Masks

I've made this plan before: it is redrafted every time my life falls out of balance and I forget to be happy with my station. I've neglected my spirit and forgotten my way.

Medical school is stressful and draining. More than the constant onslaught of information you must struggle to absorb, you must make peace with the mortality of which your learning material is entirely made from. I'm talking about case studies to actually gross pathology specimens from long dead individuals.

During these periods of anxiety I am exceptionally sensitive the morality presented to me. I do an imagining module in where a CAT scan of a 32 year old man's abdomen showing cancer of the head of the pancreas that has metastasize to the liver. This man is as good as dead at the time of seeing this. The odds of this happening to any given person in the United States escapes me, or I've ignored it, probably cause I just want to obsess on the horrific nature of the situation.

I wonder if medical school is the right endeavor for someone so sensitive. Though, I think it is the only way for me to conquer the disjointedness I feel when it comes to death. People, my fellow people, can live happy productive lives in harmony with the world around them. I hope that whatever I do in medicine, I can make that a reality for those I care for. Though, because of my research track, my affect on patients maybe only through research.

There have been many small disillusionment since I've started med-school, and I've become negative. I am, unfortunately and all too often, of the glass-half-empty school. Having divulge that, I feel like every time I turn around a staple of medical treatment is under fire for some unforeseen morbidity. That and the many aliments that we can offer only palliative care.

In truth though, we have entered a golden age of medicine since the advent of antibodics. In this contury commuicable diseases have all but disappeared, thanks to sanitation and antibodics. We still struggle with some viruses, and they can be particularly frightening because or the ripidity at which they can change and infect (e.g. bird flu).

The good news is ( and I have to tell this to myself often) in this country you can eat whole local foods (unprocessed) and exercise, not smoke and drink too much, not have sex with hundreds of people, and you'll practically live forever. There are though outliers that scare me, and everyone with a nervous disposition.

So here I am 3 weeks into another self corrective cycle of anxiety and reflection. Once I rule out those pathologies which would cause me to die suddenly, I need to search my soul for the reasons why I wake in the middle of the night feeling like I do. I need to find the root of this anxiety. It is much like unmasking the ghost in Scooby-Doo, but often the ghost has many maskes. Each one can be a frightening as the one covering it, and, if I don't die of fright, I remove the next one. It will happen that I give up and turn away, as I have I the past. The ghost will wheel me 'round in time and I will resume removing the masks, always hoping I will uncover the face of my fear.

If I troll the deepest part of my heart, fear comes to death. I do not fear suffering or pain. I do fear a loss of control. I fear the unknown. No matter how much time I spent ruminating on this subject, I will never come up with an answer. No one in all of human history has, though there have been many claims. All I can do is take cues from the universe around me. Perhaps its vastness, its forces and cycles, its manifold variety holds some clues to what will become of us.