Damozel: The Disquieting Damozel.

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 10:28:21 GMT

I am relocating my blog to the following address:

http://theflatlandalmanack.typepad.com/ (THE FLATLAND ALMANACK)

I will continue to maintain this site and everything posted here but will do all my further posting there!

Do stop by for a visit!

Trying for equilibrium

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:30:53 GMT

Hi! I've moved to a new address. To jump to updated versions of the Flatland Chronicles (plus new artwork!), click on this link!

Trying for equilibrium.

A long time ago, when I was studying philosophy in college, I got into an impassioned argument with a young professor I didn't like very much or take very seriously. I can't even remember now what the argument was about. I was interested in---as in "fanatical about"---the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead at that particular time; I don't remember the professor's particular field of study.

I remember that he became rather flushed; and eventually he lost his temper. "This is a philosophy course," he said. "It is the study of ideas. Why is it so important to you to believe or not believe in a particular system? I am not trying to convert you to a new religion. To do this well, you need to develop some detachment. Do you really believe that what Whitehead said is true? And how do you know that it is? That's part of what we're discussing here: not the truth of the idea, but the processes by which we attempt to assess the extent to which it appears to reflect reality."

That brought me up short because the fact is, I didn't believe that what Whitehead said was true---at least not in the sense in which some people believe, say, in the truth of the Resurrection. I wanted his view of the universe to be the right one; it was a beautiful thing, his cosmology, and left room for God without requiring him to get personal with his creation. Which at the time was what I wanted to believe.

One of my classmates argued that that truth was a construct of the human mind; something that doesn't exist in nature---because nature has no need of it. Later, that's what I came to believe: at least, as much as I ever believe anything. Studying Chinese philosophy helped rid me of some of the burden of having to believe or disbelieve in the reality of some particular "truth." It helped me realize the irrelevance of belief and disbelief. If something exists, it doesn't need my belief to sustain it. Furthermore, it's possible to contemplate an idea and even to live by it without concluding that it is true. The first words of the Tao te Ching are: The way that can be told is not the true way.

In my spiritual life, this is how I balance my will to believe against my modern scepticism. I think that eastern way of stepping back from an idea or construct without feeling the need to step into it, as it were---to live in it----was what allowed me at first to entertain (as in "try this on for size") some of the stranger aspects of Christianity I had previously rejected: the Resurrection, for example, but not only that. That same detachment allows me to entertain both the notion that it is true and the notion that it is not with equal complacency and without the least fear of divine retribution. I could cite authority in the Gospels to support my thesis that this is the only way to come to an understanding of what Christ meant by "the kingdom of heaven" but....I'm not going to. At least not now.

Right now, I am trying to understand and come to terms with the great anger I felt yesterday and my desire to assign blame. Stepping back from my own time and my own life, what can I say about the death and carnage in Lebanon? Can I say that it was Israel's fault? Can I say that it was the fault of Hezbollah? Can I say that it was the United States'? As for all serious questions about the reality, the correct answer to all questions is both yes and no.

You can always assign fault if you look only at a particular act at the time it occurred---at a given moment, so-and-so launched the rocket that laid waste to the ancient city of Qana---but is that the answer to the question of who is to blame? What about the moments that preceded that moment, and the whole complicated web of interlinked causes? How far do you go back in looking for the responsible party and in assigning blame? A particular moment such as that one has its root causes in acts that were performed generations back.

The law recognizes and distinguishes the concepts of a "cause in fact" and the "proximate cause" when allocating responsibility. I'm not sure it's possible or right to do that when allocating blame in a quarrel with roots as deep as these.

Yesterday I had to confront what we don't often have to look at here: the mad, raddled, and irremediable consequences of the consistent ability of human beings, individually and collectively, to value ideas over other people. It's a misanthropy so deeply ingrained and so hard-wired in that we don't even notice it; it doesn't even strike us as strange: ideas matter more than other people.

I suppose it must be the blight humankind was born for: if you want to get Biblical, that's been the theme since God and Lucifer first fought over whether creation itself was a good idea or a bad one. Later, Christ died for an idea.

The sad facts of the damage inflicted are all that we can ascertain. We can count corpses; but we can't tally up the losses. Those go on and on.

I, at least, need to refrain from meting out judgment. The wrong on both sides is grievous. The question is not who is to blame---even if it can be answered; the answer is useless as anything but a spur to further violence--- but whether the parties can be brought to believe that the ideas that are driving them are not worth the price you pay when you kill someone.

The path away from judgment is empathy---the sort of love I have always believed Christ intended to require in the gospels.

Before judging, you have to try to stand in the other's shoes. Which of course makes it impossible to judge.

Furthermore you have to bear in mind at all times the possibility---not easily processed by westerners brought up on "Aristotelian" modes of on/off logic---that in any given situation, it's quite possible for both sides to be wrong and for no one to win.

Which is the case here, I think.

The Unbearable Hostility of Hospital Waiting Rooms

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 05:42:08 GMT

Hi! I've changed addresses! To jump to the updated version of this posting, please click on this link.

Your Health Care Provider Secretly Hates You: The Unbearable Hostility of Hospital Waiting Rooms

Yesterday was not a good day for journaling. At 8 AM Nick had to have a certain medical procedure, inconvenient and uncomfortable, but unserious, so naturally I had to go with him. The procedure ended up taking the whole of the morning---a whole morning of me sitting in the waiting room in a chair that managed to be both unpleasantly straight and oddly unsupportive of the lumbar spine. Mine was out, so it was torture. Plus I was a little worried; when a family member undergoes a procedure, one always is, a little.

Do the designers of hospitals have a brief to make waiting rooms as unpleasant as possible for those waiting? The waiting room where I had to sit for two hours this morning was positively plush compared to the ER waiting room of the same hospital, where I had to wait much, much longer (and I was the person who was ill).

I really do resent the dead-eyed treatment you get from most medical personnel these days; do they have to rub it in by making the patient and the patient's family suffer as much as possible? I've come to the conclusion that the psychology of ER waiting rooms is designed as a deterrent to people who might otherwise come in for really trivial problems as well and to street people who might otherwise come there to sleep.

But is this wise? I would rather die than go to the ER. I probably would die rather than go to the ER. Several months ago, I had a series of symptoms that caused me definite concern and that worried Nick as well. "I'd better take you to the emergency room," Nick said. But there was no way I was going, unless I was hauled off unconscious in an ambulance. A couple of past experiences of sitting on their cold straight-back naughahyde chairs in a room with tile floors where you couldn't get away from the TV no matter how ill you felt....those were enough.

Why can't they do better for the pathetic souls who have to sit and wait---either to receive care themselves (miserable) or for a family member who is in the hands of the medicos (even more miserable)? Why don't they take steps to make what is already a stressful and painful experience just that little bit more bearable? It would be so simple: put a carpet on the floor to muffle the noise; either set aside a space where people can watch TV or else set aside a place where they have the option not to hear it would be a good start. (Listening to Fox News doesn't exactly alleviate stress for me).

And why NOT somewhat more comfortable chairs---chairs that would allow you to lean backward wearily and take a nap if you need to---along with some straight backed chairs and a table or two for people with laptops who want to use the time they'd otherwise be killing? Why is that so much to ask?

Why not lease space to a Starbucks or a bookstore or something?

If I lived somewhere like England or Canada where I didn't have to pay for health care, I'd be less bitter and resentful of the treatment (or nontreatment) that patients receive. But today's procedure---which, mind you, is covered by insurance---cost us personally a whopping nondiscretionary after-tax $390 that we can ill afford. For $390, an airline would treat us just as shabbily, but would at least take us someplace we wanted to go and had a choice about traveling to.

In fairness, the place where I waited today wasn't anything like as bad as the emergency room in the same hospital. Perhaps the fact that we had an appointment is considered by the hospital to entitle us to somewhat better waiting facilities. True, the TV was blaring loudly in the background and the chairs were terrible, but there was a carpet and some attempt at 'decor.' It wasn't a horrible cold white vault. There was a refreshment room with a table off to the side where I could have used my laptop. So that's a start.

And although Nick's doctor was pretty unconcerned about making it clear how little he cared about pretending this trivial little procedure mattered to him, the nurses and other personnel were amazingly friendly. I was really surprised because my own experience with ER personnel at this hospital is that they are pretty fucking unconcerned with either patients or families. This lot were wonderful.

In an entirely different emergency room in another state, I sat and waited for four hours in a cold white hell while my mother was undergoing tests. There was a young girl sitting near me who was slowly crying into her hands. I think she was waiting for care. Not a single member of staff so much as asked her if she was in pain or needed to lie down somewhere. Disgusting. I'd have complained, except my mother---who still intimidates me!---shook her pointy little finger at me and said, "DON'T YOU DARE." It's her town and her hospital and she has to go there a lot. I didn't want to ruin it for her, so I kept my mouth shut.

I think patients of medical facilities need to be much more vocal about ill-treatment by the operatives and by the implied insult of horrible uncomfortable and cold surroundings. Doctors need to get over themselves. They are highly paid technicians who provide a necessary service. And hospitals are expensive waiting facilities. They all ought to pretend to care about the comfort of both patients and families and yet they don't. And they couldn't care less whether the people to whom they provide service mind

It's up to the consumers to start letting these places know they aren't satisfied with the standard of service. We pay a lot of nondiscretionary income for these services that NOBODY wants. At least we could insist on the dignity of moderately comfortable surroundings in which to suffer.

RELATED POSTINGS:

Epilepsy. It’s Like this: Bzzzzt!

Antic Panic.

Paging Dr. Zed!

Your Health Care Provider Secretly Hates You: The Unbearable Hostility of Hospital Waiting Rooms.

Drawn by Mr. Tenniel; painted by Damozel!

Homeless Bloggers

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:07:28 GMT

Hi! I've changed addresses! To jump to the updated version of this posting, please click here.

Homeless Bloggers: What's It's Like.

At Blogger Buzz I came across a posting that linked to this article at Wired News--"Laptops Give Hope to the Homeless"---explaining how homeless people can use blogging to re-connect with the world. There's also an excellent article at Salon.com about homeless blogger Kevin Barbieux.

Homelessness is a subject that causes me extreme anxiety if I stop to think about it. One of my dear friends is intensively involved in working with the homeless. Joe is a person of extraordinary grace, and also tact, who has no trouble looking another human being in the eye, without regard to the person's status. I am certain that he would address a homeless person, an A-list celebrity, the President, the prime minister of England, the Nobel prize laureate, and God with exactly the same equanimity. He is one of those people who can look suffering and humiliation in the eye, which is something that I have decided I must teach myself to do.

But the notion of a person living on the streets causes me intense anxiety. I worry a lot about my old age and whether I will survive it (hee). I am basically a contented person and I try very hard to like what I've got without coveting what I don't, but it's hard not to covet financial security. I do wonder what would happen to me if---God forbid; being widowed once ought to be sufficient---I outlive Nick and become ill or disabled.

The hardest part of looking directly with the homeless is realizing that they could be me. Some are just like me.

I think most of us are in denial about the people who have no place to go. We need to believe that there is something different about them; that for some reason they have chosen this life (or it has chosen them) because of some fatal flaw. But I have a fatal flaw: I find it difficult to help accept from anyone else. I do not like to be beholden. I'd rather live on the streets.

But what would that be like?

Postings at Blogger Buzz connected me to two blogs by two people, an English woman and an American man, who have gone through the failure-wringer----as in all the way through. They are very different people; but if you are willing to endure the pain, both can tell you if you're brave enough to listen exactly what it's like to stand in their shoes.

First, there is Wandering Scribe. No longer homeless, she got access to the net through libraries and such facilities. The theme of her life while homeless was shame; a constant contrivance not to be noticed by those who still had connections. She used blogging (when she can get to a computer) as a means of staying connected to the world.

[quote from Wandering Scribe's blog begins]

February 2006. For the past five months I have been living alone in a car at the edge of the woods — jobless and homeless and totally unable to find a way out of it. I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't scream loudly enough, alI I can do is write. So here I am laying down tracks...hopefully the start of an online paper trail out of here.

[quote from Wandering Scribe's blog ends]

"Wandering Scribe," her blog of survival at the fringe, is here. It's written with British reserve and occasional wry humor; the tone when she speaks of her rootless life is dry and detached, untinged by self-pity though her shame leaks through. She can write.

She has now found a place to live. But she hasn't forgotten what it was like to be on the streets or what it is like now for other people.

[quote from Wandering Scribe's blog begins]

There were boiling hot days like these when I first slept out in the car.....[S]ometimes, when it had been there collecting heat all day, the car's metal could burn bare skin and the interior was full of exhausting, nauseating, oven-hot heat, unbearable, the kind you have to physically force yourself to get in to: my hair would frizz, my body stick to the seats, grimy sweat from walking about all day would slide in greasy streams and collect in hot pools underneath me, and the inside of my head throbbed with constant headaches from breathing the hot, dry air full of car fumes. ....I gulped down bottles and bottles of the tap water I kept under the seat, always more than luke-warm by then, and with nowhere to shower and nowhere to cool off, dreaded another day of it, and another night of willing myself, exhausted, to sleep across the heated car seats after it. Hot days as extreme as the cold ones, and in ways just as bad. ....

In this sizzling heat, there are plenty of people out there sleeping in their cars, people trying to make themselves invisible, finding a way to get through. But even I, sleeping out there in August and the beginnings of that false promise of an Indian summer we had last year, before the cold came, and more recently during those first shockingly hot days of May, don't know how they do it on a day like today.

[quote from Wandering Scribe's blog ends]

BBC Online has published two articles about her: the original article that made her a celebrity of sorts and a follow-up. She's been interviewed by the New York Times; you can hear the interview at her site. She has a book deal and her site has been nominated for a major award.

It's the sort of story that is all too likely to make Americans like me sigh with relief---see, we don't have to do anything about her! And the Lord does help those who help themselves! And anyway, she's English!

Of course it IS a relief; it's a relief to know that the intelligent and articulate who lose the path can make their way back again via a paper trail. The thing is: what about all those others she mentions? The ones who would strike as deranged, unwashed, thoroughly unattractive, the dregs of humanity? Who are uneducated and smell bad; or who are illiterate?

Well, never mind, they're English too. Not our problem!

But what about our own?

For your consideration: an American story, less lonely and hopeless and heart-wrenching than Wandering Scribe's, but in its way just as grindingly painful. Michael Brown of Greensboro, North Carolina, near where I used to live, started a blog called View from the Sidewalk. Unlike Wandering Scribe, he didn't start it until after he had started to find the way back. But he's still not out of the woods---I imagine that for a person who has once been homeless, there is a sense in which one is NEVER ought of the woods---and like Wandering Scribe, he can really tell the story, give you the real raw taste of his shame and anger. His writing is less polished; and it is anything but detached. He testifies.

He and his family were evicted; and though they didn't have to sleep out on the street, they had to do what I would like even less: accept help from relatives and friends. I can totally imagine being in his place if I lost my job.

This article at News-Record.com sums up his story in pertinent part:

[quote from Greensboro paper begins]

Brown, who works part time at a Kohl's store, said he has been looking for other work. He was a graphic designer for 13 years until he was fired from a job in 2003 -- for what reason, Brown said, he doesn't know. He hasn't been able to find another job in the field and has worked various jobs or freelanced since.

The bills began to mount, and eviction came Feb. 9 for the family, which includes Brown's wife, 17-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter. A 20-year-old son is already on his own.

The family packed as much as they could into a 16-foot truck, and the contents of their home are now in a 10-by-20-foot storage space....

The Browns and their 17-year-old son stayed in hotels and with family in Durham. Their daughter also stayed for a week with a friend's grandmother. Brown said his family never spent a night on the street.

Still, the family struggled to find help. On his blog, Brown details going through a confusing maze of government agencies and groups that he said were not much help.

"We tried to plan, but it's hard when you have no experience doing it," he said.

Finally, a counselor at his daughter's elementary school recommended the Guilford Interfaith Hospitality Network, which coordinates churches to feed and house homeless families. The Browns and their two youngest children are now receiving help from the group.

[quote from Greensboro paper ends]

He hasn't been as unfortunate as Wandering Scribe or as (ultimately) fortunate. He's still struggling with both his circumstances and his emotions.

Michael Brown is a reflective man who thinks hard about the meaning of what's happening to him and who can speak firsthand about the sour aftertaste of failure, but who also brings that American belief in the power of a determined man to create change for himself:

[quote from Michael Brown's blog begins]

Speaking of guys in Jags, I did some thinking this morning while cleaning the kitchen* and my mind wasn't otherwise occupied. I recalled feeling a wave of resentment when I saw the guy in the Jag the other day. I asked myself why. Why did I feel resentment at the Jag driver? Had he harmed me or my family personally? No. Was I jealous? No. Was he a lawyer, and therefore worthy of my scorn**? Insufficient data. He could've just as easily been a doctor, an accountant or a university official. Was he driving recklessly, or otherwise endangering society? No.

Then why the heck was I so resentful?.... After pondering it a bit, I realized that the reason I was so resentful was that this guy represented all the possibilities I had either missed, squandered or overlooked. He had what he wanted. I didn't. Not sufficient reason to resent someone I didn't even know, sure. But enough to make me think through the reason I resented him.

As a result, I realized I didn;t really resent the Jag guy at all; I resented myself for not being him, and resented myself for having a hardscrabble life. The first I can't do anything about, but the second? Well, there's still time (even though I'll be 44 in less than two weeks). I can still go to training, or luck into a job comperable to the one I had at Trone. Hell, who knows? I might even hit the Powerball.

[quote from Michael Brown's blog ends]

He fends off self-pity and struggles with the same tendency to inertia all of us feel when we struggle and nothing seems to be about to come of it. He is wearily cognizant of American attitudes toward the poor and acknowledges that he himself feels impatient with some of them.

[quote from Michael Brown's blog begins]

[T]here are too many of us poor who think that it's cool to simply lay back and let the rest of society take care of them. All they do is give the rest of the poor a bad image by (what?) perpetuating a stereotype. There are many poor who struggle every day with jobs, health and child care, yet the image many in society see is the lazy, shiftless person who could work, but won't, and who uses the welfare system as a first course of action, not a last resort safety net. Sadly, I've run into too many of these people myself. But I take comfort in the fact that they're more rare than many political pundits would have you believe.

I try not to be lazy, but I have my days... Still, even though I take some welfare myself (food stamps and Medicaid, primarily for the kids) I'd rather pay my own way, so that I won't have to keep proving I'm poor to various and sundry social workers. On that note, some developments are occurring that I don't want to say too much about for fear of jinxing things. Stay tuned.

[quote from Michael Brown's blog ends]

He also says:

[quote from Michael Brown's blog begins]

Yes, I realize I could be worse off than I am; no, I'm not owed a damn thing; yes, I think that more people of means could be helping those of lesser means more; and no, I'm not going to shut up about the poor and homeless. Jesus said we will always have the poor with us; nowhere in the Bible does He say not to help them.

[quote from Michael Brown's blog ends]

Brown's View from the Sidewalk has a strong, gritty, masculine, down-to-earth North Carolina quality that naturally appeals to this ex-Carolinian. It's a strong contrast to the restrained stiff-upper-lip quintessentially English quiet desperation exemplified by Wandering Scribe. ["Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way..."]

While doing volunteer work in my own community, the one thing I learned is that people don't know what to do when they lose everything. When desperate people called me, I spent a lot of my time just finding out what resources were available to them and giving them phone numbers of people I hoped could help them. Interfaith Hospitality Network, the organization that helped the Browns, is a wonderful, wonderful resource that helped a number of people.

But there isn't as much as I expect many people, including most middle-class people I've spoken to, seem to believe. And to get through the process of getting help, you have to jump through many, many hoops, and you have to be able to get to places such as the Social Security Office or the Salvation Army.

When people called from smaller outlying counties with fewer resources, I often came up empty when I went to look for help in our data banks. And over the years, some of the resources that used to exist have disappeared.

A large number of average people ought to be terrified by the experience of Brown and by the growing problem of homelessness, but it's hard to think about it because it's too terrifying. It's hard to help the homeless for the same reason. What if you give away too much and end up homeless yourself?

Now I am way better off than most people who haven't accumulated much money. Though I have a disability, it doesn't prevent me from doing the sort of work I do. Medication controls the more debilitating side effects. I have family who love me and who---though they live far away---would help me if I needed it and if I asked.

But having had at a certain point in my life to accept help, I would be reluctant to do so ever again. Honestly, I would rather disappear, rather live on the streets.

The poor we shall always have with us---because the poor ARE us. So this statement by Michael Brown really resonated for me:

[quote from Michael Brown's blog begins]

I've only once actually glimpsed someone sleeping under a bridge. I wasn't homeless yet myself at the time, so of course, the only thing that ran through my mind is "there but for the grace of God go I."

Little did I know...

[quote from Michael Brown's blog ends]

For an update to this posting, see this note in "Anglo-Saxon Attitudes."

Drawn by Mr. Tenniel; painted by Damozel!

The Etiquette of Dying

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:35:57 GMT

Hi. I've changed addresses. To jump to an updated version of this posting, please click this link.

The Etiquette of Dying

Lately, I've been chatting a lot to a friend who is a thanatologist. She does counseling for the dying and for their families, both before and after death, and works with a lot of Hospice patients. We had a really interesting conversation about death and dying and she recommended a couple of books for me. Our conversation really got me thinking.

I've become very interested in the subject of death. How is it we're so unprepared to deal with it? Seriously, isn't that a bit weird? It's the one thing---besides the fact of being born at all---that we all have in common and that we can all absolutely expect. Actually, it is not a 'bit' weird; it is extremely strange. We are an entire culture in denial about this basic fact of existence. Why?

It's not just us, but I think western cultures are less in tune with their mortality than some others. You would think the question of how to die and how to deal with death would be questions as absorbing to people as, say, religion, sex, politics, or anything else.

We tend to assume as a culture that other people---including those from other cultures----share our revulsion and fear, our belief that death is the worst thing. That is not the case, of course, and our blind spot in this respect gets in our way. We can't really understand the thought processes of a suicide bomber or a kamikaze pilot; we can't understand (at least not anymore) people who are casual about death, who kill casually, or even die casually. We are terribly reluctant---as a culture---to think about death or dying at all.

But shouldn't a sophisticated culture have better ways of coping with mortality? Shouldn't it also provide resources for the dying, and more education about death and coping with the dying> Why aren't we better educated about dying (our own) and about coping with dying (family members)?

There isn't much out there except for Hospice (good, but not enough) and religious organization. I don't think churches are the answer. Religion and beliefs about the fate of the soul after death are part of the overall picture, but only a part of it. In any case, questions about the afterlife are only the most abstract aspect. How does it feel to know that you are dying? How do you cope with knowing that a spouse or parent is preparing to die? How can it be done with a maximum of grace and a minimum of psychic pain?

When I was doing volunteer work, I had the opportunity to talk to people who were in the process of dying. The ones I talked to most were the ones who didn't have other resources to fall back on; they were people who were dying alone, having been abandoned by friends or family. I got to know of them quite well; they were terribly isolated. The problem in both cases---the reason that they ended up so alone--- was that they both took so long to die. One, a woman, lasted 10 years after diagnosis of a terminal disease; the other, a man, died slowly of AIDS.

The one I got to know best was the woman, Carol, who over the long period of her dying had driven off everyone with her demands for attention and sympathy. I wasn't surprised. From what I've seen, most people have a very limited amount of patience with the dying. They don't want to watch someone die and they don't know what to say to someone who is in the process of doing it.

Carol and the other dying people I talked to felt marginalized; in some respects, they were as isolated as the homeless. They wanted---they needed---- to talk about the business of dying. Unfortunately, Carol wanted to talk to friends and her family only about dying. She talked about it as if it were a misfortune unique to her. She had apparently forgotten that all the rest of us are on that same road, though (unlike her) we don't have a general idea of where we are on it at any given time.

Carol seemed to assume---which in a way is understandable---that no one else she knew had anything comparable in importance to talk about. She seemed to forget that the rest of us are dying also; we simply don't have the advantage of knowing the approximate time left to us.

Unfortunately, the perception that one's own misfortune takes precedence over any other is not an attractive one. Nor do most people have at command a limitless amount of pity/compassion/empathy. Someone dying very slowly needs to spread out very thinly indeed demands for attention and sympathy. Even the dying are likely to be told brusquely "Get over it," if they expect to be the center of attention and concern over an extended period of time---and particularly if they take much, much longer at it than the people who would otherwise mourn their passing can cope with.

While the dying are preoccupied with dying, life keeps happening to their family and friends. Their family and friends kept having their own problems the whole time. They needed support and attention too and sometimes felt too fragile themselves to meet her demands. It's a terrible situation. It tends to bring out the worst in people.

I felt bad for Carol, but I also felt sympathy for her family and friends. Those of us who are not dying are all certainly going to. The lives of the dying are not easy, but the task of dying isn't one that other people can really do for you, and it isn't as if they aren't going to have to die as well.

Furthermore, the dying are, while dying, still alive. To the extent possible, they need to be reminded of this and encouraged to stay connected to the world for as long as they can. They may not have time to write that novel they never got around to writing, but often there is still time to create something. Keeping a journal, making a videotape, painting, blogging, anything---all are better than waiting passively for the end. We need to focus on teaching people how to make the best of a drawn-out death. Furthermore, the dying need help talking to the not-yet-dying, and vice-versa. The dying need some structure and some intelligent support. It's not something people just know how to do.

But they also need to be aware of the needs of the living for attention and support. Particularly if your dying is taking a long time, you need (if you wish to have people around you) to be prepared to give attention and support to other people's struggles with their (comparatively) trivial tasks.

Carol spent her last two or three years becoming increasingly bitter and angry. Three years! In three years, there is time for someone generally ambulatory, as she was, to make something of what remains of her life.

But she was angry all the time. She wanted someone to be there with her every minute, waiting for the moment to arrive. She seemed to find it outrageous that her family and friends wanted to go on with their lives or that they would expect her to take an interest in their (lesser) problems. She felt neglected.

And we do tend to ignore and neglect the dying. We don't know how to talk to them about it. Perhaps we feel that death is sacred, therefore they should be set aside and sequestered. It's as if we feel that a person in the process of dying, however slowly, begins while living to lose their humanity and to begin to partake of eternity. And eternity scares the shit out of most of us.

What is needed---among other things---is an etiquette of death and dying. We need a culture for the dying and for the people around them; and we need an etiquette of death and dying.

I don't know the solution for this, but it's something I am exploring. My friend recommended a couple of books to me that I hope will extend my own understanding.

RELATED POSTINGS

Friendly and Unfriendly Ghosts.

The False Nostalgia Syndrome.

How Donne Missed the Point.

The Ghost in the Image: Photography and Memory.

Thanatology 101---The Need for an Etiquette of Dying.

The greatest of these is Empathy.

Image drawn by Mr. Tenniel, painted by Damozel!

Your Internet Face vs. Your Resume

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:14:43 GMT

Hi! I've changed my address! To jump to an updated version of this note, please click on this link!

Searching for Employment in the Too Much Information Age

MySpace partners with Simply Hired. MySpace and Simply Hired have launched MySpace Careers, a job listings site geared toward the MySpace demographic. [CNET News.com]

This announcement pairs up nicely with yesterday's headline from the New York Times: For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Resume. Kids today, eh? They have at their fingertips a whole world of ways to get themselves in trouble that couldn't have been imagined by their parents (many of whom know much less than their children about all the ways available for them literally and figuratively to show their arses).

First, there are the problems of the online predator and the identity thief. MSNBC did an excellent dateline presentation (shown here) about the very little information required to constitute a dangerous case of TMI.

It used to be that parents only had to worry about strangers with candy hanging around the schoolyard. My parents told me not to get in the car with a stranger EVER, period, with or without candy and never to get close enough to an adult in a car to allow them to lay hold of me.

It wouldn't have occurred to me or them to say to a child, "Also don't post a picture of yourself on the internet or any information that would allow a total stranger to identify you (or any of your friends) and track you (or any of your friends) down. In addition, don't give out information that would allow someone to steal your identity for purpose of obtaining a credit card, bank account, or access to any of your money or credit."

Second, there is the problem of the child pathetically attempting to attract a little internet notoriety or peer approval. One college student, desperately in quest of bad-ass status, posted a list of his "hobbies" that [1] would fool absolutely no one, even another 20 year old; and [2] would nevertheless be viewed by ANY employer, graduate school admissions committee, or future spouse as evidence of a serious flaw in judgment and a serious lack of self-esteem. In fact, he was rejected by an employer as the result of a bit of internet posturing by an employer who was previously all set to hire him. Sad!

But also reasonable. In a world where there are many more jobs than people who are qualified to do them, any little thing can tip the scale, and a colossal manifestation of bad judgment and juvenile values isn't really a "little thing." In business, image is everything, and if your prospective employer can find a page in which you reveal the full extent of your ass, so can your prospective employer's customers and business associates.

I think adults often assume that young people understand much more than they necessarily do about the dangers of email, net posting, and so on. I am in a field where I deal with many young adults. Many are surprised to be told (for example) that the email they send through company and university servers isn't private by any standards or that the "terms of use" that apply actually mean something.

They also may post information, find that it doesn't attract any obvious attention, and assume that this means that nobody has seen it or will see it. If you put it out there, children, it's out there. If you put it out there, it's going to be really hard to call it back. And if you post it under your own name and with a big old picture of your face, you've basically told the world, "This is who I'd like everyone to think I am." And that sort of information is way more revealing than almost anything else you could possibly say as evidence of your judgment and your values.

"Never send anything over the net that you couldn't stand to have someone read aloud in court," a person I respect once told me. "Treat an e-mail as equivalent to a postcard." (Thankfully, he told me way back in 1997 before I'd had much opportunity to embarrass myself )

A person posting on My Space, Facebook, or the like should view the posting as a billboard rather than a postcard. It's not a private communication but a virtual advertisement placed on the information superhighway in the hope that people will read it. People traveling that road may give it only a cursory look if they don't have any reason to be interested in you. It may fade into the background. for most of them You may forget all about it. But it's right there for anyone who wants to see it, including people who aren't part of your target market and who mean you harm.

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Searching for Employment in the Too Much Information Age.

Antic Panic

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 21:49:18 GMT

Antic Panic.

It took me months to feel like writing again. I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I knew that something was. I was frightened all the time. I used to wake up at night shaking all over and in a cold sweat. I often thought I was on the verge of dying. I ought to have recognized the problem because I've dealt often enough with people in the midst of panic attacks, but I couldn't get my head around the fact that it was happening to me? Where did it come from? Why? Nothing had changed. Nothing was wrong. But telling myself what I already knew didn't do a bit of good.

Panic attacks. It took one visit to a doctor, one prescription, and about one week to erase them as if they'd never existed. The doctor said that recurrent attacks of extreme fear, with all the consequent emotional and physiological changes, can alter the brain's chemistry, making it increasingly difficult to attain conscious control.

To complicate matters, I had made myself genuinely ill. Chronic fear made my entire immune system go haywire. In the interim, I was tested for lupus, two types of cancer, and a variety of other possible problems---all the result of stress. But stress about what and from where? I have no answers.

I went on being able to work and to go through the motions of my life, but during the period when it was all happening, all of the things I like or love about my life just made me sad. I felt constantly on the verge of losing it all. I mostly felt numb because I was afraid to feel anything else. Looking back, I was very very lucky because it wasn't so bad that I was paralyzed; I could still do the things I had to do; I could still function. But I've never imagined that I could feel so powerless or so--for lack of a better word---'copeless.' Because though I carried on coping in a way, I thought every moment that I might stop.

I still don't know where it came from or where it went (how could a pill just wipe it all out); I'm just glad it's gone and glad I belong to the class of people with enough money to afford the medical care and the medicine.

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Image drawn by Mr. Tenniel; painted by Damozel!