This weekend I went away...
I went away into a book, like I haven't done in a long time.
A friend of mine made me aware of Paul Kalanithi last week, a young Neurosurgeon from Stanford University that died last March. "When Breath Becomes Air" is a book he wrote in his last year of life.
I have tens of books that I have bought and am in the process of reading right now. I have been struggling to find the time and focus to really get into a book.
And, I read this book from Saturday morning to Sunday morning. It is very much worth a read. I would liken it to a more interesting "Tuesday's with Maury".
It grabbed me differently, because he was young when he died... which always leaves us wanting more.
It grabbed me differently, because he loved language and philosophy and ended up in the medical field.
It grabbed me differently, because it gave me a great perspective on medical school and the amazing and weird line between doctors as healers and doctors as human beings.
It grabbed me because I related as much to Paul as I did to his father... I felt Paul's questions. I felt Paul's father's pain...
Here were some of my key observations of myself and the book:
1. I am surprised by my own passion and hunger for meaning.
As I get older, I try to pay more attention to the less obvious things about my behavior. "Pay attention to what grabs you." I think to myself. And, reading the words of a man who is dying and struggling to find meaning and may have found some incremental sliver of absolute truth pulls me like Trump to an unoccupied building on 5th Avenue ;-) I was compelled to the book...
2. I am drawn to the concept that "only the good die young".
I remember my mother once telling me, "Most of the heroes that we read about tend to have died, even when they are young. But, there are lots of heroes we never hear about, and those are the ones who live... who wake up everyday and live heroic lives of fathers, husbands, entrepreneurs, or leaders who do something to make the world better". Those weren't her exact words, but the sentiment stuck with me. Death is a tremendous price to pay to be remembered. Also, when we live out our lives, we show the world how our stories end... and sometimes the "romantic" possibility of a life is so much more compelling than the imperfect execution that we so often faced. Paul Kalanithi was an exceptional man, and I wish he could have lived out his life, and I am grateful that he felt compelled to leave his words and thoughts.
3. Keep it REAL... STAY in TRUTH...
I loved Paul's ability to stay rational while feeling emotion. Emotion never seemed to drive his decisions - rationality did. But, he felt his emotions deeply along his journey. That is very much the way I want to live and die.
4. I don't seem to find any "NEW" slivers of truth about meaning, but hearing the same ones over and over again is perhaps even more powerful.
I keep looking to find "more" or "new" meaning in life, but I think I am at that point where I generally know the answer, and now finding meaning is really more about the application. At the risk of giving away the book (and there is no way I can - it's a story that deserves to be read), while Dr. Kalanithi doesn't enumerate his conclusion - he shares his certainty that whatever life's meaning is...
it has to do with our need and joy to interact with others constructing love and human relatedness...
it has to do with purpose and living a life spending our time doing something to add value and in some way advance the life of others...
it has to do with embracing the moment... and despite the very short time we spend on earth, focusing on the very immediate moment that we are in...
This may be my cognitive bias taking me to the same conclusions... but I don't think it is. I am fairly certain, he pushed me there again.
I am so very drawn to death because it reminds me to LIVE.
I joke about being old, and I realize I am not "young", but I feel it in my bones that I can make an impact somehow on this earth, in my own infinitesimal way... and the possibility of that moves me... and the fear that I may somehow miss my mark concerns me.
Am I taking enough risk?
Am I playing on the right field?
Am I making enough hard choices?
Am I living a meaningful life?
Never enough of one, is the way I feel too often. And, the spark that continues to push me to better understand and apply and spread harmony...
Dr. Kalanithi says he doesn't believe in PERFECT, but he believes in BETTER... WOW... those words feel like they are felt and shared to my very core...
I will leave you with two excerpts from the book. The first is a poem that opens up his wife's epilogue, which for some reason struck me...
"You left me, sweet, two legacies,-
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had he the offer of;
You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me."
Emily Dickinson
This poem strikes me less about the deaths that I have known, and more about the love that I aspire to live.
And, then to his daughter, he writes,
"When you must come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man's days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing."
Paul Kalanithi
I sent Paul's words to my sons last night... crediting him... and letting my boys know how much they bring me sated joy...
Thank you Paul for the wonderful reminder, for the amazing weekend trip you took me on, and most importantly for sharing your life and your wisdom.
Perhaps, I think to myself, life is about finding the "magic"... or that is where the "sated joy" comes from...
This weekend I found magic both in the people I love and in the brief escape into this book.
If you are interested in learning more... google "When Breath Becomes Air You Tube" and there is a great 9 minute video about his life interviewing his wife.
Happy Monday!
Nestor