20240515_WhenBreathBecomesAir_pen
First thoughts:
When the operator becomes the operated. When the angel runs out of nectar. WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR.
I can only imagine the string of realizations that went through the mind of Paul Kalanithi. The symphony of his life could have been reduced to the blurred capture of his lungs, clouded by a terror such as that possessing his infected organs, but mostly his young heart.
I can only imagine the immense courage he needed to gather as he decided to overcome his mortality the hard way; painfully enduring his gradual separation from the healthy life he once knew.
I would like to think that he found at least a bit of solace in penning down his life through the written word. To breathe his life into pages he knew that would carry his legacy forward when his fragile body couldn't; it reflects a man's astounding sense over the connection between death and philosophy.
This man took on the remarkable journey of turning his eventual demise into an immortalization of his self; from an excellent neurosurgeon and a loving person to a representation of the indomitable fighting spirit.
Paul's Legacy
Has Paul Kalanithi lived a life worth living, one filled with meaning?
The answer to that lies in his book that chronicles his dying.
And by undertaking the journey to document his death, he has unleashed his truth; that the separation between life and death does not exist. Death is an integral part of our lives, and we can only prepare to accept it as our guest.
But treating death as the final endeavor is where we may go wrong. In many cases, the prognosis of death may not be the beginning of an end, but the end that leads to a new beginning.
The lives we live tend to outlast our mortal shells. They live on through the pages we write, the tears we shed, the hearts we touch. The lives that feel our breaths even when we're not around, as if our presence is eternal around them.
When we become potent enough with the time we have, we can be the atoms that have charged their atoms with our will to meaning, with the will to become meaningful compounds that alter our existence for good.
Dealing with the Chaos of Existence
Paul's life has become an inspiration for me to reach the heights of physical and intellectual realization of reality, studying and practicing it's relation with our fragile mortality, and our immense struggle with human morality.
Entropy always increases; our states of being gradually, eventually hurtling towards decay. This is the only fact we need to fully grasp for comprehending a meaningful life. The way we accept this determines our outcomes out of this short oscillation of our atoms amidst the backdrop of an almost infinite universe.
Finding Purpose
Paul's fascination with literature and philosophy has intrigued me as well. Since I am slowly getting into it as well, I feel a stronger pull towards this pursuit of learning and creating by studying both.
His limited body is contrasted with a boundless mind; one that pursues the search for meaning by not just inspecting, but experiencing the profoundness of life and its constituent parts.
Study alone cannot be the nomenclature. The ideal way of learning the meaning of life/lives should be to imbue our presence into a variety of moments with a relentless curiosity. That each breath can either make your existence in this universe worth it, or tear apart your sense of self and being, making you choose to either be one with the randomness or order yourself in some way.
You choose to accept or reject the terms and conditions of this endearing or terrible suffering. Yet you will suffer anyway. And that's something all of us need to accept.
Death is a part of life, an end goal for the suffering we will undertake.
And the way Paul approaches the journey; well, I am very impressed and wildly curious to see where his insights of the in-between take us.
My Takeaway
I shall strive to acquire technical expertise in one field and expand on my learnings by infusing them into my project (ScriptRid3r). I shall use the privilege I have and use it to for the greater good. Slowly, I shall work and live as my project, intent on delivering my truth as the sum of my collected experiences; all the good, the bad, and the ones hidden underneath the seams.