Twitter & Nihilism

OK. I joined twitter once. But never did anything. Now I'm doing it again. my url is: http://twitter.com/markalancornell

Once I learn how to do it from my phone, you can stay updated on what I am doing all the time.

It's been two weeks off Revlimid and I feel great. My hands are a little better, but I'm wondering if that side effect is going to be permanent. I am definitely starting to feel like my old self. I'm getting ornery and playful and cocky and all the other bad stuff you're not supposed to be, but are anyway. But don't worry, I'm still humble and lovable too.

It came on yesterday. I couldn't give anyone a straight answer. Yeah, so what's the difference? You never give anyone a straight answer anyway. Good question. The straight answer is: I enjoy it now. It's like eating. We all have to eat, but we don't always enjoy it. I may not have acted that different, but even though I may have acted happy or whatever, It wasn't what I was feeling inside. That's the best I can explain it.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." That is what I am feeling again. Life. I can't say I'm cured yet. I don't even "know" that I'm better yet. I have no objective proof that it is the case. My CT is next week and my BMB is later still. But I am going to enjoy the feeling of health while it lasts.

I've been doing a lot of research into skepticism lately. So you see why I couched my last paragraph in those weird terms. Skepticism is basically an untenable position from which to live from day to day. We can know objectively so few things. And the things we do know are in constant flux. What we "know" one we day we may find to be false the next day. Living by faith isn't really something we have a choice about at all. We get up each day expecting to live, but one day that will surely be false. Nevertheless we embrace each day with the expectation of life. This is faith. It is the fuel for all action.

The most rigorous scientist has faith that all physical processes are knowable. The fact that there is no proven unified field theory doesn't (and shouldn't) dissuade them from this belief. Faith is the motivator behind all action. Nihilists beware, although science and religion seem to be enemies at times they share an important value - faith.

Just thinking out loud, there. We have a choice between hope & despair, we have no objective reason to hope and quite a few objective reasons to despair. Choose hope anyway. Don't wait for a reason. Choose life. Choose living.

I think I'll make that this year's catch phrase. I'll still speak metaphorically, but what Cancer has taught me is that We Don't Know. In the absence of knowledge choose faith. -someone remind me to blog on that sentence later-

Well, I'm rambling again. That's good. It means I'm feeling good. Thanks for struggling through this article, stream of consciousness though it is.

Watch for more updates on my health. If things go in Houston as I believe they will, I'll start blogging on my effort to lose weight and get truly healthy. Why? Because another thing cancer taught me is that you just can't take health for granted. Although I would love to be "cured," the more likely scenario is that I am in a remission of some variety and when this remission ends, I'll have to make some hard choices again. The healthier I am when the cancer returns, the more therapy choices I'll have. By choosing to be open to the worst possibility, I choose life.