Similar or Congruent?

By: Jonathan Seidel

Children and clones: satisfaction and difference (Baudrillard, 96-97)

Cloning has become a hot button topic. Beyond the phobic sci-fi fears, the reflection of clones may undermine the power of parenting. 

Whether it be human nature or generational lore, there is a deep interest in parenting. People like having children. It may be subconscious or externally imposed but the freedom of enjoyment upon many is to procreate. People take great joy in raising their children. While there are insufferable years and regret along the way, there is a deep linkage to providing for offspring. Procreation is a creature thing. Birds, fish and cows all procreate. There is a part of darwinism that ensures the species lives on. Yet with great intellect, the human mind unique in its unnaturalised creation differs heavily. Its evolutionary superiority questions the very basis of nature. It no longer wishes to live amongst the animals. Deserting to its own area defending against wild beasts. It classifies itself in its own world. Along the way in its bubble it cultivates its own culture and theories. These theories eventually become human centric They question the very essence of being. The very essence of nature. Inspiring a breech from the normative. 

The anti-natalist program desists in this regard. It provided an eerie perspective of reality. Life is suffering. Being born against one’s wishes is awful. Pain is horrible. The human mind collects pain like no creature in the world. No other animal processes pain like the human mind does. More than physical pain is emotional pain. Animals feel pain but it is less graphic than the human trepidation. The human is bred for an isolated box. It cannot revel in the simplicity of the natural world. It has exceeded the nature of humanity. No wonder the philosophers reigned supreme. They were the pinnacle of knowledge. In the modern age of information, it is the geeks who are singled out for high paying jobs. Revenge of the Nerds is corporate America. The smartest people are the richest people. This intelligence has created so much. Brought incredible technology and flourishing to human life but at the same time made man more complex. The more complex the more thought. The more thought the more pondering. The more pondering the more questioning. The more questioning the more second guessing. The more second guessing the more anxiety. The more anxiety the more depression. The human mind is a roll coaster to the abyss of pain. 

For all the greatness of the modern age it has also made people emotionally dependable. It is not about the IQ points but comprehension skills. People are more emotionally intelligent than ever. People are more in touch with their emotions. This is lauded as a good thing. People ought to be smarter and they ought to be more sensitive. For all this progress it also derails people. Stubbornness and desensitised feelings keep the mind in place. To us it comes off as cold hearted and devilish. How could a parent never say “I love you” to his child? How could he never hug him? To some degree there is a positive behind this. Being in touch with your emotions just means that one is open to feeling them not confronting them. To open the floodgates of the emotional hazard is to place oil next to a flammable object. To juggle electric rods in a pool. Ideally, the hope is to be balanced but that is not simple. People are overly induced by their emotions. Allowing their emotions to guide them through their journey. Their intelligence while profound is coloured by mental suggestions. To think is to care and to care is to feel. Such active intellectual engagement hurries the neurosis front and centre.   

People obviously felt in the past. They weren’t CIPA patients. They worked real hard and died often from illnesses. We today are fortunate that medicine has come so far only possible with the intellectual drive. It has been a double edged sword. Providing physical relief but not mental relief. Anguish is prominently of the emotional hard drive rather than physical exhaustion. Past people were depressed frequently due to the same horrifying situations that many today find themselves in. Yet despite the great ease of life and the wealth people are depressed. Unlike their ancestors they aren’t working for a king nor are they working in a factory. Their lives are easier but not always simpler. While some may characterise the simplicity as going to school going to work and so forth it isn’t that simple. That was the way of old. You followed a more or less fated regimen. The possibility of pluralism off endless opportunity strikes the young as confusing and difficult. It may sound odd to older folk but their hard line of projected life was seamless. It was direct and narrow. No deviation no questions. Mustering through pain and guilt but no more. Now it is all to be heard and all to be analysed. 

For Benatar to write about anti-natalism is to be a saint today but a fool decades ago. There is an element of religious dissuasion but there is also a go big go home archetype. One lives by the wits pulling themselves up from the bootstraps. To live was to struggle. While not necessarily promoted it was inferred that life was a challenge. An obstacle but one worthwhile to live through. The existentialist program decided to reevaluate the model of old. In hindsight of losing religious momentum, existentialists prioritised the self. The cynicism of Schopenhauer and the aspiration of Kierkegaard. The nihilism of Nietzsche and the absurdism of Camus. Sartre’s interpretation of existence precedes essence captured this feeling so well. The person himself needed reevaluation. Existence saw its own reflection with immense analysis. The person was to be deduced in light of the individualistic persona. A mirror of the individual’s own life impacted his own perspective and pathology. With human existence on the drawing board the perils of existence came to the forefront. 

Benatar’s argumentation comes on the heals of pessimists. While some of the existentialists sought clarity and peace in the troubling life. Acknowledging the difficulty yet seeking to overcome the challenge. To either exist within the troublesome atmosphere or somehow overpower its will. Others took pessimism to a different degree. Schopenhauer found the will—will of life—as a self preservation instinct for unsatisfiable satisfaction. Cioran aligned with the former’s asceticism though potentially even more extreme. Cioran challenged his own life whether it was worthwhile in the first place. Much satire and immense torment is complacent in his aphorisms. Pessimism slowly gained traction as existence gained more concentration. The more existence was refracted under the microscope the more scrutiny it would demand. Suffering has become a mainstay and mental health is shooting through the roof. Intellectual interpretations of suffering led to realising it beyond the self among animals and nature. Yet it also bounced back on the human experience. 

Human torment has devoted its time to unravelling the model of serenity. Pessimists have squarely projected a horrid picture. In keeping with moral initiative suffering was no longer a given. Less religious influence allowed taboos to become more earnest. While pro-choice advocates focus on bodily autonomy, Benatar focuses on pain. Advocates could argue against taking to term due to pain but their overarching argument is the supremacy of the pregnant body over the fetes’ viability. Benatar takes a step further and redirects the pain to the foetus who will be forced to live insufferably for the rest of his life. The decision to cause pain to others is sanctimonious and undesirable. Religion may obligate or promote procreation but parenting is not a right. Since such a right would supersede causing lifelong  damnation. Wish to have pleasure enjoy sex but don’t raise children for your own selfish goals. Do not burden a child with the horrors of the world. It would be interesting if we were only a few hundred strong but since we are seven billion, the moral side can win out in the technologically advanced world. Humanity today will live with such unfavourable odds but that doesn’t given permission to do that onto others knowing the consequences. 

Not too shockingly, Benatar also opposes cloning. Cloning is self indulgence and narcissistic. Yet this case of altruism seems to miss the point brought against tormenting the next generation. The clone if human will experience the same or somewhat of a similar experience of torment. If the clone has his own autonomy and intellect, he will endeavour to suffer through the trials and tribulations of the world. Just because he is a carbon copy does not make his existence in any way inferior to one’s own. If he is independent of the original and can experience freely he will suffer immensely. The argument against children is also against clones. Clones are by virtue either slaves to the self or subjugated to the whims of the desperate reality. Torment works on both sides of the aisle. To care for the moral potential other is for children who didn’t ask to be born and for clones who didn’t ask to be made. For Benatar if life is hell than any intellectual being is forbidden. Benatar is thus uniquely pro death instead of pro-choice as he favours not bodily autonomy but existential torture. He cares more for the foetus to not live for its own sake than for a woman to rid for her sake. 

Benatar does draw a parallel between the two. Neither is worse than the other, though it can argued a clone is better since your mental torment is subdued by experience over a non-living unknown. Though on the other hand giving a clone the mental torture you suffer from is deeply evil. It is knowingly giving another a disease whether selflessly or selfishly. If the time were to come whether to procreate or clone, the unknown may be a better moral option than giving the disadvantage to a reflection. The net-harm is worse to a mirrored ghost, knowing the outcome than to the unknown who may live better. The claim existence is a net-harm is not an objective truth but an opinion. Existence can be insufferable to everyone and yet be tolerated differently by each. It is more a spectrum. Those suffering find existence gnawing at their core while others shake it off quite easily. If a child may live better weather from adaptability, new life or a new environment it may be a better option than the clone who will reflect the tiresome reality of old. The stubbornness and neglect. Though the opposite can be true if the cloner is cheerful. Still as a rule the unknown and its jolly youth may have a higher probability. 

Fighting Benatar’s asymmetry argument the jolly youthful wonder will find more pleasure than a rusty old clone. The clone may be new model and independent but he shares DNA and personality for the most part. The child contains only half the DNA and the splurge of a young visionary to take the world before the horror sets in. For many children at least in today’s day, pleasure is the most common feat of adolescence. It is only when growing up does pain enter the fray rather harshly and quickly. It is not always true but adolescent brains are underdeveloped and do not process the mental torture in the same way adults do. It is Neverland until responsibility tackles the aspiring youth. Pleasure is always sought in different forms by all even chronic sufferers. For many the pleasure many fail in comparison to the pain which leads to suicide but there is nearly always some pleasure. Suffering lends to depressive thoughts that cloud pleasurable judgement. Tolerance assists in balancing the pleasure-pain scale. If the pessimist is that pain ought not to exist then there also no point to pleasure. Nature is pain but everyone does it. Whether humans or animals. 

It will be interesting to see how the pro-choice group answers the pro-death group if the latter’s numbers grow. The latter group cares little for bodily autonomy. One’s desire to be a mother means little if the pain outweighs the desire. If one wishes to get the new iPhone but in order to get the last one he needs to push through everyone, he may not do it because the harm and jail time would not be worthwhile. The dominance of the self in the way of modernity has been questioned by the existentialists. The individual is not only to answer for himself but for others. It is not about what is good for me but what I do to others. The return of communitarian aspects whether in the social or religious fields warrants response to these individualistic claims. Currently there is a lot of individuals moving freely in an acceptable bubble but that bubble will be popped if the harm to others is significant. Many libertarians are happy for people to do as they wish as long as they do not impose on others. Benatar seems to insist that procreation while not imposing on the rest of the nation is imposing on a defenceless child. 

Bodily autonomy retorts fall in line with the contemporary solutions. Yet how that fits with the efficacy of one’s own lineage is a different question. Is a child separate from one’s own? Would a clone be separate? The confines of one’s house does not discriminate. In a sense, beating a child is active harm while procreation is equal and at worst passive harm. Yet it may be the motherhood answer that takes the cake in pleasurable possibilities. A clone is the replica and needs no instruction maybe not even education. They are ready for the world and will suffer. Yet the child is protected provided care and pleasure. The natural order promotes procreation. It is the enlightenment that causes friction and self reflection to question its efficacy. It is an ability unabashed and undeniable. It is embedded in the human creation. The world is scary and difficult but the child prepared by parents devoted to the cause salvages the painful years. Nature endorses procreation not cloning. It is the readiness for solace. Tolerating the bad and internalising the good. Life is difficult but that doesn’t upend having children. The difference of child and clone is the difference between a maybe tortured life and tortured life. The clone has so much more to deal with existentially than the normal child.     

Bringing a clone is an existential horror show. If independent they will try to begin their own lives. Yet their lives are a reflection of the cloner. They are but a replica and second rate fake. It only causes the clone more apprehension and stress. He is a fraud, recognised as a double but never amounting to the original. The child is a product. A unique gem in the universe. There may be some expectation but it isn’t at the core of their being. It is their own identity that flourishes past their parents’ successes and failures. It is working on those pitfalls that gives the child the best option. He learns from his parental team. What did they do correctly and what did they do incorrectly. As he grows older he facilitates that education to his child. The child has his share of troubles which he learns from and is stronger from. The pain he learns in his youth is firepower for his life. Pain in the next sequence won’t be too bad given this or because pleasure has been this great. Education is gradual and generational. The clone doesn’t have that ordeal, it doesn’t have that novelty nor agenda. It remains a stranger in an identity based world. 

While selfish to some regard, the adult also needs some pleasure. Beyond self pleasure from exercise and sex, there is giving to others. Nothing more pleasurable than raising a child. Difficult but the mission and value in imparting wisdom to the next age. Responsible and entitled to do so. It is hard but in a world of pain it can be a place of pleasure. In the moment tiresome but reflecting how amazing. Some years will be extra tough but more often than night happy to enjoy the children’s presence. Watching them grow and develop. The child also enjoys his childhood and parental gifts. At times annoyed at their rules and his errors but overall happy with who he is. There is bullying and other ramifications but having friends playing in the backyard is a pleasurable thing that if he wasn’t alive he wouldn’t get. Non-existence to the ill may be a fair option. An understandable position. They have lived and enjoyed the pleasure but now it is too much and they’d rather be somewhere else. Anyone can take themselves offline. While it is greatly discouraged maybe that may be an option. If you wish to die that is your decision but at least have the enjoyment of the world. Bad things will happen but compared to the good it may be worthwhile until a point. 

The pro-death option while morally sound faces many criticisms. Procreation and parenting is natural. Nature may not be the nicest of friends but it is the reality of this world. Children not clones are given the chance to do so. If such anti-natalist would modify their opinion offer tablets that instantly kill painlessly and decide who can’t parent then maybe procreation isn’t so bad. For now these options don’t exist and maybe they never should. Overall the nature of existence while brute and unyielding has its gems. It isn’t all bad neither is it all good. Sometimes fate deals you a bad hand. Pain is everywhere and so is pleasure. It is a mindset insofar as experience doesn’t trample. To reckon with the pleasure of assisting another and seeing the plausible good is a risk but an educated risk that acknowledges the horror in store. 

Painful Peace

 

By: Jonathan Seidel

Ultimate presence: meditation and illness (Sacks, 46)

Goggins, Tate among other red-pill activists discuss putting yourself through pain. The chronic struggler ought to not listen to this given their audience is the privileged who do not feel pain.

The approach taken by the red-pill community is to rescue masculinity. On a basic level it is to take responsibility and lead a resourceful life. The definition of the archetypical vision for Adam to develop the land and himself. Before the world can be conquered, the self has to be readied for it. A way to better oneself is to exercise. Not only does exercise bulk up physically but it also realises endorphins elevating one’s demeanour. Feeling good after a tough workout. The immediate results of satisfaction ought to overrule the muscle mass intended. It is to feel accomplished more than look charming. There is an additional layer which is to place oneself in pain. A simple action, easy to do for everyone that encounters an obstacle. Push-ups are not easy. Competing to outdo the previous day. The first day may be a fail only succeeding on the third day. The accomplishment takes a lot of energy yet rejoice in the accomplishment. The accomplishment comes from pain and grit. It was tough but it was overcome. Trying to beat a personal record will inevitably experience pain as muscles tighten and fatigue sets in. A challenge to be initiated and overcome.

There is much positive science in exercising. Whether one needs to attend a gym or hire a trainer is a different story. The obsession with body type and a fresh look on the beach is the cinematic lore yet unnecessary for proper health. Exercise is a personal commitment to bettering one’s health. Putting in the time to be active and accomplished. An easy thing to do but a hard thing to execute. The benefits are present. The accomplishment to a degree beats out any other order of morning routine. Overpowering the pain which holds back the capability is jarring. Making one’s bed is a goal to be achieved but except for the nuisance in OCD level perfection, there is little resistance or really just mental resistance. Exercise has physical resistance attached. Sweat and willpower try to pull the bodyweight off the floor numerous times. Breathing heavily and sweating extensively. It is a unique accomplishment that contrasts with the inactivity of office life. The routine cyclical to sitting and typing. Speaking to clients and watching the news. Exercise is a world alone. A world of body movement and physical growth. Giving the brain a boost in enjoyment. Signalling the mind to laugh and rejoice.

The motto holds to put yourself in pain. Pain will help you grow. Exercise is intentional pain. Harming oneself to grow. The harm is immediate and temporary. The pain goes away within a few moments. Recovery may be longer for some, simple workouts are for growth. It is strengthening muscles instead of cutting them open. The healing is done as the body grows. Exercise isn’t wounding the body it is healing it. Exercise can also harm if overtrained but it is the movement that facilitates the growth. Exercises target the body to develop their strength. It isn’t wounding in the same context. The pain is awakening their slumber. They were once dwarf and now they are volcanic. The pain is positive in the acceleration of bodily development. The beauty that is endowed from the engagement is truly inspiring. It is a good way to start the day or end the day. Feeling accomplished and wholesome. Able to overcome the bodily limitations for new aspirations.

These red-pillers do not focus on the accomplishment but the pain. Feeling pain is good. It is good to be in pain. The pain is a way of recognising growth. The motivation is that the mind adjusts to pain and suffering, the body can outlast. The body can continue as long as the mind doesn’t interfere. Whether or not this is scientifically proven is irrelevant. The idea is to induce pain to grow. Through pain you develop further. Embracing pain is the slogan of the red-pill art. Pain is a response that restricts development. It is a threshold that can be breeched. It is good to be in pain because that means you’ve descended into the darkness. That means you’ve opened yourself up to the challenge. A way into the abyss that threatens one’s comfort. Exercise is an easy step into discomfort and disgrace. Getting down on all fours and perpetually trying to lift yourself up is challenging. A solo obstacle that is completed by the self for the self. A welcoming introduction to personal transformation. A momentarily struggle for long term effects. 

It is this idea that is then cemented as the lifestyle. The biblical Adam was punished to suffer and since then man has struggled to survive. Yet with technological advancements life has been made simpler. Less death and more prosperity. Imperfect but on an upwards incline despite the media panic to sensitise gullible viewers. Yet an unchallenged life is one un-lived. The challenges of modern life do not meet the medical and political obstacles of old. There are new difficulties that need to be overcome. A good start is with exercise. A personal investment in a simplistic obstacle. One that can be adapted and refined as the individual develops. Though the question is, less is life a struggle and more do we create struggle. Most obstacles are reactionary. They loom at you as a part of life whether that be school or work. Proactive challenge is another case. Exercising is one and reading is another. Comprehending complex ideas is a mental game that though does not build the physique does expand the mind. It does bring emotional positivity in the same manner. No blood or sweat but still growth and development. Mental aches from long reading and reconciling will occur. To some degree the onset of pain inducing is necessary even a required matter of man but there are of course limits.

Struggle will find you. It is only a matter of time. It is good to train to ready oneself for that moment. Exercise and reading may help deflect the challenge. It is akin to a vaccine. The vaccine poisons the body to strengthen itself to fend off the disease. Exercise and reading wound the self to strengthen itself to fend off obstacles. Yet their model of struggle is nuanced. People are to struggle but they are to induce it. Exercise or even work itself in may aspects is proactive punishment. Facing a challenge head on is many a time a consequence of one’s own initiative. Diseases are different. They plague the body with pain. This is not periodic pain but eternal damnation. For the red-pillers life may not be about happiness but there is a notion of recovery. Sleep or resting periods are allocated to prepare for the next obstacle or step in the obstacle. They embrace the pain each time by knowing they can stop it. They do not need to feel the pain but choose to do so. Pain may be inevitable but it is largely periodic. Unless the pain shouldered is ignored and perpetuated with passivity. The average person can choose to not feel pain. Live their comfort and their serenity. Pain may come for them in the long run but they can enjoy the current peace. Pain is periodic in both examples but it is better to ready oneself for the pain so the thunderbolt is thwarted instead of struck.

It is easy to embrace pain when the opposite is possible. When comfort is as easy as putting down the hammer. Coercion may be set but stopping can always be chosen. The pain may end in death but it is gone. It is a furnace that one puts their arm into. A choice to endure the trauma rather let it grow larger and terminate. Yet the chronic struggler does not have this possibility. He is eternally suffering. His life is suffering. He doesn’t choose to suffer but is imbued with a metaphysical punishment. His body is working the land hard without his permission. His body labours to destroy his mind. Embracing pain means nothing to him. He is in pain. It doesn’t empower him. Maybe when he recovers but if he doesn’t, the lingering pain will destroy him. He keeps his head above water treading to stay afloat. His pain is incalculable. Exercising is a tumultuous task. Pain is not something bestowed but something imposed. It is devilish and pernicious. Happiness doesn’t exist. He cannot choose to shed the yoke. It is implanted in his skin only disarming when his heart stops. Life is to suffer on personal ambition not on passive aspirations.

It is akin to meditators who seek to be present. Those who have struggled to free their minds of their lower halves. Freeing themselves of the emotional invasion. Faltering time and time again. Unable to hold the momentum for too long. Trying to hold one’s breath for an extended amount of time. Slowly he improves with each passing try. One minute turns into two minutes but there is a limit. He is a man without gills. He cannot survive for too long or he will undoubtably drown. As his breathing begins to perish, his body alerts him to rise for air. Any man eternally underwater will drown. Any man with desires cannot be present. He is distracted by the chaos of life. Just as he cannot breathe underwater before his lungs give so too his can concentrate until his mind gives. He can go so far but limited.

After failing he hears of a fellow who is eternally present. Curious of this fellow he travels to meet this guru. He visits him and asks of his teachings. His heart swells up, marvelled at this guru’s tenacity and stillness. He gathers himself and politely inquiries: What is the secret? How do you do it? The guru mocks him. Laughs in his face. The meditator cries out for some wisdom. The guru calms himself and provides a few words of advice. The meditator confused, thanks the guru and returns home to implement the advice. A week goes by and he gets nowhere. He returns to the guru and the asks what went wrong the guru perplexed at the meditator tells him an alternative measure. The same process occurs. Annoyed of his lies, the meditator asks an orderly the nature of this deceptive guru. The orderly answers that this is a part of his condition. His advice was shrewd because he is ill. His guru capabilities are due to an illness that also immobilises his awareness. He wasn’t lying he was replying to your dubious questions.    

The meditator’s guru suffered a haemorrhage that damaged his frontal lobe. The guru’s ashram was his hospital bed in the local asylum. He had perfected the skill but that had left him stuck in the present. He didn’t know the past or the future. The mockery was from an instinctive partaking of reality. He didn’t comprehend the meditator’s goal only that he could trick and tease him. The ashamed illness took away everything from the guru. He is solely in the moment. There is no recollection of his past nor does he dream of the future. What he thinks about is rare. Only partially lobotomised. To many spiritual adherents he has reached the pinnacle of serenity. Such life is serene. Concerned with much to nothing. Calm and transparent with his life. He doesn’t think much nor do he endeavour in any means. Alone and content with his condition. Less chosen and more coercive. The patient is nearly a vegetable with neurotransmitters enhancing selective aspects of brain activity. His attitude reflects his illness. The illness has pathologically stolen much of who he is. His fearful nature and combative element. He exists in a higher sphere without animal instinct. Without strong emotional turmoil. It is all peaceful and yet horrifying for the onlooker. He resides in an asylum isolated from society. Unaware of his own decadence. 

 

He was no guru just a broken man, though deeply unaware of his brokenness. A patient in a hospital and a subject to his illness. The meditator sought his wisdom to attain the perfection he had. Yet the perfection was itself an imperfection. It was a single skill without the other. Some autistic children are geniuses. Their genius is highly selective to a specific genre whether be facts or figures. While this isn’t common across the spectrum, there are seemingly savant characteristics that stem from their disability. Able to see things that others do not given their detraction. It is their illness that gives rise to this capability. By taking away social capability for some, they are rewarded with intellectual capability. In the same regard, his presence was at the expense of his recognition of all else. Time was monolithic to his conscious projection. Within minutes he would forget the prior moment. He could not break free of this curse. The meditator can choose to be present and then choose not to. He can temporarily tune down his frontal lobe and then turn it back on. While a challenge to overpower the frontal lobe and tune out the emotional pressure it can be achieved. Yet once he is ready to return to everyday life he can make out noises and recall the prior events. A choice to be present. The periodic inducing allows for presence while others would be a part of the world. The ill is stuck in an endless movement though aspired to is deadly.

Red-pill ideology fails to assist the ill in the same manner. The pained life is not something that can be shut off or ignored. It is ever present and ever deploring. While challenges can be too much and revisited, the pained cannot. Endurance is of the same regard throughout. Preoccupation with disease becomes a more challenging effort than other societal obstacles. The red-pill sufferer chooses to be pained yet for the moment. He finds different obstacles, confronted and powers through. Once the obstacle is overcome the pain withers. He can always neglect the project, stop midway. There is a way out of pain. Not for the ill. Embrace pain when it comes because it will go away. The ill know all too well this is flawed. The healthy can withstand but not the all day everyday pain. That doesn’t go away. When confronted with an obstacle the pain increases pain and when overcome the extra pain subsides. It is all relative. 

Happy Hobbies

By: Jonathan Seidel

Illness changing personality and hobbies: the harsh reality of the new life (Sacks, 34)

Illnesses play tricks on the mind. They alter brain chemistry and destroy social collaboration. Hobbies cease and new ones forms. Illnesses change people. For better or worse. The person you once knew is no longer. Their appearance may be similar but their expression is different.

The physical dimension of illnesses isolate the individual from his pack of friends. Forced to frequent medical assistance, he is no longer present. His absence is felt yet routinely substituted. The void is eventually filled. A best friend who moves to a far country leaves a hole to be filled. The space he has accustomed is now shallow. Just empty fallow land to be farmed. His absence is felt immediately. No more can you talk to him or spend time with him. There is now free time to your own instruments. In time, the friend is replaced with a new best friend completing the category. This friend grows on his own without communication. At the reunion a few years later he has changed. It was gradual for him but to you it is a stark transformation. Affected by the stimuli there he changes. So too with the ill. The ill don’t realise their own transformation. For them it is part of the process. Yet for the friends it is quite a shock. Then again it is a part of distance and time. People will inevitably grow. If you don’t see them for some time, the progress is missed and only the shocking alteration is noticed.

Beyond the platitude of distance is also the situational effects. The friend who moves away is impacted by his new town, school, and friends. The new culture pounces upon and forces him to conform. He acts differently since he is exposed to a varied culture. He speaks a different language and interacts with a unique culture. All this alters the perception of him. He looked native in his youth but his growth in an alternate culture is overshadowed by his appearance. He is the same boy just grown up. Just educated in the foreign culture than one’s own. Yet to him, you have also changed. The stimuli he left have no glaring impact but they do on you. You adapted into your culture and he into his. The ill develop through their doctoral visits. Through the pain. Their isolation medicinally is thoroughly physically demanding. They gradually develop in response to the treatment provided. Yet at the reunion they seem to be different people. They have greatly altered their life philosophy. It seems so quick, so swift but it is a gradual transition. Boarded up in the hospital or at home. 

Absence does make for unknown alterations. Circumstances do their part in gradually informing that change. Their attitudes shift with their endless medicinal consequences. Affecting their personality as well. They become despondent. Interacting less and less with others. Even if they do show up for a weekly meal, their demeanour has changed. Yet that is solely in the first appearance since their isolation. Consistency breeds static. The immense alterations are mellowed in the premature intervals interacted. Their prolonged demise is mishandled and overlooked. They have changed but that is the extent. The limit is the doctoral examination. The gradual decline is faint and forlorn. Unexpected from the observer. They see the ill weekly. Keeping tabs unable to see the impending disastrous demise. There may be a hint of discolouring but the slow shaded white is missed. They do not see the pigment change. Failing to see the magic exploited. A wrecking ball with no stopping it. Content with the current transformation. Unaware of the immediate change yet to come. The ill do not remain stationary. They either heal or grow sicker. Healed will at times bring more spirt but the opposite will only harbour less energy fading into the blackness of night. 

The ill are aware of the slow decline. Scary but recognisable. They reckon with their transition. Whether that be a new routine or hobby. Others curiously observe from afar with little adherence to engage. Questions may be raised but no red flags. It is a part of a new you but similar to the you they knew. It isn’t quite as different. It doesn’t shock them. Yet for the ill it is a big step. Each step is a step toward the next joint. They see an appearance. They hear about the condition. Yet they know almost nothing about the experience. The experience is the ill’s and thus the new hobbies are perceived transformative in his eyes not in their eyes. They find it cute, he finds it crucial. The routine of life cycles his interactions with others. He acts somewhat varied but it’s all in good faith. He is accepted for his slight difference. It is hardly noticed. Even when it is, the illness plays its role as a fluke. This isn’t permanent. It is a bump in the road. He’ll be back to normal in no time. He is just going through a tough time. A tough day but tomorrow will be different. They fail to understand the magnitude of the situation. His alterations are seminal. They are a byproduct of his illness but permanent in their engrossment on his soul. Tattooed a new personality. 

His new hobbies are isolated personas. While he acts quite understandably with his fellas, the moment he is alone all the walls come down. His new hobbies are drugs for his rapid insanity. To ensure his survival. Beating the dreadful psychosis. They seem minute in others’ eyes but an antidote to him. His hobbies are more cherished than his friends. They are purposeful in accepting him as their master. An illness that projects joy in the most mischievous of ways. The colourblind prefers the nighttime. Becoming a night owl, a revolutionary nocturnal figure. He wishes to engage in the new world that possesses him. The night understands him. It provides cover. A haven for his detrimental condition. Finding solace in its protective attention. Heading out to party in the early morning. Fully awake and fully enjoying racing on the open freeway. For him, the new normal is perfect for him. He’d rather sleep in the day shielding himself from the disorienting colours than suffer. He has found a friend. The moon shines its beautiful light onto his shoulders. Pain is avoided in the recesses of a book. An alcoholic beverage that numbs the terrible illness saving his sanity from the nightmares.

Preoccupation with these new hobbies does wonders to his personality. While isolation had its impact on social matters so does his hobbies. Whether that be reading a book or hiking. Depending on the event it may strengthen his resolve or offer new skills. A fervent reader may expand his vocabulary wooing his parents and perplexing his friends. A hiker may build some muscle extending his physique. It is all relative. Yet unlike the average benefiter, the hobbies are salvation. They are not a simple distraction from the tedious afternoons but from immense suffering. Clinging to these hobbies as a safety net. Become a night owl or a bookworm. Tragic but  necessary for existential serenity. The illness becomes a lifeline. The medication is the hobby. If colour will be snatched then the night will be welcomed. Turning oneself into the illness’ direction. The illness is being conquered but at the same time coercing his habits. Trying to turn over a new leaf. He ascends to tackle the problem head on yet the new leaf is itself a distraction. A double-edged sword that provides benefits as well as hurls him into the furnace.

Hobbies are intrinsically related to behaviour. Insofar as they radically manipulate the individual. The object becomes the subject’s concern. While the colourblind thinks he is conquering his condition by travelling out at night, he is giving into his condition. His condition has forced him to be a night light. Yet at the same time, he is choosing to be active than passive. Choosing to go out instead of laying depressed in bed. The crippled cannot conquer his condition by magical healing or going for a run. He cannot overcome the limitation but he can still work alongside what he is capable of doing. Restricted physically but surpassing the mental barrier. Hobbies are a method of distraction but active expression. Distraction but productive in personal growth. The colourblind is forced to head out in the dead of night. Yet the quiet bliss is enjoyable. He finds nighttime serene and beautiful. He finds old classic cinema to be marvellous. While many of his friends mock the black and white films, able to appreciate the visual projection, these classics become all time favourites milking their prowess. Finally recognising the prestige of Citizen Cane and 12 Angry Men. He is no longer obsessed with appearance in the same regard. Instead of heading to the bar after a long night his nights are ever more constructive. 

Falling into these hobby routines are transformative. His perception is deepened. His mind expanded. Able to understand the world in a new way. Though it need not be as experiential as a night owl. A cripple who unable to travel, picks up reading to pass the time will enhance his vocabulary and broaden his worldview. So much literature that can provide new insights into history, philosophy or psychology. Friends may grow accustomed to his absence during the day or his walking stick but his evolving perception that differs due to his unique hobby strikes them as odd. Praising old classics or the nuance of nightlife is credibly peculiar to the average millennial. It is the small things whether by topic or by terminology. Yet for the ill it is an enlightenment insofar as it is a protection. The point is the change that derives from irregularity. From a pinpointed hobby that is immersed intensively. The sufferer searches for hope and salvation. Hobbies are sought to bring tranquility. These hobbies are clung to. It is their immersion that engulfs the ill transforming them from motionless to engaged. Accepting fate and finding a route to curb the emotional and physical torture. 

Meaningful Sympathy

By: Jonathan Seidel

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.