We know what we THINK we know

“If you tell people a lie often enough, they will eventually come to believe it” – Heimlich Himler

It’s been a couple of weeks, and I really don’t have much new to add.  I’ve got a procedure scheduled for this Thursday.  One of those real pain in the butt procedures that many people would rather just deal with the consequences rather than address the problem.  I’m pretty nervous about it, and getting more nervous about it as the time draws closer.

I have a better understanding as to why so many people (mostly men) will ignore their health and warning signs rather than deal with the consequences.  The theory is that preventative medicine is best, and the sooner you can identify and address the problem, the less it will cost you in the long run.  Now logically, that makes a whole lot of sense, and I’m all for it.

The illogical part of me, on the other hand, would much prefer to just ignore everything until I keel over one day.  I’m scared by how seriously I’ve considered this option.  If I didn’t have a wife and kids to encourage me to actually FACE my health issues (issues that are 99.9% probably NOTHING to even worry about), I’m honestly not sure which way I would go about this.  That’s fairly disturbing to me, because I’ve always considered myself a logical person who doesn’t like to leave things to chance or chaos.

But it sure would be a whole lot simpler and less draining on my psyche to just ignore it.  To set it aside on a shelf labeled “Does not exist”, and go on with life until it became a larger problem.  I think this urge stems from my need to control (and in part, all peoples need to control).  The fact that I’m not actually in control of my self drives me a little crazy, and I am ready to convince myself that if I simply ignore a problem, then I’m controlling it.  I will then deal with it on my own time when I want to.  This is absolutely false of course.  IF there is something more serious going on, and it gets worse, then IT will control my time-table, not me.  But for some reason I’m able to ignore that fact and convince myself that I’m in charge.  How odd.

Is this pride?  Vanity?  Arrogance? I struggle with those vices regularly, and the fact that this whole process makes me feel very exposed and vulnerable (more vulnerable than I can ever remember feeling actually) points in that direction.  This is a very different type of struggle with this vice than I’m used to, but, ‘A rose by any other name is still a rose’ as they say.  This means I should probably combat it the same way as usual, time for some scripture study and prayer.

Once again I’m amazed by how very little we truly own in this life.  We FEEL like we own cars, a house, a profession, a relationship, children, and especially our very own bodies.  The truth is that there are many forces that could rip any one of those things away from us in the blink of an eye.  And despite continual reminders of how tenuous our hold can be on the things we THINK we own (hurricane Katrinna being only small and recent example) we continually delude ourselves into thinking that we are somehow ‘in-charge’ of our lives.  How ironic.
The music I’ve had on for a couple weeks now is a version of the song Stones from the Ultima series of games.  This particular version is my personal favorite, as it blends a number of elements into a wonderful flavor.  You can hear the dark and light overtones struggle with each other, the sacred and profane; the old and new in the instrumentation, the musical styles from the middle ages with new industrial overtones.  I love it.  I find it a great reflection of the struggles in life and within myself specifically.  I’ve even toyed with the idea of having it played at my funeral.  The problem is that funerals are much more for the people left behind than for the person who’s left, and I’m not sure people who’d hear this would get it.  We’ll see.  I still THINK I’ve got LOTS and LOTS of time to ponder that.  (heh-heh)