Thank you, Oliver Sacks

From the piece I read in February http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on-learning-he-has-terminal-cancer.html by Oliver Sacks after he found out he was terminally ill:

"And yet, one line from Hume’s essay strikes me as especially true: “It is difficult,” he wrote, “to be more detached from life than I am at present.”

Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life.

On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.

This will involve audacity, clarity and plain speaking; trying to straighten my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too, for some fun (and even some silliness, as well).

I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends. I shall no longer look at “NewsHour” every night. I shall no longer pay any attention to politics or arguments about global warming.

This is not indifference but detachment — I still care deeply about the Middle East, about global warming, about growing inequality, but these are no longer my business; they belong to the future. I rejoice when I meet gifted young people — even the one who biopsied and diagnosed my metastases. I feel the future is in good hands."

I have thought a lot about that part about how detachment does not need to mean indifference, that it is still possible to care deeply about something without focusing on it. His words helped me see the serenity prayer in a new light and as such a clear definition of good boundaries, or maybe: "how to create a good life in three lines".

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

 

I'm not super great at it yet. But I'm getting better at it, and feeling gratitude for Oliver Sacks and writers like him for having a part in that. 

"Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure."

I stood beneath an orange sky

I messaged this to my friend who studied Religion in college:

"This was simultaneously depressing and motivating to sit through.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKR-HydGohQ#t=438 

This is what I've appreciated about atheism: "Get busy, because this is your only chance. Inaction hurts worse than action. There is nothing left at the end, which means there is no failure, so no need to spend energy trying to avoid it." 

But I also feel pulled toward the comfort that faith brings: "Love is forever. The soul never dies, and cannot be separated from true love." 

Can't I have both? Dualism?"


She wrote back:

• 
  

  "Immanentist theologies basically do that same work. It's the notion that what matters about God is for the present, not the future. 
• Christianity has transcendental (God is other than us, bigger than us and mostly beyond us) and immanentist (God is in the world or is the world, his power is here and now not in the future, and it's the power of love not force)"

I've sat on that a few days and this is what I think:

"Orange Sky"

Well I had a dream

I stood beneath an orange sky 

Yes I had a dream 

I stood beneath an orange sky 

With my brother standing by 

With my brother standing by 

I said, "Brother, you know you know 

It's a long road we've been walking on 

Brother, you know it is you know it is 

Such a long road we've been walking on." 

And I had a dream 

I stood beneath an orange sky 

With my sister standing by 

With my sister standing by 

I said, "Sister, here is what I know now 

Here is what I know now 

Goes like this.. 

In your love, my salvation lies 

In your love, my salvation lies 

In your love, my salvation lies 

In your love, in your love, in your love."

"But sister you know I'm so weary 

And you know, sister 

My heart's been broken 

Sometimes, sometimes 

My mind is too strong to carry on 

Too strong to carry on"

"When I am alone 

When I've thrown off the weight of this crazy stone 

When I've lost all care for the things I own 

That's when I miss you, that's when I miss you, that's when I miss you 

You who are my home 

You who are my home 

And here is what I know now 

Here is what I know now 

Goes like this.. 

In your love, my salvation lies 

In your love, my salvation lies 

In your love, my salvation lies 

In your love, my salvation lies 

In your love, my salvation lies 

In your love, my salvation lies 

In your love, my salvation lies 

In your love, in your love, in your love"

Well I had a dream 

I stood beneath an orange sky 

Yes I had a dream 

I stood beneath an orange sky 

With my brother and my sister standing by

With my brother and my sister standing by

With my brother and my sister standing by