I've been thinking lately (dangerous, I know) about the experience of having something that you took for granted and then losing it. Is it better to have not known it at all, so you wouldn't have to deal with the pain and loss? Would it always hang in the air, a maybe bitter, sometimes desperate, often humbling reminder? Or is the body capable of adapting, but the mind and heart are just not willing?
An example: You're 23. You're young and pretty (or handsome, as the case may be) and all appears as it should be. You have friends, you laugh, you mostly love life. Sure, you have your days, but life is good to you so you roll with the punches.
Then, you're on the way to eat dinner with some friends and a semi-truck hits you. You nearly die, and because you were crushed inside your car you will be quadriplegic and be forced to be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.
Your body adapts. You work through the pain. You learn how to use your arms, which were useless sticks of wood before, and you become strong and can fully function. So, one day, the movies come on and Chariots of Fire is playing, and you're having kind of an iffy day emotionally anyway, and you see all these sprightly lads running about. You can almost feel the wind in your hair and the burn of your lungs and hear the thud of your feet hitting pavement.
So, do you glory that you once had those days, of running free in the wind? Are you grateful for the chance you had to spread your wings, and fly? Or are you disgruntled, changing the TV channel so that you don't have to remember the pain, or feel the sadness that you will never be able to run again? Are you happy for the other people who can still run, or do you wish they all had even just a moment when they were bound to the chair, as you are, to make them see perspective? Are you angry at God? Do you despair and want to throw things? Do you ever wish that you had never known the joy of running down the proverbial lane, because you miss it so much you think you can't even take it for just one more minute?
Almost everyone I know has had a great loss. It may not be their loss, personally - but one from a close friend, family member, or significant other. Is the loss easier to bear if it didn't happen to you, so you don't have to feel the pain? Or is being the one who has to watch the other person battle through the pain harder than having the pain in the first place?
So. Is it better to experience the loss, and chalk it up to life's experience tab, or is it better to never have known the joy in the first place?
3 comments:
Who knows the answer to that? I still think that the paralyzed person probably wouldn't change thier unparalyzed days for anything...
Is anything big going on in your life right now. I hope you haven't had any major life changing losses lately.
I love you and am thinking of you. Call me when you have a chance!
I think the BETTER answer is to not become bitter when something happens, but for some that's easier said than done. It also depends on the nature of the loss, but that's a different argument.
It's easy to blame others for having something you want, or something you had but lost. As a wise little green man once said, it's "quicker, easier, more seductive" to do that, but it doesn't change anything.
It takes an act of will to get up off the mat when you've been knocked down, but there's nothing that can't be overcome.
But, hey, what do I know, right? I'm just a guy tryin' to get through to tomorrow.....
This reminded me of a poster I saw somewhere in Portland, Maine:
"It's better to have loved and lost than to live with the psycho the rest of your life."
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Some losses hit some people more than others; five new quadriplegics, five new responses. I studied this phenomenon a lot in my classes for my Speech/Language & Hearing Sciences. In the World Health Organization (WHO) model this is referred to as "handicap" or "'quality of life' issues" (QOL). It doesn't have to do with the physical nature of your disorder (or, for this discussion, your loss) but how much it affects you and your daily activities and the things that bring you joy.
There are some things that seem to strong prognostic markers for better QOL. (A good support network, for example.) But a lot of QOL variables are unknown scientifically. Here's one way I look at QOL, as a coordinate on two axes: (x) value and (y) tendency/philosophy.
Value: How significant a part of your joy was the thing that you lost? Pretend you loved running but after the dust settles, you're left with 90% of your joyous activities (the percentage use here is a little silly, but illustrative). Pretend you didn't care much for running but you're down by 50% because loss of control of your body is unexpectedly, unstoppably insidious and cuts into your joy everywhere. Besides how much has been lost, how much can be restored?
Tendency/philosophy: do you tend to despair, or to avoid pain at the expense of feeling joy?
I think that Value is something you have less control over compared to the control you can exercise over your Tendencies. One may not be able to control one's initial response, but what one does with that response is open to possibility.
Anyway, here's part of my tendency/philosophy:
Loss is a part of life, of course. I think that's easy to agree on. I think it's not a bad part of life either (perhaps a less universally agreeable idea).
It's impossible to cut loss out of your life. There's no option there. We all lose. Them's the breaks. It is possible to cut joy out of your life.
I choose the joy.
I can't imagine choosing not to have the joy.
When it comes down to it, though, I can't pick any loss that I would cut out of my life, either.
I think that regret is a fundamental emotion or response to despair and to wishing "if only that had never happened". I (by nature first and then by choice) do not tend at all to regret. I also do not feel much value for stoicism, and would not trade stabilizing my emotional plane for my sweet joys. I think that despair can come from a belief that we can escape loss.
Anyway, as it is, I'm all for having known.
What do you think about your quadriplegic? What's your inkling?
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