Forgetting the healthy life: how years of illness feel lifelong (Sacks, 33)
The disparity between the ill and the healthy is not only a physical difference but an emotional one. Mentally, illnesses take a tremendous toll on the mind and body disorienting a person further. While physically troubling, the stress added is heavily taxing. It is this additional emotional component that makes life’s struggle feel lifelong in a matter of weeks.
It doesn’t take too long for the ill to forget his healthy past. In the beginning, he closely recalls his healthy life running through the streets cheerfully. Waking up with little stress from the bodily symphony. Early on, those feelings of distress are dwindled in the face of a hopeful future. Optimism endures imagining the free life. It sucks now but this is only temporary. Only recently was jogging along the beach a daily activity. Reassuring that all will be healed. The days of health are not forgotten nor will they be missed. The ill cannot picture the horrible tragedy that may be permanence. Instead clinging to whatever positivity he can for a swift recovery. The night and day transformation can easily be reversed. If he body could go numb it could also heal. If it at one point he could run then he will run again. The possibility of permanence is ignored in the face of self empowerment and hope. Memories of the recent past. How life was bliss fill the dreams. Fantasising a line with a single bump in the road. Off course for a second but now back.
Some pessimism takes hold but it is denial that has the strangest effect. Namely, ignoring the potential catastrophe of the injury. The injury or the disease is simply an obstacle to overcome. A challenge in the pathway. Once the test is overcome, the road will open up and the injury over. In some deluded metaphysical interpretation, the haunting demise of the injury is isolated for a more warming possibility. The universe is testing his resolve. Once overpowering the needless force, he will be empowered. It is a struggle but a rite of passage. Everyone has their challenges some more difficult than others. Some more deadly than others. Yet he will bounce back. It is inevitable. A test that wishes for him to put his all into it. Once he gives it all his strength he will succeed. Hope fills him with strength to keep moving forward. All types of spiritual phenomena seep into his psyche. He is tested but he also must undergo recovery. He must see a doctor and take medication. He is aware of the sloppy symmetry but the overarching goal fills him with purpose. It does empower him as he recognises his destiny awaits. After his recovery he will have a greater appreciation. These thoughts soothe him in his challenging trek.
He never concedes to the permanence. Anything is curable. After countless visits with no change his cynicism does enter his mind. He begins to doubt. Struggling to comprehend his suffering. It was a good joke now it is time to end it. Learned the lesson where is the antidote. Yet there is no reply from his doctors nor from above. Alone in this venture his attitude turns negative. The debut is never-ending and cynicism creep slowly as the days pass by. His outgoing positivity crumbles into nihilistic denial. Everyday is a deathly routine. A sorrow of grief stricken on the innocent. The cold winds surround him. Clouds blocking out the sun. He is stooped in the lightless mould. He only sees grey. Unable to enjoy the simple moments. His attitude demoralises the beautiful. Cynically mocking the joy. Sad he cannot do what others can. Unable to do what he used to be able to do. Robbed of his ability to feel human. He feels incapable and inferior. Sympathised but misunderstood. His bleak perspective is colourblind. He cannot see the expansive blue sky or his wife’s dark brown eyes. He only sees the monotone natural nothingness.
Gradually, he forgets what the world looks like. What it should be like. More than the appearance of the world is the attitude to it. How not only to perceive in colour but in norms. How to emotionally connect with the outside world. His suffering undermines any normative relation. He doesn’t act accordingly. An outcast in many regards. His scepticism verges on conspiracy to most. Offended by his lack of polity. His suffering has provided him a new outlet. One that places him in his own sphere. He has transformed. Consecutive years of tribulation has created a new monster. One that does not heed to traditional mannerisms. One that cares little for the expected. If he cannot enjoy the benefits like everyone else why should he act like everyone else. He is an outsider and deservedly so. It wasn’t his intent to alienate but by virtue of his illness he has been sidelined. He has been forced to adapt. The suffering preys on his normatively and counteracts it with a depressive tone. He no longer remembers the good ol’ times. He only knows grey. He only knows the world of suffering. There is no past or future. It is a continuum of bleak greyness.
He is forced to reject the world. The world that expects perfection from him. A world he cannot satisfy, he cannot provide for. He is irregular. A natural mishap and selectively diminished. What is his hope for the future. What is his perception of himself. The days of old have passed. Reality closes itself on him. Shutting the door in his face. He tries and tries to reach the qualifying aptitude but fails miserably. He can’t see colour. He can’t march up the steps. It is a lost cause. An impossible task. Reality thrusts its own version on him. Never lowering the bar. Never victimising him. Deal with it. Be a stoic. Hustling down the boulevard to keep pace. It is not as if he hasn’t figured out the trick. Victorious at the rigged state fair games. This is a simple movement but for him it is difficult. Everyone else moves with ease while his shoes are filled with rocks. Carrying a yoke glued to his shoulders. He is handicapped but not given a handicap. To some extent he doesn’t want one. He wishes to be treated like everyone else even though he isn’t like everyone else. He cannot execute like everyone. His constant failure unable to reach the thread haunts his soul. Unable to do that which was so simple so recently.
Societal isolation is the only place of solitude. The only place he feels stable. He is strong away from all that he cannot do. Regulating the normative capability to his strength does little for his confidence. He is distraught and demoralised. His isolation is a protective scheme. Away from everything leaves all the expectation behind. Without engagement with the demanding outside world he can live freely. It is only with the engagement with otherness that his strength is met with expectation. No assistance just execution. In any aspect of life from family to profession. There are no free treats, deserve what is provided. Unlike a superpower this isn’t one that supplies any unique aid. It only deconstructs the physical and mental elements of existence. It tortures the soul. Isolation transitions to alienation. No need to be with others. Loneliness does straddle its satanic urge but solace is in solitude. The only one who understands his condition is himself. No doctor no parent no spouse. Yet his isolation is merely temporary while his condition permanent. He must live his life. Corralled in human development. He studies, works fucks. Whatever human need he must check off. There is little time to grieve and much time to haul ass.
His experience is quite different than others. He is in the same boat as others. Living routinely like his neighbours but he has that yoke breaking his collarbone. They are all in the cave but he is without a flashlight. It is pitch-black. He wanders aimlessly looking for a way out. He must get out or he will die. The cave is dangerous but he desires to live. So he continues to move forward on instinct. Crawling forward through sheer will. At each turn he either finds a passageway or a dead end. Yet for him the passageways have become increasingly less dramatic. The first few times, the passageways seemed to be a gateway to the castle. Gold-plated regal carpet flowed endlessly to the exit. Yet each time ended with despair. Each passageway led to another endless passageway or a dead end. Each moment of positivity or potential clarity ceased ever so quickly. With this impossible maze, passageways were taken periodically and unemotionally. Doing so simply to do it. Hit a dead end need to turn, it wasn’t without suffering. An endless maze bordering on the blasphemous. Disadvantaged and despondent, there is moot hope.
Life in the dark cave becomes adjustable. Not fun but passible. So long wandering the cave, what life outside the maze or even outside the cave is blurry. Memories are pictured but not experienced. What health felt like is a foregone conclusion. He can never feel the serenity of a painless existence. He is doomed to suffer. He accepts it but never can fully internalise it. Always holding out hope that somewhere there is an answer. That someone he will be cured. His greatest dream. A fiction, a figment of his imagination. Even in his dreams he never fully experiences the painless wonder. He truly only constructs a plausibility. The recesses of his mind conjure the past in the present fantasy but is beyond his conscience. His drunken state alleviates but it never is stable. It is never real. It is an altered mental state that numbs his credibility. The neurological framework is stunned yet he is not fully in control. His hard drive is haywire. It is a ruse, only optimal in the subconscious instinct. A lie based on an aspired fantasy. A fantasy with terrible consequences.
Suffering is his reality. Existence is a nuisance. Yet it is better than death. At least he can feel. Though feeling horribly is better than not feeling at all. Yet the tradeoff is the destruction of the self. A torture like no other. Feeling nothing may even be a blessing in some respects. Placed in anaesthesia, he can rest without qualms. Every minute of every waking hour he roars in agony. He may never vocalise his hurt but he is wounded. It grows tiresome to wallow. Tedious to sulk. Though no enlightenment follows the graceful bootstraps. He knows no other life. He has forgotten the old. He only recognises the maze. The darkness that engulfs him to perpetuity. He can never break free, chained to the painful illness injected into his body. Adverse reactions are side affects of the poison. The natural poison eating away at his sanity. Demoting his joy and beholding his sorrow. His anger flares while his calmness halts. A man of total solitude. Alone in the cave sitting down and relaxing. Acknowledging the absurdity and the shallow debris. There is no victory nor prize. Suffering is life and and there is no escape.
Worst of all is for those who do remember him prior to the illness. He forgets but they do not. Their minds access the memories of health. Their minds have not been obstructed. Colluded with clouded images of torture. An eternity in a matter of minutes. While they run through time effortlessly he hobbles with boulders attached to his ankles. They recall the brazen extrovert who has transformed into a lonely hermit. An introvert with little connection nor desire for outsiders. For them it is an instant, for him it is millennium. Time is linear but also relative. Quantity is symmetrical but quality is asymmetric. Perception of time differs. Each day is twenty four hours but to him it is longer. Suffering elongates his day. He is chastised in hell. A world far away and yet so close by. Punished for being born. Doomed from his conception. Yet he lives now. Protracted life. Immortality is not cinematic. Without invincibility longer life is just more heartache. It is no blessing to live long if life is atrocious. Long life is always accompanied with happy and healthy. For him, each day correlates to such dubious mantras.
His family fails to understand his dilemma. His is still existing. He can still execute. He should provide. As long as he can still see, can still move he ought to assist. Treating him as an equal. Such humanistic morals. Burdening him with expectations he surely cannot deliver. Even if he can, it is at the expense of his own depressing state. Their unapologetic incomprehension is a side affair. They see a mobile individual yet their view fails to account for the situation. Context thrown out the window. Demanding without measuring capability. He is in the maze and they continue to shout for him to follow their voices. They are so far away. They expect him to follow them but they are on different planes. Different parts of the maze. Failing to realise that he doesn’t have a torch. He is walking blindly and cannot tell from where they are calling. They fail to account for the difference in aptitude and conditioning. He thus suffers further from preconditions that he cannot fulfil. He lacks the tools but the tools are believed to exist even though they are absent.
Straddling the tightrope, he settles into his routine. Alone in the cave but he marches forward. The life he knows is tough but accepts its deficiencies. There is little else he can do. He showers his fate in flowers. He finds respite in his meditative sessions. He lingers in the absurd but such is his place in the game. He a pawn in the game of life. Branded deficient internally but acceptable externally. Awarding himself with reinforcement. Life is to live and he will counteract any false hope. He uses what he knows to his advantage. He may be disadvantaged but he is not weak. He may impaired but he is not stupid. He needs no pity just an antidote. He only desires freedom from the pain. He may have forgotten the feeling of freedom but that does not mean he cannot aspire for it. Enslaved for years, freedom may be a forgone sensation but it is not a forgone dedication. Liberation from the shackles exceeds the numbness manipulated by drunkenness. With freedom he no longer sips to stay alive, he drinks in salvation. Hydrated and healthy. Yet simply a dream.
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