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Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

No, I am not Glad

Posted in Politics, tagged , on 18 Sep 2025| Leave a Comment »

With my reputation as a life-long and somewhat outspoken liberal, some can be excused for assuming that I was glad to hear that Mr. Kirk was assassinated. This is not so. I am most definitely not glad of it.

Primarily, having lost a parent in my youth, I empathize with the loss his wife and children are suffering. Though his children are younger than I was—I was almost six when my mother died—such a loss effects the entire family, and for a long time. I still feel the effects of my mother’s death, a lifetime later, and given Kirk’s large-sized life and the manner of his death, I know his family will feel it forever. Nothing to be glad of, there.

Also, I lived through a period marked by political assassinations. From JFK and MLK and RFK to Milk and Moscone and Sadat, I’ve experienced the gut-wrench of seeing a hero struck down, the rage of having one man’s bullet steal the hope of multitudes, and the despair as that rage boiled up, spilled over, and engendered an escalation that led to more violence, more hatred, more division.

And then there’s the fact that political assassinations never bring about the result desired. Assassins see their act as the simple solution to a complex problem, but all their crimes do is create new sets of problems and embolden their victim’s supporters, exacerbating tensions and giving new life to old hatreds. We see this happening now, too, and I am not glad of it.

I was not a fan of Kirk’s outlook and philosophy, and found much of it backward-looking and hate-filled. However, I’ve learned that there are many in my circle who, before this week, had never even heard of Charlie Kirk. It’s reasonable to assume, therefore, that there are many right-leaning folks who were likewise ignorant of Kirk’s message and activism. Until now. Thus, rather than silencing Kirk’s message, this assassination has the unintended effect of amplifying his message, presenting it to more people who might find it acceptable. It transforms messenger into martyr, and I don’t see this as a positive.

Amid all this, there’s the ridiculous tendency for pundits and politicians and performers to keep score. An assassin’s motives are, to my mind, largely irrelevant, because the crime is indefensible. So, regardless of whether Kirk’s assassin was an alt-right reactionary or an ultra-left-wing anarchist, the end results are the same. Understanding motives is only relevant when discussing radicalization in the aggregate; when we talk about individuals, it only serves to rile and enrage and justify finger-pointing tirades.

Finally, there’s the permission structure the assassin has provided Kirk’s supporters. By murdering a man who was—let’s face it—simply exercising his rights to freedom of speech, Kirk’s assassin has given our nascent autocracy the perfect excuse to ratchet up their own rhetoric, prosecute political enemies, label criticism as “hate speech” (which is protected by the First Amendment and legal precedent*, by the way), attack/doxx/fire private citizens for expressing opinions, and manipulate corporations, markets, and media that don’t hew to the prescribed orthodoxy.

None of this—none of it—makes me glad. None of it is good. None of it is helpful. None of it solves anything.

So . . . what to do?

The only thing that has helped me avoid absolute despair this week is this: be kind. Especially—and this is the hard part—be kind to those you encounter who may be grieving over the death of someone they admired. Why? Because a lot of people who admired Kirk are unaware of his more incendiary and regressive views, having only been exposed to his more faith-based and patriotic messaging. Also, there are those who, as mentioned, were unaware of Kirk in general, but who see the assassination of a right-wing firebrand as an attack on their world view. Being kind to these folks, right now, might allow you to have a reasoned discussion where everyone is able to agree that Kirk’s assassination is not something that makes us glad, even though we disagreed with him. Naturally, there are those who are wholly on-board with what Kirk was laying out there, but even then, being kind is useful, as it protects us from entering into useless arguments.

That’s my take on things. I will never be glad that someone is assassinated.

*Info on the SCOTUS precedent (for what it’s worth these days) can be read about via this link to Matal v. Tam

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Why We Can’t Have Anything Nice

Posted in Creativity, Hi Tech, Politics, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 28 Aug 2025| Leave a Comment »

AI; the grift that keeps on grifting. Feed it, press a button, and (in the immortal words of our president) “Bing Bong Bing,” there you have it: AI slop.

It’s everywhere, now including your bookshelf. If you’re not careful, that is.

And we weren’t.

We wanted to read Robert Reich’s new memoir, Coming Up Short, so we went to the Evil Empire (aka Amazon) and searched. “What format?” was the question. Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle, or Audio? Paperbacks are easier on our ancient hands, so that’s what we picked. And there was our first error. I did not see the red flag, did not twig that this was a new release, available in both Hardcover and Paperback? That never happens. If you get a hardback deal, publishers aren’t going to undercut that with a simultaneous paperback release. Sadly, all we saw was the reduction from the hardcover price (expected in a paperback), so we dropped that turd into our cart and hit the checkout.

My bad on that score.

When the book arrived, it was (as my wife described it) like opening a door to an alternate universe. I was coming up the stairs as she first viewed our purchase, and all I heard her say was, “….the hell?” The cover (pictured, right) was unlike anything we’d ever seen on a new release from a major publisher. It was also about half the thickness of a major release (150 pp vs the 400 pp of the hardback).

….the hell? Indeed.

What we had purchased was a bunch of AI slop.

Someone—definitely not Shem Grant, the named author of this tripe, whose magnum opus has now been de-listed from Amazon—fed a bunch of open source info into an AI chatbot, had it spit out enough slop to fill the 150 pages required to give it a spine, slapped a cartoonish rendition of its subject on the cover, and voila, instant grift. I’ll admit, I’ve not read this “product,” but in skimming through I found it repetitive, composed much like a high schooler’s book report, and rife with errors (within three minutes I fact-checked two: Reich was born in Scranton, not New York, and he was a Rhodes Scholar, not a Marshall Scholar).

Yup . . . AI slop.

Is this a thing? I wondered. Heading back out to Amazon, I executed similar searches for new memoirs and found similar AI-generated knock-off versions:

  • Jacinda Ardern’s A Different Kind of Power had half a dozen slop versions
  • Liz Cheney’s Oath and Honor had a few grift versions, plus about a dozen “workbook” editions
  • Kamala Harris’ 107 Days had fifteen (!) “books” that included the phrase “107 days” in their title, all by “authors” who had no other titles to their credit

In addition to these obvious attempts to con buyers by piggybacking similarly titled slop onto the sales of new releases, there were many self-styled “biographies” that had dubious authors, were listed as “independently published,” and often had obviously AI-generated covers (some that were really bad, and I mean like embarrassingly bad).

So, this stuff is out there, and there is a lot of it.

Remember when self-publishing became a thing? Remember how everyone wrung their hands over that? “There’s already enough crap out there in the book-sphere, and now everyone who can hold a pencil is going to think that they’re a writer!”

Hehe. Good times, eh? Because now, not only can anyone with enough grip strength to hold a pencil pose as a writer, but all those who are too lazy to even pick up a damned pencil are able to churn out utter rubbish, slap a fake name and an SEO-optimized title on it, send it into the Amazonian jungle to sting the unwary, reap the grift, and move on.

It’s enough to make one want to give up.

But, lesson learned. Once burned . . . .

k

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Dream Jobs

Posted in Creativity, Culture, Music, tagged , , , , , , , on 31 Jul 2025| Leave a Comment »

We all are aware of folks who are fortunate to make a living at their dream job. Usually, this is a confluence of talent and hard work and luck; we “mortals” see them as world-class athletes, renowned experts, and global celebrities. But I know that there are folks out there living quiet lives, who are also working at their dream job, as a teacher, a firefighter, a decorator, a data analyst, and such. Not all dream jobs are splashy. And, the concept of “dream job” isn’t fixed, isn’t static; they change over time, as we grow and learn and become ourselves.

When I was in grammar school, my dream job—as it was for many—was to be a veterinarian. What could possibly be better than working with puppies and dogs and kittens and cats all day? So, when given the opportunity to spend the day at a vet clinic, I leapt at the chance (as did several of my schoolmates). The day started with grooming and nail clipping and such, but when we were introduced to the procedure called “expression of the anal glands,” I was out. Looking back, I’m pretty sure they popped that particular procedure into the day’s agenda so as to weed out the weak of spirit. Wise move.

Shortly thereafter, I was given a violin to play, and all thoughts of a “dream job” were set aside in favor of figuring out how, as a bookish, bespectacled violinist, I might survive into puberty. Somehow, through strategic applications of humor and social invisibility, I survived the wholly predictable bullying and made it into adolescence. At this point my success with the violin and my now well-honed acumen in pleasing those in positions of authority led to other musical opportunities. Violinists were a dime a dozen in grade school, but a viola player? Priceless. So, sure, I could try that. And I did. How about branching out? The jazz ensemble needs a bass player. Wanna? I’m on it. Band could use a tuba player. Any interest? You bet. I also tried bassoon and French horn, but sadly I met my match with piano and harp (playing two staves of music at once was, simply, sadly, beyond my ability).

But all of this was an academic exercise. None of it hit me as a “calling,” and none of it constituted a dream job. Could I see myself as a musician? Sure. It made my folks proud, it brought a certain frisson of fame during recitals and concerts, and it put me into the society of kindred souls, some brilliant, some pedestrian, but all of us akin to misfit toys searching for a home.

Then my high school orchestra teacher, the wonderfully eccentric Hugo Rinaldi (may his memory be a blessing) decided to start a “student conductor” program. Would I be interested? Oh hell yes!

Instant Dream Job.

Everything changed for me at that point. I had my first Life Goal: Symphony Conductor.

It was a great opportunity to learn, but it was also a thrill to stand up there, baton in hand, and lead an orchestra through a performance of stirring music. During those few years, I conducted musicians through symphonies and concerti and musicals and operas. I conducted orchestras, symphonic bands, marching bands, chamber groups, and pit orchestras. I loved it! It was a tremendous, not because I was the focal point on stage—that was actually the aspect I cared for the least—but because it was a collective experience, where through rehearsals and sectionals and repetition we all, together, brought a piece of music to life, and if I had done my job well, by the time we performed, I was merely a timekeeper, a reminder, an encourager, an adjuster of volume and balance and speed and precision.

And so, entering university, my dream of a life as a conductor was my goal.

Within two years, that dream was dead.

The conductor “path” at my uni had certain requirements. Beyond the music history, theory, and orchestration that were part of any performance major, it also had a specific requirement for proficiency on the piano. No way around it. In time, this requirement made perfect sense—most conductor path grads would go on to get teaching credentials, and when leading a school orchestra, being able to play the score on piano was an almost essential tool—but at the time, the revelation was devastating. The joy I experienced leading an orchestra from sight-reading to performance, that exaltation I felt as the conduit of an orchestra’s creative energy, it would never be, not for me.

I kept on with music for many years afterward, but it was not a dream job. I tried doing an end-run around the hurdles. When I was principal violist for a regional symphony, I tried to cajole the conductor into allowing me to lead the group so he could go out and check the balance (we really needed it in our concert hall), but ceding the podium, even for a few minutes, was something that particular conductor would never contemplate.

And so, eventually, the dream was not only dead but finally buried.

In time, I found other avenues of interest, and contemplated other “dream jobs.” As I grew older, more introverted, and (admittedly) more jaded about dealing with the public, my concept of a dream job became more solitary and cloistered.

“Successful novelist” was one dream job. I gave that two decade’s hard work before reality sunk in; the best I was able to achieve was “accomplished novelist.” A more recent iteration was “museum conservator,” specifically of documents and books, but by the time I began contemplating that, I knew it would remain more “dream” than “job.”

Now that I’ve retired, I have no need of a job of any kind, “dream” or otherwise. Now I am free to do what I will (as long as my health holds out, I guess).

In the end, though, I have to say that I’m not rueful over dream jobs never achieved, for I have dreams that I have achieved. A happy home, a secure life for my family, an excellent partner, a long marriage. And as for those dreams that lay broken along my life’s margins, they are what led me to achieve things nearly dreamed of, gave me a taste of perfection, and drove me to efforts I did not believe I could perform.

So I say: Regret no failure met in service of a worthy goal.

Onward

k

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Discerning Friendship—One Introvert’s Take

Posted in Culture, tagged , , , , , , on 01 Jul 2025| 2 Comments »

I’ve never had a lot of friends. My cadre of close friends in school could usually be counted on one hand. Even now my FB “Friends” list barely hits triple digits, and few of those are close friends. It takes a while for me to form a friendship with someone new, both because of my innate stand-offishness, and because—I’ll admit—I’m an acquired taste.

Despite this, I do have some close friendships, and it’s not surprising that, now that I’m in my 60s, most of those are measured in decades. However, it’s a fact that over time people change, and that sometimes relationships require work, need recalibration, or simply cease to function altogether. It is also a fact that sometimes those troublesome changes are in me and are not my friend’s responsibility.

Recent events—and the reality that I and my cohort have begun to grey and stiffen—have led me to take a long look at the nature of my friendships, primarily to understand why some have begun to falter, but also to understand any changing dynamics, and to set my expectations at realistic levels. I need to know on whom I can rely.

I am a 100% introvert and was also the “invisible” child in my family, the kid my parents rarely had to worry about. As a result, I’ve always been self-reliant (often to a fault), I rarely ask for help (even when it is needed), and I navigate my social world in such a way as to create the least disturbance in my wake. This last one means a few things: I strive to take genuine interest in my friends’ lives and activities, to be generous with my time and resources, to be a reliable supporter and helper in time of need, and to be a relatively drama-free addition to the friendship.

And thus my issue, for when I do ask for help, I really need it, and when I raise concerns of a perceived imbalance, it’s serious. However—perhaps due to my pattern of self-sufficiency, or because I have misjudged the reciprocity of the relationship—responses are often muted and my requests easily shrugged off.

It is this level of reciprocity, I have discovered, that is a critical factor. Now that I recognize this, it is easy to see the difference it makes. Does this friend reach out to see how I’m doing? Do they express curiosity about things that are on my interest list but not on theirs? How well does the other know me, and how well do I know them?

In many friendships, this is irrelevant. Our interactions are cordial, conversations rarely dive deep, and we have large gaps in our knowledge of one another. But we enjoy our visits and interact over mutual interests. We’re not close, but we’re definitely friends.

In close relationships—my inner circle, if you will—my expectations are higher. Conversations are often more deep and detailed, and my knowledge about the other’s life is more extensive. I expect we have greater consideration for one another, a deeper knowledge of likes and dislikes. And I expect that we have a strong mutual concern for each other’s well-being.

When difficulties arise (I now realize), it is when this reciprocity is not present in what I had considered to be a close friendship. It is here that my expectations have proven to be too high, which has led to disappointment, strife, and ruptures in relationships.

Social relationships and etiquette are fuzzy things with few definitive boundaries. They are usually founded on tacit understanding of the rules, rules discussed more in the breach than in the observance, and they are rife with particulars unique to the friends involved.

But it is neither fair nor reasonable for me to expect a friend to do all for me that I might do for them. One can rarely know the depth of a friendship until it is tested, but I believe I have found a tool that I can use to better judge my position as seen from another’s perspective.

Friendships can be marvelously resilient or shockingly fragile. They can survive long neglect or require constant maintenance. None of these traits are any better or worse than the others; they are not flaws, but mere attributes of the relationship. Denying their existence is fruitless, but while we must accept them as facts, it does not mean they are satisfactory to our needs.

The key—for me anyway—is being honest about the relationship; that way, I can avoid critical misunderstandings and failed expectations. My hope is that I can avoid mistakes such as I’ve made in the past and the heartache that often came with them.

 

k

 

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Patient 3914744

Posted in Health, Seattle, tagged , , , , on 28 Jun 2025| 2 Comments »

On Tuesday, I said two words that I had never spoken to anyone before.

“I’m scared,” I told Matt.

Matt was a giant. At 6’8” tall, with a firefighter’s physique, he was an imposing presence. He’d had to duck to enter our front door, and when he knelt down in front of the couch on which I sat, to apply the electrodes to my chest and arm, he still towered over me. A phalanx of men surrounded me, all of similar build but of mere mortal height. The cul-de-sac was filled by a massive fire truck that dwarfed the ambulance, both with red lights spinning, engines purring at poised rest. My wife had been on the doorstep, directing them toward me—“Upstairs, and to the right”—and was now providing one of the human-sized EMTs with info on what had preceded our call to 911. But despite Matt’s outsized frame, he was a calming presence, a rock of competence and confidence, spiced with a soupçon of humor that evoked a brotherly trust within my rapidly pounding heart.

Of course, I’d been scared before, but I’d never admitted it aloud, in the moment. Car wrecks, sudden job loss, a rock climbing accident, nearly losing a hand in a newspaper web press, a myriad injuries and mishaps, a televised viola solo in Vaughan-Williams’ “London” Symphony No. 2—I was no stranger to fear, but never had I given voice to that emotion, that primal, skin-tightening, gut-loosening feeling that strikes out of the storm like St. Elmo’s Fire.

This time, though, with a kernel of blue-white heat burning in my chest a centimeter above my heart, with my body pulsating at every heartbeat like an over-filled balloon, with the numbers on the BP monitor angrily flashing “248/195 . . . 248/195 . . .”, the fear was existential.

Matt winked. “Of course you are.”

What followed was Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride to the hospital, an hours-long session of “hurry up and wait” in the ER, an uncomfortable and sleepless night followed by an early morning angioplasty, and then by an echo-cardiogram and more poking, tapping, prodding, squeezing, injecting, testing, and monitoring.

In the end, obviously, I survived. Compared to some folks I know, my experience was relatively minor (one artery blockage, handled with one stent and a few angioplasties, no permanent damage to the heart), and the only true casualty was my illusion of invulnerability. I may have been a 66-year old male, non-smoker, active, with no daily meds and no chronic illness or history of heart trouble, but that didn’t matter. Matt, the herculean EMT, perhaps he was a demigod, but I . . . no, I was mortal.

Some friends really came through for us, while others (sadly) disappointed. Helpful advice came in from many quarters, as did well wishes. And I will forever remember all the professionals—a cadre of EMTs, four MDs, a half-dozen RNs, a score of technicians, and support staff uncounted—who all, with professionalism and kindness and competence and humor, kept us going, instilling hope, calming fears, and distracting us at the trying points of our journey. To them, my eternal thanks. You saved me, in many ways.

Admitting my fear to Matt was a turning point, a true and unvarnished admission of my own mortality, and it affected not just this experience, but the rest of my life, moving forward. I am not immortal. I can be broken. I do need to take specific care of myself, rather than trusting in my innate constitution and past record of good health.

It’s not that I will be living in fear, constantly worrying that Death waits around the next corner, but just as I check my side-view mirror before changing lanes, there are simple precautions I can take to keep myself in good nick as long as possible.

Onward.

k

Shout out to the staff at the UW Medical Center – Northwest ER and SCU, and to the great guys at SFD Station #65. You were all wonderful!

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Anticipation

Posted in Books, Creativity, tagged , , , , , on 16 May 2025| 1 Comment »

There is something special that happens, something ephemeral and transitory, when I approach the end of a good book. It can go one of two ways: I either rush headlong toward the conclusion, driven forward by a thirst for the sweet wine of revelation and release, or I hold off, pacing my approach, lingering over what has come before whilst imagining, wondering, whetting my hunger for the last few chapters. It is a magic, specific to books, this control, this opportunity to choose.

When we watch a movie, the pace is set for us, as we experience the timing, the focus, the framing decisions of director, cinematographer, and editor. The Pause button is analogous, but a weak shadow, often used merely to grab a nosh, hit the loo, or tend to a load of laundry in the dryer. One does not pause a film in its approach to a climactic scene merely to reflect on all the scenes that have come before.

But with a novel, we are the director, we frame the shots, and we flesh out the rooms and towns and landscapes—sketched by the author—with costumes and onlookers and paths of our own fashioning. In a book, we are the collaborators, assisting the author in their work. We bring the words to life in our mind’s eye, and in the case of a well-written book, it is a joy, this work, this journey, so as the pages tick past, from recto to verso, as the end-papers grow nearer, we must choose: race ahead? or slow-walk our way to the last page?

(For those of you who read the ending of a book first, no judgment—okay, a little judgment—but I think you’re missing out on one of readings truly great pleasures. That’s not to say I’ve never read a book that didn’t go along swimmingly only to have a massively sucky ending, but I’ve only thrown a handful of books across the room for that reason, so for me, knowing the ending ahead of time would ruin far more than it would preserve.)

The decade past, my fiction diet has been lacking. The ongoing stresses of work, coupled with what I perceive as the slow (and now much more rapid) deconstruction of our national norms, left my brain ill-equipped to concentrate sufficiently on a novel. The run-up to retirement was anything but stress-free. Disappointingly, the first year of retirement was likewise fraught with unexpected challenges, from dealing with new insurance carriers to a cancer scare to dealing with large household projects and more. So, my first year as a retiree was not just me, lying in my hammock, a novel in one hand and a wee dram of whisky in the other.

Since my recent non-diagnosis, however, I’ve redoubled my efforts on the fiction reading score, and once more I find myself in the delicious dilemma described above. I purchased several books that were on sale, titles and authors about which I knew nothing, the sale decision made solely on the strength of the blurb, and so far I have two titles on this year’s list of Books Read. One turned out to be a mystery, and I found myself wholly absorbed as I read to the conclusion; the other was a surprisingly twisty bit of magic realism, and for that my pace slowed, savoring the last chapters.

I plan to foster this renewed joy of reading books, physical books, in the months (and years) to come. It used to be that I never walked anywhere, stood in any queue, or waited for any bus without having a book in my hand. I took a book with me from room to room, catch a page or two while the tea water was heating, or read a chapter before sleep. I’m hoping that, like riding a bike, these habits will return, that the tablet I have been carrying with me everywhere is exchanged for a dog-eared paperback with a tattered receipt as a bookmark. It’ll take some effort, but I suspect it’ll be worth it.

k

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Soft Reset

Posted in Culture, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 29 Apr 2025| 5 Comments »

For about three months there has been one main question on my mind: What grade of cancer is it?

For the past 65+ years, my body has been pretty reliable. Aside from bad eyes, soft teeth, and legs too short for my height, it has performed well. Oh, there have been episodes—a back injury that plagued me for decades, a stress level that led to a barrage of investigative tests, a critical bout of appendicitis—but I’ve reached retirement age without needing any prescriptions and my main complaints center around stiff joints and thinning hair.

In short, my body has been a real trouper.

I’ve also tried to approach life with a “data-driven” mindset, where study and expertise gather and analyze information in order to formulate probable outcomes and guide my actions. Just as I trust that someone who has studied turtles for thirty years knows more about turtles than I do, and that someone who restores cars knows more about internal combustion than do I, so too do I trust that medical professionals, who have years (sometimes decades) of study and experience under their belt, who are steeped in the knowledge and research of their chosen field, are better qualified to interpret the results of medical tests than I am.

So, in January, when blood tests came back that showed an elevated PSA level, and my doc was concerned that this indicated a 25% chance that I had developed prostate cancer, I was likewise concerned. A 25% chance wasn’t big, but it wasn’t nothing, and we agreed that further investigation was warranted.

Then, in February, when the MRI she ordered showed a lesion on my prostate, and that lesion was determined to have an 80% likelihood of being cancer, my data-driven mindset accepted a cancer diagnosis as the most likely outcome, and the only thing left to determine was what “grade” of cancer it was. Was it the “low” grade type—not aggressive, slow-growing, low risk of complication/metastasis—where the consensus recommended monitoring rather than any active measures? Was it the “intermediate” type, where risks increased, treatments became more active, and outcomes a bit more squishy in predictability? Or the “high” grade, where invasive, sometimes radical treatment was indicated?

Looking deeper into these grades, I learned that about half of such cancers were in the “low” group, and 40–45% were in the “intermediate” group. That left only 5–10% of cancers in the “high” group. To know what grade of cancer, though, required a biopsy and because of the lesion’s location, not an easy biopsy. I will not go into details.

And it was in that month, waiting to have the biopsy, and then the near fortnight between biopsy and results, that my data-driven mindset failed me.

Cancer is not a fun word. It does not wrap one up in a warm blanket of fuzzy good feelings. Having friends and relatives who have battled and (thankfully) made it through their cancer treatments, I know that cancer is not a death sentence. However, having had a mother and step-mother die of cancers, I know that this is not a given. Cancer can and does kill. Often. And though I’ve long heard that “If you get cancer, prostate cancer is the one you want to get,” that men with low-grade prostate cancer often live for decades and usually die of something else, and though I was looking at a 90–95% chance that this cancer was low or intermediate grade, none of that mattered as my data-driven mindset was overcome when my reptilian brain took charge and spent those six weeks between scheduling the biopsy and receiving the results in a fight-or-flight battle with the 5–10% probability of a “high” grade diagnosis.

And I mean a serious battle. Like, a Why bother planting those roses? battle. A No point outlining that novel now scale battle. An I worked so fucking hard to make a safe retirement for us and now this? cage-match battle.

There was no 90–95% chance. Try as I might, despite desperate attempts to focus on the real probabilities, there was only the 5–10%.

During those six weeks my fears blossomed, unfurling their cankerous petals, until Week Three when they began to wither and fade as within me there began to grow a stony, reluctant acceptance. “Worst-case scenario” began to preface much of my thinking, and I started the process of evaluating my life, cataloguing faults and failures, strengths and successes, all in neatly-ordered columns. Aside from the fact that I was really really looking forward to having another quarter-century (give or take) to doink around on the planet, if I did have to “get my affairs in order,” I felt like I’d done a pretty good job of it, overall, and those who depended on me would be taken care of.

It wasn’t a peaceful state of mind, it wasn’t pleasant, but it was acceptable.

Yesterday, the results came in. No cancer. None. Nada. Zip. Due to the difficult position of the lesion, he’d taken three times the usual number of core samples he usually took, just to make sure. All came back negative for cancer.

Remember, up top, when I mentioned that the lesion seen in the MRI had an 80% chance of being cancer? The 80% that has driven my thinking for months? Turns out I’m in the other 20%. Probabilities are just that: probabilities.

Do I regret my data-driven approach to all this? No. Concentrating on the most likely outcomes, while remaining cognizant of the outliers, was a gentler journey than driving blithely down the “happy path” only to smash into a brick wall, should my diagnosis have gone the other way.

I am grateful, exceedingly grateful, that it worked out as it did. I’m grateful for the strength and steadfastness of my wife. I’m grateful for the caring and empathetic treatment from my medical team (nurses absolutely rock). And I’m actually grateful for the opportunity I was given, to see my life from a new perspective, to evaluate my existence in the aggregate rather than the discrete, and to experience this “soft reset” that will now color and inform my approach to what I hope is another quarter-century (give or take) to doink around the planet.

Onward.

k

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