November 28th, 2016

I briefly considered writing a list of everything I was thankful for here, but I quickly noticed a theme that bears exploring. The things I am most thankful for are more intangible than material, abstract rather than concrete, or at the very least not inanimate objects. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the things I have; I have a lot of stuff, and a lot of it is great. For example I'm very thankful for my super comfy memory foam pillow which cradles my head at just the right angle every night and many afternoons. It really is the best and I don't know what I'd do without it. The point though is I do not want for material goods, and I am, when I stop to think about it, thankful for them all.

But I am more thankful for the fact that I do not lack material goods than I am thankful for those goods in and of themselves. I am also much more thankful for what they allow me to do. I am thankful for my car, but far more so for the places it allows me to go and the road trips I have taken with my wife and dog. I am thankful for my snowboard, but much more grateful that I have health enough to snowboard still and for our upcoming family ski trip to Vermont. For every material possession I have, I am more grateful for how it enriches my life than I am for the simple fact that I possess it.

At a higher level I am thankful for the relationships I enjoy and the people that I love. I am blessed with wonderful family and friends, and that is far more valuable than any material possession can ever be. As we leave Thanksgiving Day behind and enter a wildly commercialized month of encouraged greed and consumerism, I think that's worth remembering.

November 21st, 2016

A probable allergy to chapstick followed by shingles—not the kind on your roof—has made the past week anything but dull. Now everything seems to be settling down. My lips aren't swollen and itchy anymore and we caught the shingles very early, before they started to hurt instead of just tingle mildly. If nothing else it's been a good reminder that while treatment has largely been going smoothly the last half-year, I still am very much a cancer patient. My current treatment might not be half as grueling as what I’ve been through in the past, and I might feel fine most of the time, but I still can't really count on my good health. At least, not enough to make many long-term plans.

Aside from the traveling for fun we may want to do, made difficult by my weekly chemo infusions, far more important life-goals and plans are also still on hold. My wife and I moving out on our own seems unattainable right now. Partly the specter of an ACA repeal means we'll likely have to stay in New York State for me to have reliable health insurance not tied to employment. Beyond that though, getting conventional jobs seems nearly impossible. Even the substitute teaching work my wife has been picking up lately became highly inconvenient this past week as I visited and phoned different doctors to figure out what was going on. Much of today was spent just communicating with different doctors both here in Corning and in New York City to change the dosage of a medication, order more prescriptions, and make sure everyone was on the same page. It’s a two person job to manage all that. There’s a lot less to do now than there was two years ago when I was just starting treatment, but it’s still a time-consuming task, and managing my healthcare remains our primary job. I don’t know when or even if I’ll be able to work a normal job again, and that’s beyond my control.

Writing, long my hobby and more recently a serious career aspiration, might help with that eventually. But a career in writing is in many ways no more under my control than my health. Yes, it’s up to me to spend a lot of time writing, editing, and getting feedback, and I do that as best I can. I'm now about halfway through book two in The Legacy of Rythka, the fantasy series I've been working on over the last year, and I've made some decent headway on another book too. But at the end of the day I need a publisher to like my book. Largely that lies beyond my control. I need people to enjoy reading what I write too; again, not really within my sphere of influence. It feels at times like there is very little in my life that I do control.

And that feeling is spot on. Not much in life is within our control or even falls under our ability to influence. Our culture fosters the illusion of control, and it is easy to forget how little power we really have. We plan and schedule our days, we believe our hard work will pay off, and we take for granted that we’re living longer than ever. And to an extent we should. It’s easy to give up and stop caring about much without some feeling of control. Believing everything in life will play out as it will regardless of our own efforts is far too extreme a view in the other direction. But we cannot see the future and we cannot know how our lives will play out. All we can do is try our best, and remember that we are not as powerful as we like to think.

November 14th, 2016

I'm feeling more and more fatigued as these 'easy' chemo treatments continue. Simple tasks like laundry or enjoyable pastimes like walking the dogs leave me light-headed and winded. I also absentmindedly skimped on the Biotene mouthwash a couple weeks ago and paid for it with a weirdly-placed mouth sore on the side of my tongue. But if those are the worst side-effects of my current treatment, I'm doing fine. Physically, at least. Emotionally this past week has been a lot rougher.

Shock took hold around 4am on election night.  Perhaps if any polls had prepared me for Tuesday night's results, the surprise would have been less. The shock soon gave way to despair. Maybe if, before the election, I had started researching my limited options for health insurance after an ACA repeal, my despair—at least that small part of my despair that I felt for myself—would not have been as deep. As it was I cried for myself, for my wife, and for everyone else who felt despair. I wondered if I could have done more to communicate how parts of the ACA had benefited me and others in similar situations. I felt that I had failed to get my message out to people. Every vote for a candidate who vowed to repeal the ACA felt very personal, which only added to my sadness on behalf of those who had been singled out in much more personal ways during the campaign. I could well imagine the despair felt by people in the minority, be they minorities of language, ethnicity, country of origin, sexual orientation, or religion, even if I could scarcely know the depths of their fears.

Then, in a turn that Master Yoda probably saw coming, that despair turned to anger. I was angry that so many people, nearly half of those who cast ballots, could have voted the way they did. Some of my reasons for being angry were overblown. Some are legitimate. But I know if I had remembered the people who disagreed with me instead of simply seeing numbers of voters, I would not have been so angry, and certainly not at the people themselves. I failed last week to keep love for God and love for others first, and I let anger win. For that, I am sorry.

Today for the first time since the election results rolled in I feel encouraged. I've been part of more constructive conversations about serious issues in the last six days than during the last six weeks, maybe even months. I've talked with people I've known for years and with some I've never met in person. Through it all I've gained a better understanding of the human side of different issues, the people whose stories make different ideas make sense. Yes, not too far in the back of my mind I still feel horror at what may happen to the already-marginalized, and I shudder to think what environmentally disastrous policies may soon be implemented. But I have hope. I have hope that through tough conversations we will make progress and address the underlying causes of many problems facing our society. I have hope that we will all understand the consequences of hatred and work towards mutual respect, especially when we disagree. Most of all though I have hope that God's love will be spread now more than ever. We need it.

November 7th, 2016

Tomorrow we citizens of the U.S. will choose a new President (and many other elected positions). I’m more than ready for this election to be over so we can start the hard work of healing and coming together again. The past year or so I've seen and heard a lot about how this election has divided us to unprecedented extents. I don't mean to minimize how bizarre this year has been politically, how unlike previous campaigns this presidential race and the rhetoric surrounding it has been, but I don't think that's quite correct. We have been more divided before—see "American Civil War”—but that aside I'm not entirely convinced this election really has split the U.S. in two. It seems to me that it has merely shown us how divided we always were, deeper down, below the level of openness any of us were comfortable with, beyond what we disclosed to others.

Sure, the divide has grown as each side attacks the other with increasing vitriol and hate. Yes, it has gotten much harder to find suitable places on each side of the chasm to even build the foundations for a bridge, much less successfully span the gap between us. But the rift between the staunch supporters of each major-party presidential candidate was always there.

Neither major-party presidential candidate has really inspired their followers to stand behind any new causes. They have merely legitimized what their supporters already thought. And that, to me, is more depressing than it is anything else. We have so much more work to do before we really can claim to be a land of opportunity and equality for all. Racism, sexism, bigotry, xenophobia, lies, fear-mongering, corruption, bullying, and, at the root of it all, a blatant lack of respect for basic human dignity have all been normalized over the course of this presidential campaign. Both sides have played a part in some of these. One far more than the other, and I think anyone who is honest with themselves knows which side that is, but to differing extents both major-party candidates—and certainly their supporters—are guilty.

Perhaps it's the social convention banning political discussion from family gatherings for the sake of getting along that deserves some of the blame here; it certainly creates a narrative that discussing politics and getting along are mutually exclusive. When respectful political discourse is not a part of interacting with people we know and love, the stage is set for election years like this. Now most political arguments lurk in semi-anonymous social media feeds where respect is absent and people who disagree with us are nameless, faceless "others." Perhaps if we started discussing real issues with close friends and family more, we might begin to realize why those on the other side think and feel as they do. They usually have a reason.

That may be a good first step, but it might take more than engaging in real, constructive discussions with friends and family. I recently watched the very disappointing Independence Day: Resurgence which, though little more than an excuse to see Jeff Goldblum and some combat between aliens and humans, raised one very interesting point. The premise builds on the first Independence Day film, wherein aliens come to destroy earth and are repelled by ‘Merica and Freedom (it’s not nearly as bad as I make it sound). Twenty years later the world is at peace, having united in the face of a threatening “other” while realizing our common humanity. As a side note, Africa (I don’t recall a reference to a more specific locale than the whole continent) seems to be forgotten when the world united. Warlords there have apparently been fighting aliens in hand-to-tentacle combat since the first movie. I’d say it’s an intentional commentary on how easily we overlook the Third World, but I rather doubt it.

Getting back to my point here. Sometimes it takes something terrible and different to unite people, to make people see that, compared to the new threat, they really have a lot in common. In the Independence Day Movies, it takes an alien invasion for us to put aside our petty differences. Throughout history squabbling groups have allied against a third, more different group. Human nature urges us to band together with those we consider to be like us, the better to defend against those who are different. Viewing the world as an "us vs. them" dichotomy is a simultaneously uniting and dividing force. It all depends on who is in and who is out.

I suspect we will soon see many appeals to patriotism and calls to unify the United States against ISIS, Russia, China, or some other entity. And that’s just as sad as the division within the U.S. right now. Those are still groups of people. I wish the ‘others’ we united against were things like war itself, climate change, and systemic poverty. For me, cancer is a terrible threat we should unite and rally against. There are many other legitimate issues we must work together to solve, but casting our fellow humans in the role of “terrible other” is dangerous at best. That’s how we stay divided.

Repairing the growing rift between those allied with different political parties will be difficult. Those who label themselves—or more often label others—as “liberal” or “conservative” like those are derogatory words seem almost beyond reconciliation. I hope that is not the case. I hope that, whoever gets elected, we can start working together and having real conversations about serious issues. It starts with our conversations, our interactions with the people around us. But it must not come at the cost of unity with people elsewhere.