The image of oneself

Tonight I was told that all the great people in history arrived at the same conclusion. The implication of this line of benediction was to inform me that the 'Creator' had imbued life with souls and that to deny the force of such an historical collective of conscience was... stupid I guess.

Right now I don't feel that stupid. This could in fact be thanks to the reality that I am stupid and don't realise because of my average IQ. Being fair I cannot rule this out. Or perhaps more accurately my intelligence may not allow me to perceive some things which someone smarter than myself perceives. That is completely fair and I suspect entirely correct. If it weren't then I wouldn't have failed accounting at university and then indulged my creative side in arts.

However, arriving at a belief in souls and comprehending theoretical physics seem to me to be entirely different planes of thought - Einstein was one of the bricks the person I was talking to was fallaciously building her argument with. Either way I cannot take someone else's experience as my own otherwise I would have been indoctrinated a long time ago and this kind of postulation would be moot.

Why, anyway, should I respect intellectual giants at the sake of my own curiosity and enlightenment? Knowledge wasn't perfected before I was born and I don't know of anything other than a concept of 'god' that has a monopoly on knowledge either. Knowledge to me is something that is built upon and grows organically with new perspectives and insights. With this in mind I'll frame my atheistic tendencies in the ever growing and expanding universe of knowledge and my minuscule comprehension of it.

Ultimately I can't say that I know anything for certain, only what I know to myself. This is unfortunately somewhat small and so extrapolation occurs and I arrive at what I believe in. What I believe is this (some of the things anyway):

I have had no experience I can attribute to a god or gods. If I have had such an experience it was too subtle to recognise and therefore went unnoticed.

Life proliferates on this planet and is therefore not unique. My life is not unique.

My physical existence and self-consciousness are unique and wholly invaluable. I'm not sure what precipitates existence but I'm exquisitely fortunate to be here existing.

There is nothing to indicate in my experience or at an observable level the existence of souls.

If I have seen a ghost there has been nothing to differentiate it from the living and so I can't say I've seen one.

If my life was given to me by a god(s) or creator they voluntarily gave me this life, there is no expectation of compensation by definition.

Religious ambiguity disambiguates towards atheism.

I will not fawn at the heals of any deity for the sake of a better life. My life is my own to make of what I will. If I succeed it will be thanks to many things. If I fuck up then I've got no one else to blame.

I do not tolerate intolerance of difference. This can be expressed two ways:
Um) At an interpersonal level between humans and at a macro level between cultures.
Dois) If a god(s) or creator wants to judge me at the end of my life based on whether or not I conformed to their want or will they gave me this life with preconditions. That is not giving, nor is it fair. I live by what I deem right, not because I fear retribution or some concept of hell. And if that happens to be where I'm headed because I did not conform to a set of beliefs? The concept that there could be a god so selfish is something I cannot fathom.
*****

So where does this rant leave me and any of you unfortunate enough to still be reading (D-man)? Damned if I know. Whatever happens in life happens. I will not hedge my bets and pick a religion to ensure a comfortable afterlife (if indeed there is one). I will be judged for who I am, what I do, and that's that.

Intermittent Flirtations

It's funny how kids swarm around points of interest. Little people everywhere wanting to know 'Why is that guy on a stretcher?' To be honest I felt the same way. The question over what I had done would persist only as a grand delusion. I pretended things would be fine, that I would be up and running in a couple of weeks. Without a firm diagnosis it would have been presumptive to accept that my knee and life in the short-term had been wrecked.

Right?

I'm not sure I ever truly believed that. Over the weeks and months following January 31st the internet became a tool to find out what exactly rupturing an ACL meant for me. Preparing for the worst scenario in this case made the most sense.

I was transferred from the field to an ambulance and given laughing gas. At this point in time I attempted a brave show of manliness by trying some comedy while asking my new ambulance friend questions one might ask over tea. I wasn't too successful however - the pain, which I was asked to describe on a scale of 1 to 10, was tipping out at 9 and 3/4 thanks to the increased pressure on my knee joint every time the ambulance slowed down. The nitrous oxide took effect on every other part of my body in a tingling sensation but my knee stayed stalwart in its persistent reminder of pain.

At the hospital I was passed over to a nurse (male). By this time I was in my comedy grove and wanted to say that nurses were much prettier on television than in real life. His business-like air and defeated sense of purpose stole the words from my mouth and I was wheeled into a room to await an x-ray. My brother turned up almost immediately (he was playing soccer with me), and I think he had already called Mum and Dad but we talked to them again and Dad turned up shortly thereafter.

*****
Soliloquy: My brothers and I have a lot to answer for. Collectively we've shortened our parents lives, particularly that of our Mum's, by around 20 or more years. The number of serious injuries and surgeries required between us is long and illustrious and the fact both Mum and Dad still have natural colour in their hair is pretty amazing.

That most people haven't broken a bone in their life still astounds me.
*****

Hospitals are gruelling places. I'm not sure I can put in words the indelible experience I had but two things in particular characterised my short-lived stay.

Ichi) The gurney operator who wheeled me to and from my x-ray looked absolutely smashed - 20 years and 20 drinks and I still wouldn't look as crumpled as this guy did. Red eyes, red face, and an air of 'get me the fuck out of here' hung about his neck. That's not to say he was unkind. Au contraire, he was moustached, stocky, and could have been a friend's cool dad. He had just started another long shift out of innumerable days work and reminded me of a rock in a river, slowly giving his soul to a never ending flow of humanity passing through his workplace.

Ni) When I was wheeled out of my x-ray I was stowed in an alcove where a good-looking nurse (female) accompanied a man not much younger than myself. The catch was he was lying prone with a brace wrapped around his neck. I'll admit my thoughts had been highly self-involved up until this point, and perhaps they still were; I don't know if I cried for him, myself, or at my selfishness. It was a sad slap from Reality and one which brought to sharp relief my own situation. Whatever happens to me, there are people who are experiencing loss greater than I'll ever care to imagine or experience. Facing such a reality personally in such a desperate time was truly humbling.

I was placed in a corridor afterwards. There were no rooms left and the doctors were trying to make space for people in greater need than my own. With no bone shards populating my x-ray they had done all they could for this chump.

My Dad and I left with no fanfare, we were forgotten amongst a sea of the woe begotten, broken occasionally by wraith-like hospital workers darting amongst the swell.

*****

I was at the beginning of what has and continues to be a journey. Moments happen in life, they are neither good nor bad, and you take from them what you will. This was an awakening of sorts, not a happy one but a profound one. How profound?

I'm still figuring it out.

The one year anniversary, Part One

When I began writing this it was a year to the day that I ruptured my anterior cruciate ligament. That was yesterday and now it’s a year to the date. I have been thinking about what I would post for a while as I knew this ‘celebration’ was coming up, but getting down in lucid sentences what’s been running through my head isn’t particularly easy.

I was playing mixed seven aside soccer, the kind where most guys seem to take out their domestic violence issues on the football field. This night there was one particular guy I ran afoul of, he was built to use his fists while I’m built to swing sticks. What happened was in no way his fault, contact sport has its perils. However, it was his push from behind that put me all out of kilter and ultimately resulted in my trip to the hospital.

When I think about it I still wince at the pain. As my knee gave out I was looking at my leg, at least I think I was as the knowledge that I had done something serious was with me before I heard the crack or felt the pain. Some rudimentary photoshop playing has arrived at what my leg kind of looked like at its moment of reconfiguration.

I was later told that I acted bravely, but I howled and swore a bit before immediately requesting an ambulance, swinging my head back and forth to try and clear it of pain.

I have broken an arm, a foot, probably fingers and toes and most likely my nose, but nothing prepared me for this.

At the time I refrained from crying. It wasn’t out of some show of bravado, I knew I had hurt myself, but the pain was too sharp, the want to know how badly I had hurt myself to pressing. As I calmed down some asshole who had gathered amongst the crowd of onlookers commented that I wouldn't be walking for two years. That made me cry a little and was when I tried to put on the brave face.

How I calmed down is worth noting, and many thanks go to the referee who helped me reign myself in. He cleared most everyone off, asked me again if I thought I needed an ambulance, and then told me to think of somewhere else. I remember now vividly the picture I brought to mind of a beach in Fiji. The colouring is kind of strange but it was simple and it worked. It is almost amusing that pain isn't anything more than a series of electrical impulses.

That was the end of the game. I went down in front of the other team’s goal but from the faces I saw most of the women were upset and all of the men were grim. Playing for our opposition was a physio who checked me out on the spot. He accurately and confoundingly predicted I would be told my ACL was nothing more than flotsam in my rapidly swelling knee. There are several telling tests to know if ones ACL is still intact; the Lachman; dynamic extension, and; anterior drawer tests. These tests are often performed on both legs to ascertain the difference if there is any, between the two knees. All tests should end in a ‘hard end’, where the femur and tibia and fibula lock against the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee. A ‘soft’ end is indicative of a rupture, and my leg was jelly.

The other telling signs are pain and a hemarthrosis, where your knee tries to emulate a balloon.

Part Two will go up in the next couple of days, but one of the most annoying things about breaking your ACL is the lack of an immediate, definitive diagnosis and consequently a lack of knowledge about what you can do to maximise your recovery. In the weeks waiting for an MRI I fantasised that the other team’s physio had gotten it wrong – he had only checked my bad knee without comparing it to my good knee – that I wouldn’t need to have surgery, that I hadn’t irreparably changed the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, my false hopes were wrong.

Cringe worthy

The last retroactive post...

Tuesday 8^th May

Tonight my parents sold our family home of 21 years. I thought I would have moved on before this time came but events transpired in such a way that I am back at home only to see it pass on to another family. Truth be told I am not as sad as I believed I would be given that 8 Aberdeen Road has been my home since memory serves. This is mainly thanks to the fact that I am itching to engage in the world beyond the borders of what my world now constitutes and this drive has been with me potently for at least five years. An inherent transience, a shifting identity, a want to consolidate myself while expanding at the same time. All these I see as out there waiting for me to understand and discover. However, this could be a delusion under which I am deceiving myself. On no reliable grounds can I justify why I believe what I believe about travel, or what it will give me.

The drive to do what we do isn't apparent, I cannot feasibly explain who I am or why I want to do the things I want to do. If this conversation were to boil down to purpose with the classic remedy to purposelessness being religion or a belief in a god – that I do not believe is the answer or in fact the question. Belief does not automatically insert purpose into a person. From belief in a deity one can derive conviction in their actions, but nothing actually informs a person as to what they are doing. While people may have conversations with the god of their beliefs', I reckon that whatever that belief manifests itself as, is like an inbuilt compass. A mind can pose a question to 'god' and the answer they receive is an instinctual reaction of the mind. Like tossing a coin when split over a decision and letting your emotional reaction to the outcome determine the course of action that you take, 'god' exists only in the realm of uncertainty and want of explanation, and belief creates the answers.

Patently, this is all academic. Even if the religious mind were to operate in the manner I described, faith ultimately washes away the questions an individual might pose to oneself. God is infallible because we cannot prove he is real or otherwise. So is the choice for religion the smart one? Would it cure my apprehension or explain the things that I don't understand? No. Being pragmatic and accepting that things are the way they are is my way of life and shouldn't be mistaken for apathy. Accepting that the world is the way it is I hope to create change not during my life time, but rather I want to start change that will last beyond any living memory of AJD. Any change that I might be able to create would be selfish, naive, destructive and transient. Biologically if the solution lies in a mule, the solution itself is moot, as it cannot be passed on and dies with its host. I can only hope to create the basis for change and give others the power to change themselves. A centralised fission of change is as fallible as a dictatorship and in many respects, just as damaging.

What then of life or goals? It's hard to say that anything will ultimately be achieved in my life that measures up to the grandeurs that rampage through my head.

However, I must tackle every opportunity, every experience, and every moment with the passion of a man dying. No matter the course I take, I must make the most of whatever comes. Fear of uncertainty be damned. I challenge myself to embrace uncertainty, to live with fear and not because of it. I challenge myself to live.

Coming to the end and the beginning

Looking at my old diary there is one entry left to put up that will officially end the retroactive posts I began this thread with. It is messed up and to an extent reflects the almost total and prolonged introspection I experienced while dealing with my recovery. When I emerged from my enforced seclusion I couldn't relate to any one but by transfiguring them through my own ego. I didn't make a good conversationalist and overcoming that selfishness of thought was difficult and an unexpected aspect of my recovery.

I have a strong urge to edit my last diary entry as it reveals more insecurities than I'd care to consciously recognise, nor does it read well. Ultimately though this blog/wiary was started to try and share an experience that I tried to seek out when I first broke my knee. I intend to fill out the details of the past year (!) with things that relate specifically to my knee and on going recovery, and I will post my last diary entry in pristine condition. One thing that has become clear to me is that an injury as serious as this can create as much damage mentally as it does physically, if not more.

I don't think I've dealt with the mental side of things particularly well in totality. While I have applied myself to recovering properly, I would be lying to say it isn't a crutch and I have so far worked my hardest. I am not who I used to be and it shames me to know that I'm not trying my absolute damnedest to become more of what I was while embracing all the new things I've gained. Life has become scary and the easiest way to stay safe is to keep only partially engaged. I hate that aspect of how I currently am, but it turns full circle when the only one I can rely on to change this is myself, yet I fall short.

I am much, much better than I was. Incredibly so when I think back to the fact that I couldn't walk. Much better now than a lot of people are in general physically speaking.

I want to be invincible though, or as close to this lost illusion as I can become.

Welcome to 2000 and 8!

Thursday 3^rd May

It has been 12 weeks now since I snapped my acl and irrevocably changed aspects of my life. One thing which has become apparent to me is the small level of reflection through which I perceive things. Living moments become instances lost in time as I submerge myself in what I'm doing. A weakness or fault of this way of being is an unawareness of the more obvious aspects of whatever task is at hand. How important this weakness is I cannot gauge. I have no way of measuring the impact it will have on my life, but memories cannot be uniform in the way they are made as the living witness places the emphasis on recording the things which it deems most important - memories are the hegemonic interpretation of the subconscious being. They are not even infallible, as time softens even the sharpest of pain.

Perhaps this is no weakness in itself, being unaware of the passage of time, living days as days are, when goals are necessarily small. One thing it does create is a sense of frustration. When greater goals are at hand, achieving those goals only comes about through the same day to day living. Spinning out possibilities instead of creating opportunities and completing real things is no way to live, it's the antithesis of how we should involve ourselves in everything we do. If a sense of the overarching narrative is lost during the process, it can be reclaimed at the projects end, and in fact I don't think this can be seen as losing sight of whatever it is you are striving for. No one can predict how things will play out, they can plan and react, and yet the journey will only be apparent when you turn around at the end.

Right now I am frustrated. Without the ability to pursue my recovery at a speed far greater than that which I must take, the fallibility of youth and my own ideal of invincibility is patently obvious. To some extent this scares me, for my knee was broken in the most harmless of activities, yet I see in my life adventures and events in which I will move beyond injury to death. Where do I find solace? I guess that my knee was an accident borne of improbability. Metaphorically there was no parachute to open because I wasn't yet falling.

If one thing comes from this experience, I hope that it will be the spark to keep myself healthy, the potency of mind to never become complacent with my body or my mind. In this way I don't think I can fear death if I can embrace it, flirt with it, or touch it. Take away my ability to push myself to this edge and then you've taken away my life, my control, my way of knowing what existing is.

Death is the stark canvas on which the brilliance of life is painted in its most defining moments.

Walking but not talking about it

Monday 30 April

Last night I was talking to Lew about a new script idea which I've called Bully. His main critique was that it was predictable, that it didn't involve any narrative uniqueness. Fair enough. However, what are stories about? Even though movies have a beginning, middle and end, the end is not what I derive joy from. It has been a long time since I did not know intuitively how a story or a film was going to wrap. Catharsis and resolution only perfunctorily bookend a narrative, they are never really ends in themselves. It is always the journey from which pleasure is gained, the setups and payoffs, the fabric of the story which I become entangled in, and the end a necessary disengagement from that story. How then can stories be unpredictable? Given x, y and z it is almost always possible to infer the path the meta narrative will take.

Wonder Boys is a prime example of this – the fun of the story is in its middle and Wonder Boys is a joy to watch despite the fact that the end can be deduced from nearly the beginning. The Matrix is an easier and more universal example to illustrate my point (and an awesome film) – did anyone think that Neo would die at the end of the film?

Perhaps it is conditioning and audience that ultimately decides on the generic end? Maybe films can never truly be surprising and we only hold ourselves in suspense?

That brings me to a wanky question that’s not quite as rhetorical as the previous three - what is an end anyway? As finite beings that function on a basis of created time, we have placed an imperative on beginnings and ends. I don't think I can ever truly trust anyone that says they have done all they wanted in a given time frame as what does that mean? They've finished things? They’ve gained all they could have from that experience? The fact that we live on and are influenced by what we have done means that things never really end. Even death, whether you believe in obliteration or something else, is not the end of someone.

What does this mean for my script? I don't care if people will walk into this film knowing the bully will get his just desserts, I care about how they engage with the story – whether the middle is a new take on an old story.