped me be unlike them.

How We Die P226

 The doctor said that so-and-so indicated that there was so-and-so inside the patient, but if the investigation of so and-so did not confirm this, then he must assume that and that. If he assumed that and that, then…and so on. To Ivan Ilych only one question was important: was his case serious or not? But the doctor ignored that inappropriate question. From his point of view it was not the one under consideration, the real question was to decide between a floating kidney, chronic catarrh, or appendicitis… From the doctor’s summing up Ivan Ilych concluded that things were bad, but that for the doctor, and perhaps for everybody else, it was a matter of indifference, though for him it was bad. And this conclusion struck him painfully, arousing in him a great feeling of pity for himself and of bitterness towards the doctor’s indifference to a matter of such importance…He said nothing of this, but rose, placed the doctor’s fee on the table, and remarked with a sigh: “We sick people probably often put inappropriate questions. But tell me, in general, is this complaint dangerous, or not?…” The doctor looked at him sternly over his spectacles with one eye, as if to say: “Prisoner, if you will not keep to the questions put to you, I shall be obliged to have you removed from the court.” “I have already told you what I consider necessary and proper. The analysis may show something more.”

The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Chapter 4

 We offer patients hope in medicine, whenever they are anxious, scared or pessimistic. There is always the possibility things can improve and get better. “Hope is itself a species of happiness, and perhaps the chief happiness which this world affords,” - Samuel Johnson. We must never allow our patients and loved ones lose hope – that we learn early on especially when dealing with patients who are dying. However, when we talk about death with a loved one or a close friend or a patient, and when knowing the condition is terminal, by offering white lies and false hope – we are doing them a disservice. But when there is nothing else to be done, instead of another investigation or procedure that will certainly prove to have the same result – the preparation and openness to talk about death is needed. Death after all is an event, we all must experience it at some point sooner or later. By not being open with our patients and loved ones, we are doing them a disservice – depriving them of their last wishes, their legacies they want to leave behind and the comfort of their loved ones when they go. It is this abandonment that Ivan Ilyich so feels when he is lied to from his doctor and his family about his fatal condition, being kept in the dark and helpless with no one to understand or help. Sherwin Nuland talks about one of his patients who is dying and the preparation of one last Christmas that meant everything to him. The last time to see family and close friends and tie off loose ends, and share that last moment of joy. Medicine with its goals, is not just to prolong life but also about so much more. Doesn’t everyone deserve this frank and open discussion, our preparations for death allow us to live a more fulfilling life to get everything we wanted done, complete our bucket-lists and set our priorities straight.

What tormented Ivan Ilych most was the deception, the lie, which for some reason they all accepted, that he was not dying but was simply ill, and the only need keep quiet and undergo a treatment and then something very good would result. He however knew that do what they would nothing would come of it, only still more agonizing suffering and death. This deception tortured him — their not wishing to admit what they all knew and what he knew, but wanting to lie to him concerning his terrible condition, and wishing and forcing him to participate in that lie.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Chapter 7

 Death comes for all of us. For us, for our patients: it is our fate as living, breathing, metabolizing organisms. Most lives are lived with passivity toward death – it’s something that happens to you and those around you. But Jeff and I had trained for years to actively engage in death, to grapple with it, like Jacob with the angel, and, in so doing, to confront the meaning of a life. We had assumed an onerous yoke, that of mortal responsibility. Our patients’ lives and identities may be in our hands, yet death always wins. Even if you are perfect, the world isn’t. The secret is to know the deck is stacked, that you will lose, that your hands or judgment will slip, and yet still struggle to win for your patient. You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.

When Breath Becomes Air P114-5

 Death is in an old man’s door, he appears and tells him so, and death is at a young man’s back, and says nothing; age is a sickness, and youth is an ambush;

Meditation VII - The physician desires to have others joined with him – John Donne

 You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!”

Psalm 90:3

 Josiah Royce, a Harvard philosopher wrote a book The Philosophy of Loyalty which tries to answer what is it that we need in order to feel that life is worthwhile? Simply existing and eating, sleeping and in comfort seems to be empty and meaningless. Royce believed that we all seek a cause beyond ourselves – to him, an intrinsic human need.

The only way death is not meaningless is to see yourself as part of something greater: a family, a community, a society. If you don’t mortality is a horror. But if you do, it is not. Loyalty, said Royce, “solves the paradox of our ordinary existence by showing us outside of ourselves the cause which is to be served, and inside of ourselves the will which delights to do this service, and which is not thwarted but enriched and expressed in such service.” In more recent times, psychologists have used the term “transcendence” for a version of this idea. Above the level of self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they suggest the existence in people of a transcendent desire to see and help other beings achieve their potential.

Being Mortal p127

To find meaning and a cause in your life is the question that countless philosophers and wise sages have asked since the dawn of time. What is the meaning of life?

To die takes courage. Ernest Hemingway described courage as grace under pressure and I think that’s not too far off. Atul Gawande mentions Plato’s Laches where Socrates asks ‘What is courage?’ Atul Gawande then writes how he derived the definition: courage is strength in the face of knowledge of what is to be feared or hoped. Wisdom is prudent strength. He goes further where he mentions two types of courage required in aging and sickness. 1) the courage to confront the reality of mortality – the courage to seek out the truth of what is to be feared and what is to be hoped. 2) the courage to act on the truth we find. He ends by posing One has to decide whether one’s fears or one’s hopes are what should matter most – A truth to live a good life itself. Such with my own experience, much of life is a choice. During the 2 weeks of the London 2012 Olympic Games, I remember my time during the Olympics could either be spent indoors or outside visiting the various events organised during that fortnight during a rather uncertain time for me personally. It was my choice to either experience the atmosphere of the games or rather mope inside. This is a truth that is shared with much of life, life is what you make of it – and no one can take that away from you.

Conclusion

Tempus fugit – time flies

Ultima forsan – perhaps the last [hour]

When I remember my first encounters with death, I was only a young child, but their impact left a clear mark on me. There are always things I wish I did more of and said, I am regretful that I was too immature to understand how precious time was then and took things for granted as a result especially if it was someone who loved me as much as my Granny. She was a truly remarkable woman who the more I learn about the more I am humbled of her ability to overcome hardships and struggle. Her story is for my Dad to tell, to whom she passed on her best qualities and is the best person to pass on her story. The family friends we lost too soon who were amongst the kindest and best people we ever knew. Their stories are also for my Dad to tell who knew them through loyal friendships and unselfish kindness.

The lessons learnt from all of this is to never be complacent with time and death, love each other and appreciate the goodness and kindness in life, all the other negativities are just minor trivialities that have no impact in the bigger picture. To always be humble, to always be kind to each other and to yourself and to be patient with others. To count your blessings and have the courage to deal with life’s trials and the striving to make your life and the lives around you better and to be the master of your own destiny to fulfil God’s work. To be thankful of our opportunities we have been given and to make the most of them. All of this sounds like a cliche but in the face of death, this means everything. And one thing we can be certain of, is that we will die. What we make of life is how we live it. These final extracts voice the beauty of life and the pathos of farewell in the most beautiful and touching ways. I hope these words will resonate with you as they have done with me and hope that they will inspire you all to live your lives to the fullest and most meaningful so that by the time we are at death’s door we will share the same serene gratitude for our lives and hope for the future.

 Yet I was still intensely moved and grateful to have gotten to do my part. For one, my father would had wanted, and my mother and my sister did, too. Moreover, although I didn’t feel my dad was anywhere in that cup and a half of gray, powdery ash, I felt that we’d connected him to something far bigger than ourselves, in this place where people had been performing these rituals for so long.

             When I was a child, the lessons my father taught me had been about perseverance: never to accept limitation that stood in my way. As an adult watching him in his final years, I also saw how to come to terms with limits that couldn’t simply be wished away. When to shift from pushing against limits to making the best of them is not often readily apparent. But it is clear that there are times when the cost of pushing exceeds its value. Helping my father through the struggle to define that moment was simultaneously among the most painful and privileged experiences of my life.

             Part of the way my father handled the limits he faced was by looking at them without illusion. Though his circumstances sometimes got him down, he never pretended they were better than they were. He always understood that life is short and one’s place in the world is small. But he also saw himself as a link in the chain of history. Floating on that swollen river, I could not help sensing the hands of the many generations connected across time. In bringing us there, my father had helped us see that he was part of a story going back thousands of years – and so were we.

             We were lucky to get to hear him tell us his wishes and say his good-byes. In having a chance to do so, he let us know he was at peace. That let us be at peace, too.

             After spreading my father’s ashes, we floated silently for a while, letting the current take us. As the sun burned away the mist, it began warming our bones. Then we gave a signal to the boatman, and he picked up his oars. We headed back to the shore.

Being Mortal P262-3

  Everybody succumbs to finitude. I suspect I am not the only one who reaches this pluperfect state. Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present. Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described hold so little interest: a chasing after wind, indeed.

               Yet one thing cannot be robbed of her futurity: our daughter, Cady. I hope I’ll live long enough that she has some memory of me. Words have a longevity I do not. I had thought I could leave her a series of letters – but what would they say? I don’t even know if she’ll take to the nickname we’ve given her. There is perhaps only one thing to say to this infant, who is all future, overlapping briefly with me, whose life, barring the improbable, is all past.

               That message is simple:

               When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s day with sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior days, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.

When Breath Becomes Air P198-199

 I feel grateful that I have been granted nine years of good health and productivity since the original diagnosis, but now I am face to face with dying. The cancer occupies a third of my liver, and though its advance may be slowed, this particular sort of cancer cannot be halted.

It is up to me now to choose how to live our the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can. In this I am encouraged by the words of one of my favourite philosophers, David Hume, who, upon learning he was mortally ill at age sixty-five, wrote a short autobiography in a single day in April of 1776. He titled it “My Own Life.”

…

Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life. On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.

This will involve audacity, clarity, and plain speaking; trying to straighten my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too for some fun (and even some silliness as well).

I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work, and my friends. I shall no longer look at NewsHour every night. I shall no longer pay any attention to politics or arguments about global warming.

This is not indifference but detachment – I still care deeply about the Middle East, about global warming, about growing inequality, but these are no longer my business; they belong to the future. I rejoice when I meet gifted young people – even the one who biopsied and diagnosed my metastases. I feel the future is in good hands.

I have been increasingly conscious, for the last ten years or so, of deaths among my contemporaries. My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate – the genetic and neural fate – of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have love and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and travelled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

My Own Life – Oliver Sacks

Further Reading:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04bsgqn - Reith Lectures 2014

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/being-mortal/ 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying 

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/opinion/sunday/how-long-have-i-got-left.html?mcubz=1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_Macabre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori

Gratitude - Oliver Sacks

Do No Harm - Henry Marsh

Reasons to Stay Alive - Matt Haig

Mortality - Christopher Hitchens

Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre

Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions – John Donne

The Wasteland, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Hollow Men, Four Quartets – T.S. Eliot

In Memoriam: Poems of Bereavement introduced by Carol Ann Duffy 

Essays, That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die - Michel de Montaigne

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Steve Jobs’ Stanford commencement speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc&t=1s

Virgil – Georgics

How We Die – Sherwin Nuland

The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy

The Citadel – A.J. Cronin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV6fDJi_6ns House speech on dignity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjQwedC1WzI

https://www.philosophersmag.com/opinion/18-close-encounters-of-the-cancer-kind

https://www.philosophersmag.com/opinion/17-death-and-its-concept

https://philosophynow.org/issues/27/Death_Faith_and_Existentialism

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/reports-of-my-death Clive James

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/mar/15/clive-james-interview-done-lot-since-my-death

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capela_dos_Ossos

http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/718/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_(Rousseau_painting)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0825232/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone#Stanley_meeting

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/key-issues-for-the-new-parliament/value-for-money-in-public-services/the-ageing-population/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneration_of_the_dead

Josiah Royce – The Philosophy of Loyalty

https://people.umass.edu/biep540w/pdf/Stephen%20Jay%20Gould.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXxw-zXRqOs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dgn97v3q28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhxJ1EzKUoM

http://www.lifehacker.co.uk/2017/09/09/what-it-feels-like-to-die

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm

https://archive.org/stream/philosophyloyal00roycuoft/philosophyloyal00roycuoft_djvu.txt

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3349959?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/laches.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDjmDHiSTm8

https://archive.org/details/IkiruToLive

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/letter/letter.html

Calvary

Momijigari

Day of the Dead

Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

Tibetan Book of the Dead

War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway

In Search of Lost Time - Marcel Proust

To Calvary (Gagulta) – site of Jesus’ crucifixion, Place of the skull

[gringoslur]

hey... about argentinians being apparently mostly white... i've read that about 90% of argentinians are originally solely of european descent, which would mean 90% are white people. that does seem like a lot to me, but could you explain to me why you wouldn't agree with this? are the books missing sth important concerning this??

Hi! A friend helped me with this answer, because i’m usually here to rant but i don’t know how to share stuff like this in english, lmao (thanks again btw!!)

“Spain and Italy are not the only place from which Argentina has received immigration waves from throughout our history, besides our native peoples still exists. Non white Argentineans, whether with native, Asian, Jewish, Romani, Middle Eastern, African, etc background do exist. Like, Argentinean also have background from Syria, Lebanon, Senegal, China, South Corea and countless other countries in which their populations and racial backgrounds are not white so… just because the central provinces, and generally those with the most power are seemingly predominantly white doesn’t mean all Argentineans are white. In fact, if you’re also using Argentinean media, movies, shows as basis for your analysis.. uhm how do I say this, we have the very same problem other Latin American countries have which is giving more focus and preferential treatment to whiteness or what can be perceived as white so…

Besides, through many different government administrations at the end of the xix century people were forced to/made deny their non white heritage, so many Argentineans that have, for example, Afro-Argentinean great grandparents or grandparents don’t know it because the families denied it or they were labelled as criollo to avoid recognising there was a non white European background in the family. And this answers to many presidencies but mostly Sarmiento who tried to cleanse, both literally and figuratively, non white backgrounds from Argentina because he praised European countries like France, even when (it is said) that he had Afro-Argentinean background himself. So yeah, are there white Argentineans? yes, are all Argentineans white? NO.”

I also found very interesting articles about this:

However, the myth of the invisible Afroargentines is deep-rooted, as airport officials confirmed when they told Ms Lamadrid in 2002: “This can’t be your passport. There are no blacks in Argentina.” This attitude echoes prejudices that allegedly died out in the late 1800s, but have seemingly survived past the millennium. A court case on the issue produced no ruling (…)

History books used today in schools still perpetuate the myth that there are no Afroargentines, suggesting instead that they were all wiped out in the 1870s during the war in Paraguay and the yellow fever epidemic. True, many African male descendants were killed in the war but women and children survived. Similarly, yellow fever killed some, but not all. 

Sadly, masking identities seems to be a rule rather than an exception, which becomes easier as mixed marriages fuse skin tones. “If you are looking for traditional African people with very black skin, you won’t find it, Ms Gomez explained. “African people in Argentina are of mixed heritage.”

“People for years have accepted the idea that there are no black people in Argentina,“ Miriam Gomes, a professor of literature at the University of Buenos Aires, who is part black herself, told the Post.“Even the schoolbooks here accepted this as a fact. But where did that leave me?” She also explained that almost no one in Argentina with black blood in their veins will admit to it. “Without a doubt, racial prejudice is great in this society, and people want to believe that they are white,” she said. “Here, if someone has one drop of white blood, they call themselves white.”

“There is a silence about the participation of Afro-Argentines in the history and building of Argentina, a silence about the enslavement and poverty,” said Paula Brufman, an Argentine law student and researcher, according to Planete Afrique.“The denial and disdain for the Afro community shows the racism of an elite that sees Africans as undeveloped and uncivilized.”

Then there are recent African immigrants, who move directly from the continent of Africa to Argentina with a large population coming from Senegal. This difference matters, not only to the people whose history it reflects, but also is necessary if a productive discussion on race in Argentina is going to take place. One that goes beyond saying “Argentina doesn’t have Black people”. Because it most certainly does.

I’m white. My skin is white, but i only know my italian heritage: my lastname + one great grandfather + my father is not white. My family speaked guarani (a native language) but sadly, we don’t know where it came from and it dissapeared. That’s how blurred most of our heritage is. I’m white, so if say something wrong, please correct me.

So, this thing about “all argentines are white”…it’s kind of frustrating. I live in Argentina.I see how non-white people are treated. I see the racism (ofc, is not the same racism that you may see in USA, latine rascism is different. And i probably don’t see ALL of it) I was born in a racist society, i made racist comments when i was a child (you know, “i’m joking!! lol!!!”) but i’m trying to learn. I’m educating myself, i’m correcting friends and family, i’m seeing how racism affects people and now, when i see people (mostly latines) saying that “99%″ (or sometimes “all”) of people in Argentina is white, it makes me so mad. Yesterday i was in a bus that was FULL and i noticed (i have like a 2 hours trip) how i was one of the 5 white people there (most of them were brown skinned people + asian people). I looked outside, i saw a group of like ten black people (probably africans, considerating the place, first-gen) talking and laughing, after awhile i hear accents from Paraguay and Bolivia (i also heard people talking asian, africar and native languages in the bus a lot) people with their childs. I looked outside again. I see something written in a wall: “Argentina para argentinos todos” (Argentina for argentines everyone). Maybe they’re inmigrants, we have a lot of them. And they had family here. Their childs? are Argentinian. Were they white? No. They probably suffer racism everyday.

I know that my country has a big problem of racism. I know that a lot of people here considerate themselves “europeans” (even if in europe we are “sudacas”, lmao). I know that we use racist words as insults. Even if i don’t suffer from it, now i can see it. 

And maybe you’re latine and you had problems with a racist argentine. And maybe you’re mad about it. Be mad, tell them to fuck off, it’s your right. But don’t ignore the people here that also belong to your community, don’t tell them that they don’t exist. Seeing a nonwhite argentines fighting to be recognized by other latines it’s really sad, like it’s sad to see them being denied by our society. Don’t do that, you are not helping, you’re just feeding the racist argentines that say that we are all white people/europeans, you’re just saying that they’re right while they abuse the non-white people here, even if they probably don’t know where they came from.

Next time, tell them that they’re probably have african/native blood too. That’s their worst dream.

[2libras]

My Body Is a Prison of Pain so I Want to Leave It Like a Mystic But I Also Love It & Want it to Matter Politically, Johanna Hedva

1.

In late 2014, I was sick with a chronic condition that, about every 12 to 18 months, gets bad enough to render me, for about five months each time, unable to walk, drive, do my job, sometimes speak or understand language, take a bath without assistance, and leave the bed. This particular flare coincided with the Black Lives Matter protests, which I would have attended unremittingly, had I been able to. I live one block away from MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, a predominantly Latino neighborhood and one colloquially understood to be the place where many immigrants begin their American lives. The park, then, is not surprisingly one of the most active places of protest in the city.

I listened to the sounds of the marches as they drifted up to my window. Attached to the bed, I rose up my sick woman fist, in solidarity.

I started to think about what modes of protest are afforded to sick people – it seemed to me that many for whom Black Lives Matter is especially in service, might not be able to be present for the marches because they were imprisoned by a job, the threat of being fired from their job if they marched, or literal incarceration, and of course the threat of violence and police brutality – but also because of illness or disability, or because they were caring for someone with an illness or disability.

I thought of all the other invisible bodies, with their fists up, tucked away and out of sight.

If we take Hannah Arendt’s definition of the political – which is still one of the most dominant in mainstream discourse – as being any action that is performed in public, we must contend with the implications of what that excludes. If being present in public is what is required to be political, then whole swathes of the population can be deemed a-political – simply because they are not physically able to get their bodies into the street.

In my graduate program, Arendt was a kind of god, and so I was trained to think that her definition of the political was radically liberating. Of course, I can see that it was, in its own way, in its time (the late 1950s): in one fell swoop she got rid of the need for infrastructures of law, the democratic process of voting, the reliance on individuals who’ve accumulated the power to affect policy – she got rid of the need for policy at all. All of these had been required for an action to be considered political and visible as such. No, Arendt said, just get your body into the street, and bam: political.

There are two failures here, though. The first is her reliance on a “public” – which requires a private, a binary between visible and invisible space. This meant that whatever takes place in private is not political. So, you can beat your wife in private and it doesn’t matter, for instance. You can send private emails containing racial slurs, but since they weren’t “meant for the public,” you are somehow not racist. Arendt was worried that if everything can be considered political, then nothing will be, which is why she divided the space into one that is political and one that is not. But for the sake of this anxiety, she chose to sacrifice whole groups of people, to continue to banish them to invisibility and political irrelevance. She chose to keep them out of the public sphere. I’m not the first to take Arendt to task for this. The failure of Arendt’s political was immediately exposed in the civil rights activism and feminism of the 1960s and 70s. “The personal is political” can also be read as saying “the private is political.” Because of course, everything you do in private is political: who you have sex with, how long your showers are, if you have access to clean water for a shower at all, and so on.

There is another problem too. As Judith Butler put it in her 2015 lecture, “Vulnerability and Resistance,” Arendt failed to account for who is allowed in to the public space, of who’s in charge of the public. Or, more specifically, who’s in charge of who gets in. Butler says that there is always one thing true about a public demonstration: the police are already there, or they are coming. This resonates with frightening force when considering the context of Black Lives Matter. The inevitability of violence at a demonstration – especially a demonstration that emerged to insist upon the importance of bodies who’ve been violently un-cared for – ensures that a certain amount of people won’t, because they can’t, show up. Couple this with physical and mental illnesses and disabilities that keep people in bed and at home, and we must contend with the fact that many whom these protests are for, are not able to participate in them – which means they are not able to be visible as political activists.

There was a Tumblr post that came across my dash during these weeks of protest, that said something to the effect of: “shout out to all the disabled people, sick people, people with PTSD, anxiety, etc., who can’t protest in the streets with us tonight. Your voices are heard and valued, and with us.” Heart. Reblog.

So, as I lay there, unable to march, hold up a sign, shout a slogan that would be heard, or be visible in any traditional capacity as a political being, the central question of Sick Woman Theory formed: How do you throw a brick through the window of a bank if you can’t get out of bed?

2.

I have chronic illness. For those who don’t know what chronic illness means, let me help: the word “chronic” comes from the Latin chronos, which means “of time” (think of “chronology”), and it specifically means “a lifetime.” So, a chronic illness is an illness that lasts a lifetime. In other words, it does not get better. There is no cure.

And think about the weight of time: yes, that means you feel it every day. On very rare occasions, I get caught in a moment, as if something’s plucked me out of the world, where I realize that I haven’t thought about my illnesses for a few minutes, maybe a few precious hours. These blissful moments of oblivion are the closest thing to a miracle that I know. When you have chronic illness, life is reduced to a relentless rationing of energy. It costs you to do anything: to get out of bed, to cook for yourself, to get dressed, to answer an email. For those without chronic illness, you can spend and spend without consequence: the cost is not a problem. For those of us with limited funds, we have to ration, we have a limited supply: we often run out before lunch.

I’ve come to think about chronic illness in other ways.

Ann Cvetkovich writes: “What if depression, in the Americas, at least, could be traced to histories of colonialism, genocide, slavery, legal exclusion, and everyday segregation and isolation that haunt all of our lives, rather than to be biochemical imbalances?” I’d like to change the word “depression” here to be all mental illnesses. Cvetkovich continues: “Most medical literature tends to presume a white and middle-class subject for whom feeling bad is frequently a mystery because it doesn’t fit a life in which privilege and comfort make things seem fine on the surface.” In other words, wellness as it is talked about in America today, is a white and wealthy idea.

Let me quote Starhawk, in the preface to the new edition of her 1982 book Dreaming the Dark: “Psychologists have constructed a myth – that somewhere there exists some state of health which is the norm, meaning that most people presumably are in that state, and those who are anxious, depressed, neurotic, distressed, or generally unhappy are deviant.” I’d here supplant the word “psychologists” with “white supremacy,” “doctors,” “your boss,” “neoliberalism,” “heteronormativity,” and “America.”

There has been a slew of writing in recent years about how “female” pain is treated – or rather, not treated as seriously as men’s in emergency rooms and clinics, by doctors, specialists, insurance companies, families, husbands, friends, the culture at large. In a recent article in The Atlantic, called “How Doctors Take Women’s Pain Less Seriously,” a husband writes about the experience of his wife Rachel’s long wait in the ER before receiving the medical attention her condition warranted (which was an ovarian torsion, where an ovarian cyst grows so large it falls, twisting the fallopian tube). “Nationwide, men wait an average of 49 minutes before receiving an analgesic for acute abdominal pain. Women wait an average of 65 minutes for the same thing. Rachel waited somewhere between 90 minutes and two hours,” he writes. At the end of the ordeal, Rachel had waited nearly fifteen hours before going into the surgery she should have received upon arrival. The article concludes with her physical scars healing, but that “she’s still grappling with the psychic toll – what she calls ‘the trauma of not being seen.’”

What the article does not mention is race – which leads me to believe that the writer and his wife are white. Whiteness is what allows for such oblivious neutrality: it is the premise of blankness, the presumption of the universal. (Studies have shown that white people will listen to other white people when talking about race, far more openly than they will to a person of color. As someone who is white-passing, let me address white people directly: look at my white face and listen up.)

The trauma of not being seen. Again – who is allowed in to the public sphere? Who is allowed to be visible? I don’t mean to diminish Rachel’s horrible experience – I myself once had to wait ten hours in an ER to be diagnosed with a burst ovarian cyst – I only wish to point out the presumptions upon which her horror relies: that our vulnerability should be seen and honored, and that we should all receive care, quickly and in a way that “respects the autonomy of the patient,” as the Four Principles of Biomedical Ethics puts it. Of course, these presumptions are what we all should have. But we must ask the question of who is allowed to have them. In whom does society substantiate such beliefs? And in whom does society enforce the opposite?

Compare Rachel’s experience at the hands of the medical establishment with that of Kam Brock’s. In September 2014, Brock, a 32-year-old black woman, born in Jamaica and living in New York City, was driving a BMW when she was pulled over by the police. They accused her of driving under the influence of marijuana, and though her behavior and their search of her car yielded nothing to support this, they nevertheless impounded her car. According to a lawsuit brought against the City of New York and Harlem Hospital by Brock, when Brock appeared the next day to retrieve her car she was arrested by the police for behaving in a way that she calls “emotional,” and involuntarily hospitalized in the Harlem Hospital psych ward. (As someone who has also been involuntarily hospitalized for behaving “too” emotionally, this story feels like a rip of recognition through my brain.) The doctors thought she was “delusional” and suffering from bipolar disorder, because she claimed that Obama followed her on twitter – which was true, but which the medical staff failed to confirm. She was then held for eight days, forcibly injected with sedatives, made to ingest psychiatric medication, attend group therapy, and stripped. The medical records of the hospital – obtained by her lawyers – bear this out: the “master treatment plan” for Brock’s stay reads, “Objective: Patient will verbalize the importance of education for employment and will state that Obama is not following her on Twitter.” It notes her “inability to test reality.” Upon her release, she was given a bill for $13,637.10.

The question of why the hospital’s doctors thought Brock “delusional” because of her Obama-follow claim is easily answered: Because, according to this society, a young black woman can’t possibly be that important – and for her to insist that she is must mean she’s “sick.”

3.

Before I can speak of the “sick woman” in all of her many guises, I must first speak as an individual, and address you from my particular location.

I am antagonistic to the notion that the Western medical-insurance industrial complex understands me in my entirety, though they seem to think they do. They have attached many words to me over the years, and though some of these have provided articulation that was useful – after all, no matter how much we are working to change the world, we must still find ways of coping with the reality at hand – first I want to suggest some other ways of understanding my “illness.”

Perhaps it can all be explained by the fact that my Moon’s in Cancer in the 8th House, the House of Death, or that my Mars is in the 12th House, the House of Illness, Secrets, Sorrow, and Self-Undoing. Or, that my father’s mother escaped from North Korea in her childhood and hid this fact from the family until a few years ago, when she accidentally let it slip out, and then swiftly, revealingly, denied it. Or, that my mother suffers from undiagnosed mental illness that was actively denied by her family, and was then exasperated by a 40-year-long drug addiction, sexual trauma, and hepatitis from a dirty needle, and to this day remains untreated, as she makes her way in and out of jails, squats, and homelessness. Or, that I was physically and emotionally abused as a child, raised in an environment of poverty, addiction, and violence, and have been estranged from my parents for 13 years. Perhaps it’s because I’m poor – according to the IRS, in 2014, my adjusted gross income was $5,730 (a result of not being well enough to work full-time) – which means that my health insurance is provided by the state of California (Medi-Cal), that my “primary care doctor” is a group of physician’s assistants and nurses in a clinic on the second floor of a strip mall, and that I rely on food stamps to eat. Perhaps it can be encapsulated in the word “trauma.” Perhaps I’ve just got thin skin, and have had some bad luck.

It’s important that I also share the Western medical terminology that’s been attached to me – whether I like it or not, it can provide a common vocabulary: “This is the oppressor’s language,” Adrienne Rich wrote in 1971, “yet I need it to talk to you.” But let me offer another language, too. In the Native American Cree language, the possessive noun and verb of a sentence are structured differently than in English. In Cree, one does not say, “I am sick.” Instead, one says, “The sickness has come to me.” I love that and want to honor it.

So, here is what has come to me:

Endometriosis, which is a disease of the uterus where the uterine lining grows where it shouldn’t – in the pelvic area mostly, but also anywhere, the legs, abdomen, even the head. It causes chronic pain; gastrointestinal chaos; epic, monstrous bleeding; in some cases, cancer; and means that I have miscarried, can’t have children, and have several surgeries to look forward to. When I explained the disease to a friend who didn’t know about it, she exclaimed: “So your whole body is a uterus!” That’s one way of looking at it, yes. (Imagine what the Ancient Greek doctors – the fathers of the theory of the “wandering womb” – would say about that.) It means that every month, those rogue uterine cells that have implanted themselves throughout my body, “obey their nature and bleed,” to quote fellow endo warrior Hilary Mantel. This causes cysts, which eventually burst, leaving behind bundles of dead tissue like the debris of little bombs.

Bipolar disorder, panic disorder, and depersonalization disorder have also come to me. This means that I live between this world and another one, one created by my own brain that has ceased to be contained by a discrete concept of “self.” Because of these “disorders,” I have access to incredibly vivid emotions, flights of thought, and dreamscapes, to the feeling that my mind has been obliterated into stars, to the sensation that I have become nothingness, as well as to intense ecstasies, raptures, sorrows, and nightmarish hallucinations. I have been hospitalized, voluntarily and involuntarily, because of it, and one of the medications I was prescribed once nearly killed me – it produces a rare side effect where one’s skin falls off. Another cost $800 a month – I only took it because my doctor slipped me free samples. If I want to be able to hold a job – which this world has decided I ought to be able to do – I must take an anti-psychotic medication daily that causes short-term memory loss and drooling, among other sexy side effects. These visitors have also brought their friends: nervous breakdowns, mental collapses, or whatever you want to call them, three times in my life. I’m certain they will be guests in my house again. They have motivated attempts at suicide (most of them while dissociated) more than a dozen times, the first one when I was nine years old. That first attempt didn’t work, only because after taking a mouthful of sleeping pills, I somehow woke up the next day and went to school, like nothing had happened. I told no one about it, until my first psychiatric evaluation in my mid 20s.

Finally, an autoimmune disease that continues to baffle all the doctors I’ve seen, has come to me and refuses still to be named. As Carolyn Lazard has written about her experiences with autoimmune diseases: “Autoimmune disorders are difficult to diagnose. For ankylosing spondylitis, the average time between the onset of symptoms and diagnosis is eight to twelve years. I was lucky; I only had to wait one year.” Names like “MS,” “fibromyalgia,” and others that I can’t remember have fallen from the mouths of my doctors – but my insurance won’t cover the tests, nor is there a specialist in my insurance plan within one hundred miles of my home. I don’t have enough space here – will I ever? – to describe what living with an autoimmune disease is like. I can say it brings unimaginable fatigue, pain all over all the time, susceptibility to illnesses, a body that performs its “normal” functions monstrously abnormally. The worst symptom that mine brings is chronic shingles. For ten years I’ve gotten shingles in the same place on my back, so that I now have nerve damage there, which results in a ceaseless, searing pain on the skin and a dull, burning ache in the bones. Despite taking daily medication that is supposed to “suppress” the shingles virus, I still get them – they are my canaries in the coalmine, the harbingers of at least three weeks to be spent in bed.

My acupuncturist described it as a little demon steaming black smoke, frothing around, nestling into my bones.

4.

With all of these visitors, I started writing Sick Woman Theory as a way to survive in a reality that I find unbearable, and as a way to bear witness to a self that does not feel like it can possibly be “mine.”

The early instigation for the project of “Sick Woman Theory,” and how it inherited its name, came from a few sources. One was in response to Audrey Wollen’s “Sad Girl Theory,” which proposes a way of redefining historically feminized pathologies into modes of political protest for girls: I was mainly concerned with the question of what happens to the sad girl when, if, she grows up. Another was incited by reading Kate Zambreno’s fantastic Heroines, and feeling an itch to fuck with the concept of “heroism” at all, and so I wanted to propose a figure with traditionally anti-heroic qualities – namely illness, idleness, and inaction – as capable of being the symbol of a grand Theory. Another was from the 1973 feminist book Complaints and Disorders, which differentiates between the “sick woman” of the white upper class, and the “sickening women” of the non-white working class.

Sick Woman Theory is for those who are faced with their vulnerability and unbearable fragility, every day, and so have to fight for their experience to be not only honored, but first made visible. For those who, in Audre Lorde’s words, were never meant to survive: because this world was built against their survival. It’s for my fellow spoonies. You know who you are, even if you’ve not been attached to a diagnosis: one of the aims of Sick Woman Theory is to resist the notion that one needs to be legitimated by an institution, so that they can try to fix you. You don’t need to be fixed, my queens – it’s the world that needs the fixing.

I offer this as a call to arms and a testimony of recognition. I hope that my thoughts can provide articulation and resonance, as well as tools of survival and resilience.

And for those of you who are not chronically ill or disabled, Sick Woman Theory asks you to stretch your empathy this way. To face us, to listen, to see.

5.

Sick Woman Theory is an insistence that most modes of political protest are internalized, lived, embodied, suffering, and no doubt invisible. Sick Woman Theory redefines existence in a body as something that is primarily and always vulnerable, following from Judith Butler’s work on precarity and resistance. Because the premise insists that a body is defined by its vulnerability, not temporarily affected by it, the implication is that it is continuously reliant on infrastructures of support in order to endure, and so we need to re-shape the world around this fact. Sick Woman Theory maintains that the body and mind are sensitive and reactive to regimes of oppression – particularly our current regime of neoliberal, white-supremacist, imperial-capitalist, cis-hetero-patriarchy. It is that all of our bodies and minds carry the historical trauma of this, that it is the world itself that is making and keeping us sick.  

To take the term “woman” as the subject-position of this work is a strategic, all-encompassing embrace and dedication to the particular, rather than the universal. Though the identity of “woman” has erased and excluded many (especially women of color and trans and genderfluid people), I choose to use it because it still represents the un-cared for, the secondary, the oppressed, the non-, the un-, the less-than. The problematics of this term will always require critique, and I hope that Sick Woman Theory can help undo those in its own way. But more than anything, I’m inspired to use the word “woman” because I saw this year how it can still be radical to be a woman in the 21st century. I use it to honor a dear friend of mine who came out as genderfluid last year. For her, what mattered the most was to be able to call herself a “woman,” to use the pronouns “she/her.” She didn’t want surgery or hormones; she loved her body and her big dick and didn’t want to change it – she only wanted the word. That the word itself can be an empowerment is the spirit in which Sick Woman Theory is named.

The Sick Woman is an identity and body that can belong to anyone denied the privileged existence – or the cruelly optimistic promise of such an existence – of the white, straight, healthy, neurotypical, upper and middle-class, cis- and able-bodied man who makes his home in a wealthy country, has never not had health insurance, and whose importance to society is everywhere recognized and made explicit by that society; whose importance and care dominates that society, at the expense of everyone else.

The Sick Woman is anyone who does not have this guarantee of care.

The Sick Woman is told that, to this society, her care, even her survival, does not matter.

The Sick Woman is all of the “dysfunctional,” “dangerous” and “in danger,” “badly behaved,” “crazy,” “incurable,” “traumatized,” “disordered,” “diseased,” “chronic,” “uninsurable,” “wretched,” “undesirable” and altogether “dysfunctional” bodies belonging to women, people of color, poor, ill, neuro-atypical, differently abled, queer, trans, and genderfluid people, who have been historically pathologized, hospitalized, institutionalized, brutalized, rendered “unmanageable,” and therefore made culturally illegitimate and politically invisible.

The Sick Woman is a black trans woman having panic attacks while using a public restroom, in fear of the violence awaiting her.

The Sick Woman is the child of parents whose indigenous histories have been erased, who suffers from the trauma of generations of colonization and violence.

The Sick Woman is a homeless person, especially one with any kind of disease and no access to treatment, and whose only access to mental-health care is a 72-hour hold in the county hospital.

The Sick Woman is a mentally ill black woman whose family called the police for help because she was suffering an episode, and who was murdered in police custody, and whose story was denied by everyone operating under white supremacy. Her name is Tanesha Anderson.

The Sick Woman is a 50-year-old gay man who was raped as a teenager and has remained silent and shamed, believing that men can’t be raped.

The Sick Woman is a disabled person who couldn’t go to the lecture on disability rights because it was held in a venue without accessibility.

The Sick Woman is a white woman with chronic illness rooted in sexual trauma who must take painkillers in order to get out of bed.

The Sick Woman is a straight man with depression who’s been medicated (managed) since early adolescence and now struggles to work the 60 hours per week that his job demands.

The Sick Woman is someone diagnosed with a chronic illness, whose family and friends continually tell them they should exercise more.

The Sick Woman is a queer woman of color whose activism, intellect, rage, and depression are seen by white society as unlikeable attributes of her personality.

The Sick Woman is a black man killed in police custody, and officially said to have severed his own spine. His name is Freddie Gray.

The Sick Woman is a veteran suffering from PTSD on the months-long waiting list to see a doctor at the VA.

The Sick Woman is a single mother, illegally emigrated to the “land of the free,” shuffling between three jobs in order to feed her family, and finding it harder and harder to breathe.

The Sick Woman is the refugee.

The Sick Woman is the abused child.

The Sick Woman is the person with autism whom the world is trying to “cure.”

The Sick Woman is the starving.

The Sick Woman is the dying.

And, crucially: The Sick Woman is who capitalism needs to perpetuate itself.

Why?

Because to stay alive, capitalism cannot be responsible for our care – its logic of exploitation requires that some of us die.

“Sickness” as we speak of it today is a capitalist construct, as is its perceived binary opposite, “wellness.” The “well” person is the person well enough to go to work. The “sick” person is the one who can’t. What is so destructive about conceiving of wellness as the default, as the standard mode of existence, is that it invents illness as temporary. When being sick is an abhorrence to the norm, it allows us to conceive of care and support in the same way.

Care, in this configuration, is only required sometimes. When sickness is temporary, care is not normal.

Here’s an exercise: go to the mirror, look yourself in the face, and say out loud: “To take care of you is not normal. I can only do it temporarily.”

Saying this to yourself will merely be an echo of what the world repeats all the time.    

6.

I used to think that the most anti-capitalist gestures left had to do with love, particularly love poetry: to write a love poem and give it to the one you desired, seemed to me a radical resistance. But now I see I was wrong.

The most anti-capitalist protest is to care for another and to care for yourself. To take on the historically feminized and therefore invisible practice of nursing, nurturing, caring. To take seriously each other’s vulnerability and fragility and precarity, and to support it, honor it, empower it. To protect each other, to enact and practice community. A radical kinship, an interdependent sociality, a politics of care.

Because, once we are all ill and confined to the bed, sharing our stories of therapies and comforts, forming support groups, bearing witness to each other’s tales of trauma, prioritizing the care and love of our sick, pained, expensive, sensitive, fantastic bodies, and there is no one left to go to work, perhaps then, finally, capitalism will screech to its much-needed, long-overdue, and motherfucking glorious halt.

This text is adapted from the lecture, “My Body Is a Prison of Pain so I Want to Leave It Like a Mystic But I Also Love It & Want It to Matter Politically,” delivered at Human Resources, sponsored by the Women’s Center for Creative Work, in Los Angeles, on October 7, 2015. The video is here.​

Recommended Texts

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.

Berkowitz, Amy. Tender Points. Oakland: Timeless, Infinite Light, 2015.

Berlant, Lauren Gail. Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.

Brown, Stephen Rex. “Woman Held in Psych Ward over Obama Twitter Claim.” NY Daily News. March 23, 2015.

Butler, Judith. “Vulnerability and Resistance.” REDCAT. December 19, 2014.

Cvetkovich, Ann. Depression: A Public Feeling. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2012.

Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English. Complaints and Disorders; the Sexual Politics of Sickness. Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1973.

Fassler, Joe. “How Doctors Take Women's Pain Less Seriously.” The Atlantic, October 15, 2015.

Federici, Silvia. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Autonomedia, 2003.

Halberstam, Jack. “Zombie Humanism at the End of the World.” Lecture, Weak Resistance: Everyday Struggles and the Politics of Failure, ICI Berlin, May 27, 2015.

Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study. New York: Minor Compositions, 2013.

Hedva, Johanna. “My Body Is a Prison of Pain so I Want to Leave It Like a Mystic But I Also Love It & Want It to Matter Politically.” Lecture, Human Resources, Los Angeles, October 7, 2015.

Lazard, Carolyn. “How to Be a Person in the Age of Autoimmunity.” The Cluster Mag. January 16, 2013.

Lorde, Audre. A Burst of Light: Essays. Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand Books, 1988.

Lorde, Audre. The Cancer Journals. Special ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1997.

Mantel, Hilary. “Every Part of My Body Hurt.” The Guardian, June 7, 2004.

Miserandino, Christine. “The Spoon Theory Written by Christine Miserandino.” But You Dont Look Sick: Support for Those with Invisible Illness or Chronic Illness. April 25, 2013.

Rich, Adrienne. “The Burning of Paper Instead of Children.” In Adrienne Rich's Poetry and Prose: Poems, Prose, Reviews, and Criticism, edited by Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993.

Salek, Yasi. “Audrey Wollen on Sad Girl Theory.” CULTIST ZINE. June 19, 2014.

Starhawk. Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, & Politics. 2nd ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988.

Thurman, Judith. “A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?” The New Yorker, March 30, 2015.

Vankin, Jonathan. “Kam Brock: The Reason They Threw Her In A Mental Ward Was Crazy — What Happened Next Was Even Crazier.” The Inquisitr News. March 24, 2015.

Zambreno, Kate. Heroines. Semiotext(e) / Active Agents, 2012.

Watch: Event presented by the Women's Center for Creative Work at Human Resources on October 7, 2015

[sumukhcomedy]

Hindu the Right Thing

“One who is not envious but is a kind friend to all living entities, who does not think himself a proprietor and is free from false ego, who is equal in both happiness and distress, who is tolerant, always satisfied, self-controlled, and engaged in devotional service with determination, his mind and intelligence fixed on Me—such a devotee of Mine is very dear to Me.” – Gita 12.13-14

As a Hindu-American and an Indian-American, it’s safe to say my interests specific to those designations were never important in the 2016 Presidential Election. The perspectives of Hindus and South Asians were rarely discussed on the campaign trail. But that’s okay by me. I don’t thoroughly embrace or define myself by those designations and so, as a result, they don’t drive my thought or how I believe the United States should be run.

Nevertheless, there were the brief moments in which the Hindu or South Asian perspective did come out and they were, not surprisingly, in the worst possible ways. In October, the Republican Hindu Coalition set up an event for Donald Trump. This article highlights its numerous problems. When Trump says he’s a “big fan of Hindu” and a sketch involving “fake Michael Jackson followed by dancers attacked by jihadists and rescued by Navy Seals” is a focal point of the event, it’s easy to deduce that this was a level of absurdity towards religion and even art that isn’t helping anyone.

The Republican Hindu Coalition is for Hinduism in America what ISIS is for Islam in America. It’s extremism but violence hasn’t come into play from the organization and the connection why may be the simple fact that the United States isn’t currently bombing India. The RHC’s anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan sentiment leads to a convenient if not uncomfortable bedfellow in Trump. Their leaders are now attempting to reap the benefits of a Trump presidency.

I’m not going to portray myself as some sort of model Hindu by any means (I once told a friend that on a scale of 1 to 10, I’m a 5 as a Hindu) but I try to approach my faith with reason and understanding especially in connection with being raised in America. I’ve battled with my own faith throughout my life. I always felt there needed to be a separation of church and state because what drives organized religion is not what should drive the livelihoods of every single person in a nation. I also felt that faith intersected. There may be a variety of different religions and perspectives around the world but they ultimately still can find a common bond. That common bond for me is goodness.

After 9/11 occurred, many people turned to The Bible. It’s understandable that people turn to faith and to God in times of need. For me, I turn to The Bhagavad Gita. I find it to be one of the most important texts I’ve ever read. I read passages from it at my darkest points or when I simply need to gain perspective or relax. I highly advise it to any person interested in understanding Hinduism or wanting to read a book on faith or philosophy.

But, even after finishing The Bhagavad Gita for the first time as a teenager I understood one important thing: every word in The Gita did not apply to my life in present-day America. The Bhagavad Gita is a wonderful text in highlighting selflessness. It’s a benchmark and an ideal to follow in leading one’s life. But if I followed every single word of it, I would get stomped on and taking advantage of in America. It’s illogical to sacrifice everything in our modern-day society but it is logical to take the components that can apply to our modern-day society and implement them positively in one’s life.

I have a degree in English Literature and, as a result, I read and analyzed many texts for years. I look at The Bhagavad Gita and all other religious works as texts. Texts are open to interpretation and, as they are texts written long ago, I feel they need to be interpreted in an appropriate way reflective of the current time period. The words of these texts cannot be simply taken as fact just as the words of a novel like 1984 cannot be taken as fact. There are certain general interpretations that can be made, individual interpretations, and then of course if these interpretations should be taken as a means to guide one’s individual perspective. What I mean by that is that I treat all written works in the same way and ask myself if I can apply what I learned from them to the way I exist in modern American society. This perspective formulated my approach to my own faith.

When I look for ideals of how to lead my life and my faith, politicians are not who I think of. The ideas encouraged in The Bhagavad Gita are a sharp contrast from the way any politician functions. We’ve become accustomed to our politicians being liars or involved in scandals. They are some of our most high-profile individuals in society but this high profile leads to some of the strongest imperfections that are at odds with our faith.

That’s where Trump comes into play. As the campaign progressed, there were numerous reasons why I had no desire to vote for this man. But, now that he’s been elected, like so many others, I cannot wrap my head around how people of faith could have voted for him. Trump is insulting to many groups of people and many things, but he has perhaps been the most insulting towards all religions and Christianity should be the most disturbed considering he believes himself to be a part of it.

I’ve asked myself serious questions about my faith for years and, as a result, have formulated my own idea of who I am as a Hindu and how I represent that. I am unclear if people of other faiths take such steps. But, if so, it’s difficult for me to understand that what motivates someone towards faith, religion, and a belief in God matches up with anything Trump represents. Trump has insulted publicly and now put executive orders in place that hinder the rights and freedoms of so many individuals (we fixate on his effect on Islam, of course, but it’s not as if Christian women, Christian immigrants, Mexicans who are Christian, etc. aren’t affected).

The only thing Trump seems to be appealing with towards the general philosophy on faith or to organized religion is abortion and his ability to put in a Supreme Court Justice who is against it. But, if abortion is the deep driving desire behind one’s faith and one’s vote, I seriously believe one has to question both their approach to religion and to democracy. The hypocrisies of abortion’s place in religion have been brought up already through many tweets and Facebook posts so I don’t need to add to that but this might be the best and most shared highlight that falls in line with my thoughts as well.

Trump is surrounded by white supremacists. He’s clearly a misogynist. His interests are money and he’s fueled by greed. In knowing Trump well before his foray into politics, there was no equation of him with faith or with Christianity and, in fact, as the first three sentences of this paragraph highlight, he seemed completely at odds with what we equate with those concepts.

As someone who takes faith’s underlying goal as being goodness and providing a better moral center for an individual, I’ll give the most recent example that I am still amazed by, and those are the families of the victims of the tragedy at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. The church had a long history with the Black community in Charleston. They opened their doors to the perpetrator for their Bible study. He, in turn, murdered nine people screaming racial epithets in the process. Imagine that your loved one dies. He or she was murdered. The murder was based solely on the fact of who they are and their race. It was a hate crime. The murderer shows no remorse for his actions. Yet, still in your heart and in your faith, you and your community find the ability to forgive the perpetrator. That’s what the families of the victims in Charleston did. They are better people than I am and likely most of us and that’s the ideal with faith that many of us would hope to be able to do. Compare this behavior to Trump and the contrasts are stark, embarrassing for America, and insulting to those attempting to seek a moral higher ground via their faith.

Most Hindu-Americans did not support Trump and I’m pretty clear in writing this that I don’t condone the RHC’s perspective on Hinduism. Their beliefs appear to come from corporate interests, hate, and total lack of facts. But, on a bigger level, I and clearly many others simply can’t understand how someone can be of faith and support Trump and not realize that they are covered in hypocrisy.

I’ve always believed that despite the world’s many different religions and a history of violence and disagreement associated with religion that many of us could still be united in the common belief of goodness under one God. Extremism existed but it had its own disturbed place. Now it appears religious extremism has taken over even in the most powerful nation in the world.

I was raised to believe in God but I also have no clue what the God is that the American people believe in right now. Donald Trump believes in a God that is convenient for him to bring up when it fits his selfish interests. If people want to follow him and this is the warped viewpoint of religion that they want to take, so be it. But, one thing is clear for me. Whether I’m a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Wiccan, or any other faith, I don’t believe in the God that Donald Trump prays to.

[firstumcschenectady]

Two years ago, our niece got a new game for Christmas:  Harry Potter, Hogwarts Battle.  We usually spend New Years together, and it is a great 4 person game, so Kevin and I got to break into the game with our niece and her mother.  It is now fair to say that this is our favorite game, and the four us clocked A LOT of hours playing it.

Beyond the really fun Harry Potter connections, and the truly excellent game design, I think we all love it so much because it is a collaborative game.  The players are all working together towards a goal, so in the end either everyone wins or everyone loses.  Which also means that no one of us ends up as the winner while the rest of us have lost. Truthfully, I really like board games, and most of the ones I play have winners and losers, and I'm generally OK with that, but there is something really great about a collaborative game.  It is especially engaging because each choice we make impacts each other player, so we have to pay attention to what each person needs and what each person's strengths are, and how each person can make the best use of their strengths.

The game is hard, and we lose sometimes.  Really, we lose about half of the games we play, and we sometimes give up a game before playing just because the starting conditions are too difficult.  But the collaboration makes it interesting enough that even losing isn't THAT bad.  (Most of the time.)

I find it interesting that the collaborative game is so much fun.  When I was growing up our church had a copy “The Ungame” which was mean to be a fun game that was collaborative rather than competitive, and while I fully support the creators and their intentions it was the least fun game imaginable.  Yet, there is so much already in our capitalistic society that is inherently about winners and losers, and zero sum games, and competing against each other – and I'm really, really glad that there are now super fun games that don't buy into that model.

Collaborative games seem more like the model of working for the common good.  Maybe it is just because I was born and raised in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but the moment when I finally actually noticed the word “commonwealth” and thought about what it meant was eye-opening for me.  I think of the common good and commonwealths as other ways of speaking about the kindom.  

Over the past 3+ years we've talked about Intersectional Justice and Intersectionality a lot, but just in case the ideas are still fuzzy for you, here is MFSA's definition of its “intersectional organizing principal.”

All experiences of marginalization and injustice are interconnected because the struggle for justice is tied to concepts of power and privilege.  Intersectional organizing recognizes that injustice works on multiple and simultaneous levels. Because experiences of injustice do not happen in a vacuum, it is imperative to: develop the most effective strategies to create space for understanding privilege; organize in an intersectional framework led by marginalized communities; and build effective systems of resistance and cooperation to take action for justice. Practical intersectional organizing always focuses on collaboration and relationship building.

To bring that a little bit more into reality, intersectionality means acknowledging that working on ONE issue and making as small as possible so you can make some gains really doesn't help that much. For example, it is said that 101 years ago women gained the right to vote in NY state, that misses that it only applied to white women. That came from a choice to empower white women at the expense of women of color and was NOT intersectional organizing.  There have been a LOT of times organizing has worked this way, most of the time it has worked this way, and it has done a lot of harm.

During an anti-white supremacy training, I was taught to think holistically about power.  That is, we all know what traits are most associated with power in our society: white, male, rich, straight, English speaking, cisgender, citizen, with a full range of ableness, educated, tall... etc, right?  In each case, there is an opposite to the description that is disempowered.  I'm expecting you are following thus far.  Well, because the people who have the traits connected to power control the resources, they use most of them!  And then, it turns out, the people who are DISCONNECTED from power end up fighting to get access to the scraps of resources that the powerful are willing to share.  There are two REALLY bad parts of this – first of all, to get access to those resources usually means playing by the rules of the ones who have power, and secondly, those without power are usually set up to fight AGAINST EACH OTHER for access to those scraps.  

That is, when white women decided to try to get the vote for themselves, and not seek voting rights for all women, they made a decision to play by the rules of how power already worked, and to distance themselves from people of color to try to get what they wanted and needed.  And, this happens time and time again.

Intersectionality is about seeing the wholeness of the power dynamics, and the complicated realities of people – who all have power in some ways and lack power in others – and holding the whole together while working for good.  It is really, really hard.

It is probably also why I teared up when reading Isaiah this week.  The passage quotes God as saying, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."  The way I heard that was, don't just work for the benefit of a few, even if they are the ones you identify with – work for the well being of ALL.  And all, in all places, including enemy nations!!

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is best known for his transformational work on racial justice, work that make our country noticeably better. Yet, at the end of his life, he had broadened his work, and was organizing around poverty.  As several of the past year's Intersectional Justice Book Club books have pointed out, the powers that exist in the United States have VERY INTENTIONALLY used race to divide people, in large part so that impoverished white people and impoverished people of color wouldn't start working together against their common oppressor.  Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign was designed to bring people together for their common good, and truly for every's good.   As King once said, “In your struggle for justice, let your oppressor know that you are not attempting to defeat or humiliate him, or even to pay him back for injustices that he has heaped upon you. Let him know that you are merely seeking justice for him as well as yourself.”  Because, truly, oppressing anyone harms both the oppressed AND inherently, the oppressor.

Today, other's have picked up Dr. King's mantle, and there is an active Poor People's Campaign underway.  While their “Fundamental Principals” are expansive – there are 12 – they are a coherent whole and I couldn't edit them down.  I want you hear, and be filled with hope, and maybe even be motivated to work with this campaign, so here they are:

We are rooted in a moral analysis based on our deepest religious and constitutional values that demand justice for all. Moral revival is necessary to save the heart and soul of our democracy.

We are committed to lifting up and deepening the leadership of those most affected by systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, and ecological devastation and to building unity across lines of division.

We believe in the dismantling of unjust criminalization systems that exploit poor communities and communities of color and the transformation of the “War Economy” into a “Peace Economy” that values all humanity.

We believe that equal protection under the law is non-negotiable.

We believe that people should not live in or die from poverty in the richest nation ever to exist. Blaming the poor and claiming that the United States does not have an abundance of resources to overcome poverty are false narratives used to perpetuate economic exploitation, exclusion, and deep inequality.

We recognize the centrality of systemic racism in maintaining economic oppression must be named, detailed and exposed empirically, morally and spiritually. Poverty and economic inequality cannot be understood apart from a society built on white supremacy.

We aim to shift the distorted moral narrative often promoted by religious extremists in the nation from issues like prayer in school, abortion, and gun rights to one that is concerned with how our society treats the poor, those on the margins, the least of these, women, LGBTQIA folks, workers, immigrants, the disabled and the sick; equality and representation under the law; and the desire for peace, love and harmony within and among nations.

We will build up the power of people and state-based movements to serve as a vehicle for a powerful moral movement in the country and to transform the political, economic and moral structures of our society.

We recognize the need to organize at the state and local level—many of the most regressive policies are being passed at the state level, and these policies will have long and lasting effect, past even executive orders. The movement is not from above but below.

We will do our work in a non-partisan way—no elected officials or candidates get the stage or serve on the State Organizing Committee of the Campaign. This is not about left and right, Democrat or Republican but about right and wrong.

We uphold the need to do a season of sustained moral direct action as a way to break through the tweets and shift the moral narrative. We are demonstrating the power of people coming together across issues and geography and putting our bodies on the line to the issues that are affecting us all.

The Campaign and all its Participants and Endorsers embrace nonviolence. Violent tactics or actions will not be tolerated.

This campaign is DEEPLY good news.  I encourage you to look them up, their demands are even better (but ever longer) and well worth the read. There are a lot of opportunities to volunteer with and support the Poor People's Campaign, and I'd be happy to connect to to those who are organizing – as would your Intersectional Justice chairs.  

Working towards justice for all is really, really hard work.  It can even be overwhelming, but as Isaiah says, God is out for the well-being of the whole world.  Before you get overwhelmed though, let me remind you that God has a LOT of partners in this work and no ONE of us is called to do all the work.  In fact, we're called to trust each other and each other's work, and to carefully discern what our work is to do. Love exists, its power can spread, justice is possible, and good people are at work.  We are meant to be a light to ALL the nations, and with God at our backs, we can and we will.  And it is possible because of collaboration.  Thanks be to God.  Amen

Rev. Sara E. Baron First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 Pronouns: she/her/hers http://fumcschenectady.org/ 
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

January 19, 2019

[an-ephemeral-blog]

Linkspam #4

Top Links

How to Not Die in America by Molly Osberg at Splinter News:

On that second Tuesday in June 2017, I found myself in what I worry could be a fleeting moment in my life, one in which the institutions around me find it advantageous to protect  rather than screw me. I find it baffling that, since my illness, well-meaning people have repeatedly referred to me as a “survivor,” as if the fact that I got to go on with my life had to do with some inherent moral strength, rather than the material forces put in motion long before I got sick.

The Many Lives of Pauli Murray by Kathryn Schultz at the New Yorker:

Murray’s silence about her gender and sexuality is striking, because she otherwise spent a lifetime insisting that her identity, like her nation, must be fully integrated. She hated, she wrote, “to be fragmented into Negro at one time, woman at another, or worker at another.”

Yet every movement to which Murray ever belonged vivisected her in exactly those ways.

Socialism As A Set Of Principles by Nathan J. Robinson at Current Affairs:

The instinct that “people should be able to shape their own destinies” leads socialists to endorse what I think is the core meaning of “democracy,” namely the idea that people should have decision-making power over those things that affect them. If we think people’s choices should be valued, then they should be included in decision-making that affects them.

Hence all this business about the “means of production.” The workers in an auto plant are strongly affected by the decision as to whether or not it should close and move production elsewhere. Yet because they do not “own” it (i.e. have any decision-making power), the choice will be made without the participation of those it will impact most. This violates the core principle of democracy. The whole reason socialists are critical of the concentration of private property in few hands is that it constitutes a concentration of socially consequential decision-making power.

How The ACORN Scandal Seeded Today’s Nightmare Politics by Zach Carter and Arthur Delaney at Huffington Post:

ACORN had survived for more than 40 years. Its sudden collapse was a defining moment in 21st century American politics. The explosive cocktail of racism, dishonesty, incompetence and cowardice that brought down the organization reveals as much about Washington Democrats as it does about the conservative movement. It marked the Republican Party’s full transition from the coded winks and nods of Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy” to the bellicose white nativism that defines Donald Trump, and it exposed a Democratic Party establishment unprepared for dirty tricks in the Digital Age and unwilling to defend many of the black voters and activists it claimed to represent. 

The Spy Who Came Home by Ben Taub in the New Yorker:

[O]ver the years he came to believe that counterterrorism was creating more problems than it solved, fuelling illiberalism and hysteria, destroying communities overseas, and diverting attention and resources from essential problems in the United States.

Meanwhile, American police forces were adopting some of the militarized tactics that Skinner had seen give rise to insurgencies abroad. “We have to stop treating people like we’re in Fallujah,” he told me. “It doesn’t work. Just look what happened in Fallujah.”

The epic mistake about manufacturing that’s cost Americans millions of jobs by Gwynn Guilford at Quartz:

Thanks to a painstaking analysis by a handful of economists, it’s become clear that the data that underpin the dominant narrative—or more precisely, the way most economists interpreted the data—were way off-base. Foreign competition, not automation, was behind the stunning loss in factory jobs. And that means America’s manufacturing sector is in far worse shape than the media, politicians, and even most academics realize.

Inside the Massive U.S. 'Border Zone' by Tanvi Misra at Citylab:

Agents can enter private property, set up highway checkpoints, have wide discretion to stop, question, and detain individuals they suspect to have committed immigration violations—and can even use race and ethnicity as factors to do so.

That’s striking because the border zone is home to 65.3 percent of the entire U.S. population, and around 75 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population, according to a CityLab analysis based on data from location intelligence company ESRI. This zone, which hugs the entire edge of the United States and runs 100 air miles inside, includes some of the densest cities—New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

Other Favorites

Science

This Roman ‘gate to hell’ killed its victims with a cloud of deadly carbon dioxide by Colin Barras at Science Magazine

The Framingham Heart Study and the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease: a historical perspective by Syed S Mahmood, Daniel Levy, Ramachandran S Vasan, and Thomas J Wang in the Lancet (full text here) - this article describes how the death of President Franklin Roosevelt from heart disease impacted cardiovascular research in this country

Twitter thread by Ask An Entomologist @BugQuestions - “What we now call 'queen' bees-the main female reproductive honeybees-were erroneously called 'kings' for nearly 2,000 years. Why?“

Diary of a Local Data Reporter by Rachel Alexander at Source - “Telling the story of health care workers dying from opioid overdoses in Spokane, Washington“

Method to identify undetected drug suicides wins top NIDA Addiction Science Award at the NIH website - what the post title fails to mention is that the method was discovered by a pair of high school girls.  Hell yeah, teenage science nerds making the world a better place. <3

Tech

Inclusion Riders in Tech by Nicole Sanchez at Medium and, conversely, Sorry, Hollywood. Inclusion Riders Won’t Save You by Rebecca Chapman at the New York Times

Stop Being Sexist, Siri at One Foot Tsunami - an example of algorithmic bias vis-a-vis the devaluation of women’s sports

The Aggregator Paradox by Ben Thompson at Stratechery - Facebook, Google, and their relationship with publishers and advertisers

Double Buffer by Robert Nystrom in Game Programming Patterns - a delightfully clear explanation of the kind of problem double buffering solves (graphics rendering in games) and how to implement it

The Universal Design Pattern by Steve Yegge at their personal blog - a long, detailed, and admittedly decade-old pitch for the properties design pattern

Four cents to deanonymize: Companies reverse hashed email addresses by Gunes Acar at Freedom to Tinker

Georgia bill could stifle the state’s booming cybersecurity community by Seth Rosenblatt at The Parallax - yet another example of why legislators at all levels need more technical experts on their staff

Amazon threatens to suspend Signal's AWS account over censorship circumvention by moxio0 on the Signal blog

Invisible asymptotes by Eugene Wei at Remains of the Day - designing social media and other software products for growth

12 Fractured Apps by Kelsey Hightower at Medium - a practical guide to implementing 12FA philosophy when using Docker

Politics

America’s poor subsidize wealthier consumers in a vicious income inequality cycle by Aaron Klein at The Brookings Institution

Markets aren’t natural: governments have to make them work by Steven K. Vogel at OUPBlog

Black Teens Have Been Fighting for Gun Reform for Years by Lincoln Anthony Blades in Teen Vogue

The Persistence of Tyranny by Ken White at PopeHat - “Tyranny is mouthing platitudes about liberty while cheering its suppression. Tyranny is our capacity to rationalize exceptions to rights for our enemies. Tyranny is our willingness to dismiss violation of rights as unimportant or minimal. Tyranny sold you your morning coffee.”

How the Democrat’s Corrupt Congressional Pay-to-Play Machine Sabotages Progressives and the Popular Will by Yves Smith at naked capitalism

How Conflicts (Don’t) End by Richard English at Lawfare - four elements of conflict resolution as exemplified by the Northern Ireland peace process

Why Are White Men Stockpiling Guns by Jeremy Adam Smith at Scientific American

We have to build the future out of the past by Quinn Norton at emptywheel - “This is the myth of the truth of the moment — that we are powerful beyond our own understanding, and broken and angry within our dysfunctional family.”

In A World That Polices Black Movement, ‘Black Boys Dance Too’ Is Revolutionary by By Ja’han Jones at Huffington Post

Inside Russian Women’s Fight For Their Lives by Madeline Roache at The Establishment - how legislation decriminalizing domestic abuse has made life even worse for women in Russia

Seniors Are More Conservative Because the Poor Don’t Survive to Become Seniors by Ed Kilgore at NYMag

History

Becoming Trans: Transgender Identity In The Middle Ages by zac clifton at Medium

Heroes, Identity and the Realm of History by Meg Foster at JHIBlog - on the Australian semi-mythic figure of the ‘bushranger’

Rethinking the “Lessons” of the First World War by Michael Neiberg at Lawfare

Misc

Why dictators find the lure of writing books irresistible by Lucy Hughes-Hallett at New Statesman - a review of a book which is itself a series of reviews of books by Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Mussolini, etc.

What Fullness Is by Roxane Gay at Medium - Gay writes about getting weight loss surgery

The non-profit that figured out how to massively cut suicide rates in Sri Lanka, and their plan to do the same around the world by Robery Wilbin at 80,000 hours - this title is wildly misleading but the content is interesting

Words Matter by Siderea on Dreamwidth - Small changes in language can have big effects.

“Who Do You Think You Are?”: When Marginality Meets Academic Microcelebrity by Tressie McMillan Cottom in Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology

Black Issues in Philosophy: A Conversation on Get Out at the APA Blog - an analysis of the film Get Out by political theorist Derefe Kimarley Chevannes and philosopher Lewis Gordon

A Landslide of Classic Art Is About to Enter the Public Domain by Glenn Fleishman at The Atlantic - I’m so excited, you guys!  For the first time in my adult life, we’re going to get a mass release of public domain material!  If Disney doesn’t get to it first, anyway.

The Rise and Fall of Dr. M. by Bernd Kramer at Elephant in the Lab - a story of academic fraud

Short & Sweet: Change Makers by forestofglory at ladybusiness - a short list of short stories about ordinary people making political change, all available to read for free online

Tendrils of Mess in our Brains by Srah Perry at ribbonfarm - what makes a mess a mess?

When does your company stop paying women in 2018? by Josh Holder, Alexandra Topping, Caelainn Barr and Antonio Voce at The Guardian - an interactive map

nontoxic masculinity by Katie at her personal blog - lifting up examples of non-toxic masculinity

“When Tables Speak”: On the Existence of Trans Philosophy by Talia Mae Bettcher at Daily Nous

A Deep Dive into the Harris-Klein Controversy by John Nerst at Everything Studies - an extremely thorough and thought-provoking analysis of someone else’s debate (bonus follow-up post)

I’m Not Black, I’m Kanye by Ta-Nehisi Coates - as a white person I don’t feel comfortable opining on this except to say it’s really, really worth reading

The Nice Cop by Nick Slater at Current Affairs - “Is this because cruel people become cops, or because becoming a cop makes people cruel? I used to think the answer was obvious, until I watched my friend kill a man on Facebook Live.”

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

This is a moral/political concept I been thinking about recently. It’s been in my head for some time and I am not sure if its something I carried over from a philosophy or sociology book I read in the past or an original thought of my own. Likely the former over the latter but I think my argument is sound none the less and wanted to pose it to anyone who comes across these writings during your adventures on the web. Feel free to let me know what you think.

The Intent - Harm - Remorse concept is supposed to be a lens for social statements made by politicians, social figures or even people in your life could be measured. I consider it one of the most important rules of discourse I created for myself in regards to handling anyone in my life or how I handle statements from famous individuals. There are caveats I will get into later which might be important to reflect on but let’s start with the broader concept.

General Concept Any inflammatory statement from the lips of a President, tweet from a celebrity or the joke from a friend in a bar should be measured by three basic steps to dictate how you should react to their statement (in my opinion). The first is always to measure their Intent which is the how or why they are saying this thing. Intent can range from general ignorance, misunderstanding, statement of belief, or even humor. It’s hard to measure which of these is really what was going thru their head but almost always the default escape from the burden of intent is to say it was a joke. Humor serves an important purpose in society but it often acts as an “emergency exit” or social scapegoat for some pretty fucked up comments made by political figures.

The next step is Harm this is also hard to measure and should always be reflective of what is most likely the persons intent. It is impossible these days to say any statement without some group or individual taking offense. This is true for both for Men and Women, Left and Right, Gay or Straight, and literally every other social group you might have. I know the word Snowflake is thrown around a lot these days but the truth is no one is above the sting of a sharp statement (EVERYONE is a ‘Snowflake’). Even if you agree with someone’s beliefs and views they might say something that cuts at you personally for fitting into a different group. The statement that “White Males are the problem” cuts at me personally because I am both white and male but I certainly don’t see myself as the problem. I can take offense to that comment or I can recognize that most people who say that aren’t harping on ALL white males but rather the power structure of modern society which is mostly well old white men. This is just one way of measuring harm but it’s important to be reflective of what is being said and why (intent).

The last step is Remorse. If upon examining a statement if we find their intent came from a place of ignorance, prejudice or even immoral belief with a measured harm to a person or people then it is not unfair to demand an apology. We are all accountable for what we say and what we believe. Remorse is a hard thing to come by as there a handful of modern options to feign remorse and make people believe it is authentic. There is the Public Statement often well-orchestrated letter read from a podium to a dozen cameras often favored by Politicians, the Hibernation in which that person disappears to resort to ‘receive help’ but it is really keeping their head down until social attention shifts elsewhere, or Denial which is becoming a quick favorite for the Trump Administration which suggests whatever evidence you have is wrong or never happened. Truth is we decide if that remorse is authentic or not. There are people who have said things that were misinterpreted and had no real harm factor but they still decided to make the step to apologize and clarify their views. This step is essential for discourse as forgiveness for honest/sincere apologies is needed for reconciliation. We have all said things in anger, misunderstanding or falsely held beliefs but recognizing that we have done wrong and being remorseful of those things should be an avenue back into society.

Reflection on Progressives and Conservatives Believe it or not, both sides fail at recognizing one of the first two steps for different reasons which has lead to some of the tribalism we see today. It should be noted I tend to lean strongly into the progressive side of politics which I feel gives me some license to be critical of the PC Culture which has their heart in the right place but poorly executed in their outrage (occasionally).

The Progressive and PC Culture have started to skip step one, which is Intent and solely focus their attention on step two, Harm. This is why we started to see some social attacks on comedians who often fringe on edgy subjects and are attacked by Progressives for not adhering to these new standards. By ignoring intent we skip over important concepts like discourse, humor, social narratives or even practicality of statements. An example away from comedy is the reaction to Amazons of the Justice League Movies having less armor on during the movie which resulted in an outcry that it was sexualization of women. Upon response those Amazon actresses pointed out A) they liked the armor B) allowed them to be more comfortable while riding horses and performing stunts C) the director was nothing boy respectful to them even with the wardrobe change. It was a skipping the intent going straight to ‘harm’ which is why the conservatives like to point out we cry foul when there was none which they aren’t wrong in those specific cases.

The Conservative and emerging Alt Right Culture fail at recognizing intent, harm, and remorse in their own unique way. Collectively I have noticed two things that make them fail at public discourse. The first is letting the narrative of intent be dictated by individuals who were usually stating beliefs and not humor. The second is a complete disregard to harm UNLESS it affects them specifically. Progressives have a deeper level of empathy these days and are able to put ourselves in the shoes of other people who do not share our culture, gender, sexuality or ethnicity. Which sadly leaves many Conservatives on a low road where decency isn’t a feature of the Republican Party. Trump (as an easy example) has said things about Mexican Immigrants, Gold Star Families, Women, African Americans, and Veterans over the past two years. Each time those two failings appeared after his remark in the Conservative Base. In regards to the intent, they simply say he was joking and in regards to the harm they simply didn’t care his comments marginalized vast groups of people.

You might have noted that remorse was not listed above for Conservatives or Progressives but the truth it both groups fail in the same way on this last aspect. We tend to be only forgiving to those who on ‘our side’ and less forgiving to individuals who are apart from us. I am no different in the sense that if two men said the same horrible thing I am likely to forgive a liberal over a conservative. Its something I am working on and it’s important we try to remain fair, we either forgive both or neither. I have always been an advocate of forgiveness, so long as it’s authentic and there is a real change in the narrative in regards to that offending individual then forgiveness should be available to them.

Caveats While the Intent - Harm - Remorse is a good foundation for measuring public statements or poorly executed jokes. There are other ‘tools’ to help us cut to the core of intent and the harm its caused. The first I might point out is Repetition of Rhetoric which is a good indicator that something might be going on beneath the surface of a person’s views. The use of “Just Kidding” works only for so long before it loses merit and the veil of humor can erode rather fast if you’re not careful. If a stand-up comedian says she loves African Americans but her whole set is about how she is afraid of black men, no matter how much of a laugh she might get for jokes it is not unreasonable to walk away from the experience and feel like something more is going on in her beliefs. Another measure for politicians is Policy; this caveat is easier to measure as if you want to know what a politician really thinks then look at the laws he or she passes. Using Donald Trump again he claims that he fights for low/middle-class workers but his tax plan gives them a small boost in what their tax return while removing child care programs/maternity/healthcare/after school for kids/etc which adds up for way more than what they see on their tax return. A policy is an excellent caveat for finding those offenders who often fall beliefs instead of the rhetoric they display to the public. Closing Using the words of Jim Jefferies “We can all do a little better” and I think it starts by measuring the intent, harm, and remorse by our public figures, friends, family, community and even ourselves. I love to hear your thoughts if you have them.

Regards Michael California

[2700fstreet]

THEATER / 2017-2018

ON YOUR FEET!

The Emilio & Gloria Estefan Broadway Musical

Featuring music and lyrics by Emilio and Gloria Estefan Directed by Jerry Mitchell Book by Alexander Dinelaris Choreographed by Sergio Trujillo

So, What’s Going On?

The scene: Washington, D.C., 1990

The curtain rises as… Latin pop superstar Gloria Estefan preps for a huge concert while her husband, Emilio, and their son watch from the wings. Emilio tells Gloria her tour bus will have to make an unexpected stop and she’ll have to give up her day off. Annoyed, Gloria heads to the stage to sing one of her hit songs.

Cue flashback.

In 1966, young Gloria María Fajardo lives with her mother (also named Gloria), her grandmother, Consuelo, and her sister, Rebecca, in Miami. Their family has emigrated from Cuba to the U.S. following a violent political revolution. And while little Gloria’s father fights overseas in Vietnam, the women in the family keep things humming at home…literally: little Gloria has a talent for singing and songwriting, and she often performs Cuban songs for her neighbors and friends.

Young Gloria sings and dances while helping her family with the laundry.

As Gloria grows up, word begins to spread about her voice, and, in 1974, a young local musician named Emilio Estefan comes knocking at her door to ask about the songs she’s written. He convinces her to come play a tune for his band, named the Miami Latin Boys, and soon she joins the group as its lead singer.

Time passes and the Miami Latin Boys have transformed into the Miami Sound Machine. The band is booking tons of gigs, which frustrates Gloria’s mother, who feels Gloria should be living a normal life at home and helping her ailing father. Seems like a classic case of “protective mom,” but there’s a bit more to it: Gloria’s mother had her own shot at the spotlight once, but she let her dream go. Consuelo warns Gloria her newfound career may be stirring up old issues.

In a flashback to Havana in the 1950s, we see Gloria’s mother in action on stage.

Take a listen… The real-life Gloria Estefan sings “Mi Tierra” (“My Land”), the song performed by her mother’s character in On Your Feet!.

Despite the tensions at home, Gloria continues to sing with the Miami Sound Machine, and the band starts attracting listeners across the U.S. and South America. In fact, things are going so well that Emilio and Gloria speak to their record producer about “crossing over” into the English-speaking pop world. But the producer hates the idea. He suggests their sound and their Latin names just aren’t “American” enough. Emilio reminds the producer that immigrants count as Americans too, and decides to take matters into his own hands. He and Gloria get creative and market the band’s latest English single, “Dr. Beat,” to clubs and disc jockeys. The song takes off…and a romance between them starts to bloom.

Gloria and Emilio start to fall in love.

With each other for inspiration and support, Gloria and Emilio produce a newer, even bigger English single that captures hearts across the country: “Conga.” Thanks to the song, Emilio is able to get the attention of his studio executive, but the boss doesn’t want to give the band the contract it deserves. A few hits later, however, and Gloria’s talent and popularity can no longer be ignored. Finally, Emilio helps Gloria and the band secure a multi-million-dollar deal.

“Conga” becomes a hit on dance floors across America…and around the world.

Take a listen… Gloria Estefan revisits her hit song “Conga” in a live concert.

But all of this success—and the touring that goes with it—doesn’t make Gloria’s mother very happy. Even worse for Mrs. Fajardo: Gloria wants to take her sister, Rebecca, on the road. Worried her family is falling apart, Gloria’s mother threatens never to speak to Gloria again. And she doesn’t. Not for two years and an entire world tour. Which brings us back to where we started…

Washington, D.C., 1990

Gloria finishes her show and decides to call her mom to try and patch things up. When there’s no answer, she boards her tour bus with Emilio and their son, Nayib.

Then, disaster strikes.

A massive collision destroys the bus, injures Emilio and Nayib, and leaves Gloria in danger of permanent paralysis. Will she be able to walk again? Will she be able to sing again? And, perhaps most importantly, will she be able to repair her relationship with her mother before it’s too late?

Who’s Who

Gloria Estefan (born Gloria María Fajardo), a Cuban-American singer and songwriter Emilio Estefan, a Cuban-American musician and producer, Gloria’s husband Gloria Fajardo, a teacher and former singer, Gloria Estefan’s mother José Fajardo, a policeman and soldier, Gloria Estefan’s father Consuelo, Gloria Estefan’s abuela (grandmother) Rebecca “Becky” Fajardo, Gloria Estefan’s sister Phil, a New York record producer Little Gloria, a young Gloria Estefan Nayib, Emilio and Gloria Estefan’s son

Cuban Water, American Roots

“I came to Miami when I was two years old…my Mom kinda replanted us. But she watered me with Cuban water…everything that [my family] did was to keep alive the culture that they thought that we would go back to.” – Gloria Estefan

On Your Feet! is a tale of two very passionate and talented immigrants who came to the United States during a time of political turmoil in their homeland of Cuba. Starting in 1952, Cuba began its extended period of uncertainty, beginning with a military coup spearheaded by a corrupt and oppressive Fulgencio Batista (whose name you’ll hear mentioned in the show), followed by another coup conducted by the polarizing leader Fidel Castro.

After Castro established a new government in 1959, many Cubans—including the Fajardos and the Estefans—chose or were forced to move to the U.S. But Cuban families were often separated, and many had to leave promising careers behind. Still, the Cuban culture continued to thrive on American shores, particularly through its music. Today, cities across the U.S. are buzzing with the sound of Cuban dance rhythms, and artists like the Miami Sound Machine keep mixing Latino beats with traditional jazz and pop, creating a unique sound that’s both Cuban and American.

For more on the history of Cuba/US relations and info on Cuba’s revolution, go to:

Check This Out…

On Your Feet! features many recognizable songs that have been played on the radio (and at parties, weddings, dance clubs, etc.) for decades. Listen up for these tunes while you watch the show—and don’t be afraid to sing or dance along if the actors encourage you to.

Choreographer Sergio Trujillo wanted the moves in On Your Feet! to feel as authentically Cuban as possible. He even went to Havana to study native Afro- Cuban dances. Keep an eye out for these intricate steps during the show, especially ones that involve two people partnering up and moving together, which is an essential component in Latin dance. Pick up a few steps… Sergio Trujillo talks about his career and his process for getting On Your Feet!... well...on its feet.

This story includes many flashbacks to different time periods and different countries. Watch out for the ways in which the lighting, costumes, and set designs give you clues about where and when the characters are (hint: pay special attention to the different colors used in each scene).

Lots of the music in On Your Feet! will be sung in Spanish. For those audience members who don’t speak the language, pay close attention to the singers’ voices and facial expressions. You’ll most likely pick up the meaning of each song based on the energy and emotion the performers convey.

Think About This…

On Your Feet! is a combination of big, bold musical numbers and smaller, more intimate scenes between two or three people. Which moments do you prefer? Which scenes are more successful at moving the story along? Which are best at making you feel for the characters?

Most stories have an antagonist, but in On Your Feet!, the villain isn’t always easily identified. Who or what do you think operates as the “bad guy” in the show? What forces are most responsible for the troubles the characters endure?

The Estefans and the Fajardos are affected by stereotyping throughout the show. In what ways do you observe the non-Latino characters making incorrect or misinformed assumptions about Latino immigrants?

On Your Feet! is an immigrant story, but it’s also a human story. Can you think of similar tales in film, TV, or theater where the main characters fight for their dreams in the face of adversity? In what ways are these stories similar to the biography of the Estefans?

Go Behind-the-Scenes

To learn more about the making of On Your Feet!, check out this video series:

Episode 1: “Here We Are”

Episode 2: “Writing the Show”

Episode 3: “Casting the Story”

Episode 4: “Directing the Musical”

“Stand Up and Take Some Action”

One of the major themes of On Your Feet!—and the message of its title song—is to challenge yourself to take action in your daily life and claim control of your future. Both Gloria and Emilio come up against impossible odds, but they insist on forging their own personal and professional triumphs through hard work and determination.

Why not use their efforts to motivate yourself to reach for your own life goals? Choose a friend or family member and decide on a cause or achievement you can work toward together (this can be a joint plan or two individual projects; one for each of you). Next, make a pact that you’ll hit a specific milestone on the road to your end goal by a specific date.

For example: Want to apply for a dream summer job? Make a promise to your chosen buddy that you’ll have your forms filled out and ready by next month. Ask them to make a similar promise to you and make sure you both hold each other accountable for having completed your tasks.

Need another example? Say you’re hoping to give back to your community on a regular basis. Consider creating a shelter, soup kitchen, or local government volunteering schedule for you and your friend. Once that’s done, be certain to check in on each other’s progress every week.

If you feel comfortable with social media, keep track of all your accomplishments on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or any platform you prefer and use the hashtag #standupandtakesomeaction. Remember to ask your friend’s permission before posting about them.

Explore More

Go even deeper with the On Your Feet! Extras.

An important final note:

This past December, Gloria Estefan and four other artists received the prestigious 2017 Kennedy Center Honors. When told she was being awarded this honor, Ms. Estefan made the following comment:

“Little did I imagine when my parents brought me as a toddler to the United States from Cuba, in order to be able to raise me in freedom, that I would be receiving one of this nation’s greatest honors. I feel privileged to be included in the galaxy of stars that have received the Kennedy Center Honors and I am grateful to be considered among the many talents in this great country that have been bestowed this exceptional accolade.”

The ceremony was broadcast on December 26, 2017. You can see footage from the annual event at www.kennedy-center.org.

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All photos by Matthew Murphy.

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