No One Puts Baby In The Center

"If triangles had a god, he would have three sides" - Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

The quote is something I've known for years but never knew who to attribute it to. I had to look it up, really. But something about it says a lot about who we are as a people. If you think about it, people throughout time have been worshiping entities which, generally, look like us. Even in the cases where there were animal spirits we somehow managed to anthropomorphize them in ways that make little sense. In fact, in some form or another, we've always believed ourselves to somehow be the center of the universe, even now. Sure, we don't believe in a geocentric universe anymore (most of us), but we still have little quirks about us that we (at least, the majority of us) haven't really considered in the same light. To each of us, we are the center of our own universe and everyone else is, if not completely, mostly wrong in their own views. Example: perspective.

When I started to write this post I was fueled to do so by a number of motivations. One being that I was looking to use some of these thoughts as the basis of a story. Another being an uncomfortable and unhappy conversation I had on my birthday a few days ago. But in the course of starting this post I looked at the date and realized something important, today was an anniversary that was worth mentioning.

For as long as I've been alive I've been given a good grasp of what exactly defines "moral" and "right" behavior. Thanks in part to the fact that I've been raised mostly without organized religion I have a set of morals and ethics that are pretty lacking in judgment and centered more around a measured understanding of other people. But did I really have an understanding of other people or was I just assuming I did? It's a question that's bothered me for the better part of a year.

You see, one year ago today, a friend of my family died of cancer. Two days later, my grandmother died of the same form of cancer, an event that left me in a bit of a tizzy for a few months. And, as earth-shattering as that might have been to have two close deaths in a single week, the thing that truly left me traumatized was the forced interaction with people who possessed a different sense of morality than myself. The deaths were bad enough, but what those people said and did left me so confused and so angry that I had a hard time coping with the most important factor: my grief.

The first of such interactions was in the form of my on-again, off-again aunt, a woman I've only met twice in my adult life. My grandmother, suffering and unable to live on her own anymore, needed to live with someone else that could watch over her and help her keep watch on her medication (which had been greatly reduced to simple pain control and nothing else). My uncle, a man I've had a lot of problems with in the past, was kind enough to be the one to watch over her in those final months.

Me? I was trying to find a cure for cancer.

It was a futile endeavor, trying to find a way to help people who had been diagnosed with less than 8 weeks to either one of their names. I had found a method that might have helped, a chemical known as DCA which had been tested successfully against cancer both in clinical trials (on a limited basis) and individual testimony from a group of dozens of cancer patients across the country. The DCA story is a fascinating one, one which I may talk about here someday, but for now I would like to focus on the reaction my aunt had to it.

She was furious.

To this day, I don't understand all of her motivations. There's a lot of things about that conversation which I'm still not fully understanding of. But what I do know is that when I stood there face to face with her, I heard explanations come out of her that ran completely counter to what I believed was "right". It didn't help that she was screaming at me either. But two of these things stuck to me profoundly.

First of these: she believed that I was going to make the condition worse, that I would somehow increase my grandmother's suffering. Considering my grandmother was screaming in the middle of the night, had a month to live at best and had nerve damage from the tumor putting pressure in all the wrong places: I didn't understand this point of view. I'd done so much research into what side effects could have happened, at least, as much as anyone was aware, that I presented a list of things that could happen and asked them to weigh it against what -was- happening. To me, the risks were outweighed by the possible benefits.

Second: she believed that I was somehow being inconsiderate. To her, my time away from my grandmother, researching what may or may not happen with a truly experimental and hard to get chemical, was a complete and utter waste. She believed I should have spent the time visiting my grandmother daily, watching her suffer and accepting the fact that nothing could be done for her. She believed that my attempt to find something to help my grandmother was both futile and cruel. She believed, and screamed at me in front of my grandmother, that I was providing false hope, a path to ruin and was acting selfishly. While I could have agreed with several points she had made, her conclusion from these facts left me horrified: She believed, and told me and my grandmother quite clearly, that I didn't care.

I was dumbfounded, shocked and depressed by this declaration. Things didn't get any better when my grandmother decided not to try DCA a total of half an hour after witnessing this confrontation between me and the woman who technically isn't even my aunt anymore. And after my grandmother died, that left a few bad questions in my mind. Did my grandmother believe her? Was she right? Were my actions motivated by selfish desires and not care for my grandmother? I'll probably never know the answer to some of these.

But things grew worse over the next few weeks as I encountered another group that had an entirely different view on the world than I. My mother's best friend, the woman who died (and whom I consider to be more of an aunt than the woman that declared herself my grandmother's caretaker), was a very religious woman. And she was surrounded by very religious people. In some of their views, my efforts were futile as well, not because they believed to know more about the subject as my aunt had, but rather because it was "in God's hands".

This woman, the one I would like to consider family despite all of our differences, exemplified the belief that the value of a life is best measured by the lives they've touched. Despite years of passionate debates with me over a lot of very essential questions, she never once looked down on me (though I sometimes felt she had). And when I attended her funeral I realized I was not alone. She had more people there at her funeral than I could say I have known well in my entire life. And almost every single one of them was a loyal and devout Christian with a very literal interpretation of their scriptures. And some of them, the most die hard fundamentalists of them, believed my efforts doomed from the start. Only God could do anything for her and all we could do as mere mortals was pray for a miracle.

To me, that sounded like an easy out. It sounded like an attempt to not have to take responsibility for our action or inaction. It sounded like they believed that the only right and moral thing to do was pray for her and to accept that God's plan was righteous and guiding these events. I was, once again, troubled by this.

After it was all done with, I was left looking at what these people had said and what they believed and came to question whether or not what I believed and what I had done was the right thing to do. Was their collective decision to sit by and try nothing more than to comfort them right or wrong? Was my decision to focus on what may have been a futile effort entirely motivated by selfish desires?

I didn't like the conclusions that came to me. I didn't like what it may have meant about me. I didn't like...me.

It took me a long time to understand the one truth of it all. I had made a critical error. In fact, I made the same mistake we all do, I put myself at the center.

I was so caught up in my own perspective that the perspectives of others felt hostile to my own. The fact that they believed themselves to be right somehow meant, to me, that they assumed I was wrong. And, honestly, some of them (most definitely my aunt) probably did. But that didn't mean that I had to be right or wrong. In the end, it just meant that we saw the same problem from different directions. I was not uncaring as my aunt had concluded, despite the fact that conclusion haunted me for months after it was done. No, I simply cared in another way. Was my method right or wrong? No, it was just mine.

And what of them? Were they right or wrong? I can't be the one to say. We may differ in opinion on the details but I can't say that the people who chose to comfort my mother's friend were wrong to choose to comfort her. Even if I don't agree with their faith in the power of prayer I can't say that praying with someone while they suffer is a bad thing to do. And my aunt? Her fears were valid and, at worst, simply misguided. She was, however, entirely wrong in her methods and decision of when and how to confront me. We shouldn't have had that conversation in front of my grandmother and she shouldn't have declared that I didn't care. But I forgive her because none of us are perfect.

It took me a very long time to come to this conclusion. While some people I know might see this and believe that I'm beating a dead horse, I think for this one day I am entitled to share this in a more public forum. For today, I will leave this in memorial of the dearly departed and the reality that they are gone.

Tomorrow I can write about my flights of fancy.

What's in a name?

After some poking, prodding and a little helpful advice from someone identified to me as a "published author" I have come to start a blog. Something about the idea of doing one of these has always chafed me slightly. Maybe it's because in this day and age it seems that everyone has one of these in some form or another. Though if I try to be a non-conformist and buck the trend it would mean I'm trying to be an individual... just like everyone else. We're all precious and unique snowflakes until we get added to the pile, after all. Still, it can't hurt much to have a space to air my observations, display some of my work and share the curiosities I've seen around me.

So I broke down, signed up for an account and got to work on setting up a blog for myself. Most of it was an easy enough endeavor: sign up an account with an e-mail, put in your personal information, choose a template. But there was one detail that escaped me for some time and required a small focus group to try to tackle: the title.

I know what some of you must be thinking. After all, how important is a title on a blog of all things? But then again, anyone reading this will only come in two flavors right now. The first flavor, those who know me, will realize that it's entirely part of my character. Ask me to build a world around a single concept and I'll have one ready for you in hours, if not minutes. Ask me to come up with a name for a single aspect of that and I'll usually spend just as long on that one detail. I suppose the ability to add layers upon layers of little nudges and detail is compensated for the fact that when you ask the same brain to do a simple task it starts to turn into an epic adventure all it's own.

But, after some time of focus grouping with a couple of people I know well enough to know me and my eccentricities, we came to the conclusion that the title best suited for this was "Dreams from Walnut Dust". And that's where the second flavor, the people who have no clue about me, will be confused to no end.

Writers are inspired in many ways and by many things. But there's a common thread with a lot of the greats: they were tripping out. Mary Shelley apparently came up with Frankenstein high on opium, Jules Verne's favorite wine was laced with cocaine and the majority of legendary authors I've heard of happened to have a liking to drinking, doing drugs or living a miserable little life in other fashions. Translation: Writing is ten percent inspiration, eighty percent frustration and ten percent inebriation. Live fast, drink young, leave a beautiful novel.

Unfortunately, I'm straight-edge, though I didn't know that was a movement until well into the age of 24. No drinking, no major drugs, just me and my daydreams. Though, that's not entirely true, there is one thing that causes me to trip out like others. That thing? Walnut dust.

"Walnut dust?" you ask. "Who goes around sniffing walnuts?"

No, no my dear friend who may or may not exist. I'm talking about the great cloud of dust kicked up every year during walnut harvesting season. Every year walnut season rolls around and they roll out the massive harvesting machines. For those of you who don't know, walnut harvesting is far from a gentle practice. They take large machines that grab these trees by the trunks and shake them violently until all of the loose nuts fall out, much like a mafia enforcer shaking someone down after a bad day at the ponies. And what happens when you shake a tree that's been collecting dust, fertilizer and pesticides for a year? It goes into the air, of course!

And that's what I breathe in every year. With my allergies, this tends to leave me in an altered state, further inflamed with the decongestants that I have to take for the inconvenient act of breathing. Now, I'm not saying that's the only time that I'm inspired, far from it, but I think that's the time when I'm at my most altered and closest to the mindset of those legendary lushes of ages past. One day I'm normal and brainstorming, the next day I'm having a pounding headache and wondering what my cat thinks about politics. Considering she believes everything in the house belongs to her, I'm guessing communist.

I wont credit it for all of my ideas, I put too much work to just say that tripping out is my only inspiration. But I will say this: every year, for one shining moment, walnuts are my muse and my cat may be a spy.

Go figure.