The doctor is in session and the essay that follows is the prescription. It’s good for what ails you- genuinely- as there is a deep seem of hard won wisdom that runs through it. Wisdom gleaned from having truly seen something of what life (and death) is all about.
This might be one of the best things I’ve read from
to date (which is saying something). In fact Ana is one of the very few who I think should be free to dish out as much unsolicited advice she wants. Maybe after reading this essay you’ll feel the same way.Enjoy.
TJB.
I wrote this letter ten days before it will be published on the Soaring Twenties page. Since then, I have read this post byDoctrix Periwinkle, and I find that, in some ways, both texts speak to each other. Hold on to your friends, the flesh-and-bones ones. If you don’t have any, make new ones. They will disappoint you; you will disappoint them. But because of that, when you gift each other your imperfect love, it feels so goddam good.
I love the dual nature of humankind. The way we so uniquely experience in spiritual awe the marvels of the physical world, and at the same time, we need our physical senses to experience our spiritual dimension.
This is possibly the best thing about Christianity (dare I say the ONLY good thing?): you know, the bit where the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14).
Now, I do not know if there is any other religion out there that also believes that God became man; possibly there is; I am really ignorant in all things theology. And by no means am I saying that Christianity has all the answers or is morally superior to other types of worship. Oh God, no, I still very much struggle to grapple with some (most) of the stuff we are supposed to believe, follow, do. I am just saying that I find it stunning, glorious even, that Christianity has weaved human nature so seamlessly into divinity to give it its rightful, majestic place. Then of course, we fucked it all up by the absurd interpretations man will make of the divine, but I am not going to talk about the Ten Commandments and virginity and gluttony and sin and dry stuff of the sort. I just wanted to briefly explain why I just do not understand modern man’s stance on the spiritual and the material, as if they were separate entities.
My friends who declare themselves either agnostic or atheists say that believing in God is unscientific. I have been asked numerous times how can one claim God is good if pain and disease exist? For this, I have wished, also numerous times, I had the right words to explain why if this world obeys certain physical laws and not others, those laws must be obeyed at all times. Were these laws not obeyed at ALL times, events would be arbitrary. Not only would science and research be futile, but also coming up with potential solutions to problems would be pointless if these phenomena were unpredictable. Maybe there is another universe where disease and pain do not exist, but I am sure that with those perks, other disadvantages are inevitable1.
In any case, and going back to the issues about finding the divine in the natural world, if anyone can see sexual reproduction as anything but miraculous, they must be off their rocker or have not really stopped to contemplate it properly. I mean, mixing one spermatozoid with one ovule and having at the end of a pertinent amount of time a whole new being (be it fruit with seeds that can become a tree or a baby elephant) is the stuff that no science fiction writer could ever come up with. The same goes for light refraction and rainbows, the Perseids on clear summer nights, and the fact that, when perceiving danger, your heartbeat accelerates to pump more oxygenated blood to your muscles so that, if needs be, you can run as fast as possible.
One of the best things one can experience is butterflies in the stomach when you are in love. It turns out that it is a fight-or-flight response that releases adrenaline and decreases the blood flow to the gut. So, you see, all the good things in life, from tasting good wine through orgasms right up to the feeling we have when it’s too hot and suddenly feel a gentle cool breeze, all of that, is just a series of cleverly contrived and methodically orchestrated chemical reactions. The stuff of miracles.
The question remains in the nature of suffering. I will not go into man-made pain like poverty, inequality, racism, sexism, war, etc. I will just go into the physical pain we feel when we bruise, or cut, or fall or have cancer. And before I embark on the topic, let me clear any doubts- pain sucks. There is nothing glorious in suffering, nothing enlightening about it, only, maybe, how much more we appreciate feeling good when an ailment subsides. But, and this is the key “but” in this story, in order to be able to feel caresses, one must be able to feel pain. Death is the consequence of living.
As a breast oncologist, I have had many a patient who has expressed in so many words the unfairness of it all. Since I am not “the moral oncologist”, all I can do is sit and listen because, unfortunately, I have no answers for them, at least no answers that do not involve a projection of my own beliefs. This is ethics 101. To their claims of “having done nothing wrong”, what I want to say is that cancer is not a moral disease. It doesn’t strike people who are good or bad or deserving or impious. Some people will say lung cancer is had by people who smoke, which is largely true; tobacco is carcinogenic, but I could also say- “my mother didn’t smoke one single day of her life and had lung cancer” (she is fine, why the way). When one is in the middle of this suffering, the last thing that helps is a doctor saying- “Aaaaaactually… this is not how the world works.” But that is the truth: cancer happens because a cell went rogue, and the immune system didn’t detect it in time for reasons unbeknownst to us, and suddenly, here we are.
This is oversimplifying things to an extreme degree, but it basically catches the essence of it. Disease happens because we are of this world with these physical laws and chemical interactions and, as frustrating as it sounds, sometimes we find ourselves in real trouble having done nothing wrong. Sometimes shit happens and there is no one to blame, not even ourselves.
I have many issues about not talking about death or disease, especially with children. Like if not talking about these things prevents them2. Talking honestly about death and disease allows children to understand the nature of life on Earth better, and armed with that knowledge, children grow to make more informed choices. It can also lead to more adapted reactions to things out of their control.
I suppose that our fraught relationship with disease is because being sick sucks but also because, historically, we have intertwined disease with sin. We all know how the plague was understood as a punishment from God, and as per usual, Jews, Romani, and foreigners were to blame (yeez, we are truly an unoriginal lot). Also, and I admit that this is my own interpretation, the whole emphasis on chastity was a big attempt to curtail gonorrhea, so rampant that it deserved a mention in the Old Testament (Leviticus 15:2-3)3. Maybe we could update the Bible with a short paragraph:
“And then God made condoms and created sexual education programs.”
Possibly, the whole avoiding pork and beef in some religions had more to do with ecology, socioeconomics as well as the sanitary situation of the times the laws were invented, but it’s easier to say, “Don’t eat this because God says so,” and here we are now.
I attended Catholic schools throughout my education, from elementary school to a private university. I am not sure if you understand how much catholicism is into self-denial, especially where it concerns palatable pleasures. They will defend that it is all about enjoying things in moderation, but having been an insider, I know this is what they say to the outside world to seem “normal” and “approachable.” In retrospect, I find their incisiveness on guilt extremely counterproductive. This is how you lose intelligent people for your cause.
How you can enjoy chocolate cake or an orgasm in moderation just totally escapes me. With both cake and sex, I need to finish and be full of it, be so satiated I cannot possibly have more. And here, one could say that having too much chocolate cake is unhealthy, as unhealthy as watching pornography on a rota. And it is true, but one does not stop coveting all the chocolate cake in the world by denying themselves the aforementioned treat. One stops coveting it because one fills their life with many other enjoyable things such as cheese, oranges in December and peaches in July, walks in nature, conversations with friends, playing hide and seek with the children, painting, reading, doing ceramics, writing letters, petting your dog4, sewing, knitting, cooking, running, fishing, gardening, playing cards, mending socks, braiding the hair of your sister, eating burgers, visiting museums, swimming, going to the cinema, playing water polo, jumping on those trampolines that come to your village with the fair, dancing in the disco or your kitchen, listening to music that enthralls you. Things that make you not want to spend your days stuffing your face or wanking.
Variety is the key, my little grasshoppers.
I guess the point I am trying to make here is that every good thing in life needs the physical senses as an interface between the outside world and our soul. And the physical senses need exposure to many things to be sharp and recognize what we like and what we don’t.
So get out there, feel the sun and the breeze and the rain, eat a good plate of pasta with some nice red wine, and bathe in the sea or a lake or a river. Follow a trail full of trees. If there is no nature around you, get on a bus, a bicycle, a scooter, a car. Go find it. Love the world made for you by some unknown entity out there who thought the world was so great he had to become one of us to both experience it and save us from ourselves. Some unknown entity that loved us so much that came here got his hands dirty and suffered like a pro just to be able to say:
“OK, I get you; it can get really hard. Now go be kind to each other and salt to taste your life, for you will not come out of this one alive.”
All of these musings are not original; I have amassed them from reading here and there, but on the physicality of the Universe, I blame my conclusions on the book “Mere Christianity” written by C.S. Lewis.
Here, the story is similar to not talking to your children about sex. If you don’t talk, they will find out anyway, sometimes with dire consequences.
My dears, back then, people had sex just as much as we do nowadays. Possibly even more since they didn’t have Netflix in the “good old days.”
I have a cat, but there is no petting Morris, unfortunately.
I enjoyed this very much.
What's so interesting about the so-called rationality of scientific and materialist culture is the pig-ignorance of the history of those ideas.
So much of science and morality that's assumed as The Truth today is the inheritance of a uniquely Christian blend of theology and Greek rationalism.
Even the atheist's question "but how can you talk about God's goodness when pain exists" begs the question -- the logical error of assuming the conclusion as a premise -- of what is judged good and worthy.
On any broadly Platonist or Aristotelian account (which is the common rational basis of Christian thought), "good" is teleological. It has a purpose.
Labeling suffering wrong and bad, and then concluding that God cannot be good because such exists, is to skate over the most important issue with unthinking platitudes.
You could as well turn it around. What makes it so valuable to end suffering and increase pleasure? That's no less of a value judgment, and the militant atheist sort rarely has a good answer to justify it.
I experience pain every time I work out, but it serves the higher good of sweet gains.
Beautiful write! Thank you. Yes, why does one separate science from spirituality? Even in the spiritual tradition of Vedanta (which comes from
Sanatana Dharma, commonly known as Hinduism), God lives within us as “Atman”. God is that within us that remains a witnessing consciousness also known as a “Sakshi” (see https://anuprabhala.substack.com/p/befriend-the-sakshi-in-you-and-live). True “God” is therefore—no matter what your spiritual tradition is—is belief in our own Self. Even scientist Einstein said, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.”