Colonoscopy

Recently, I had a colonoscopy.  I highly recommend it to all thrill seekers.  For those of you who are younger, at about forty or so, one must be concerned with the possibility of colon cancer.  So, our advance society has come up with a technique to check up on it.  They knock you out and stick a camera up your ass.  Sounds like a Nazi practice.  In case you got the wrong imagery, they don’t use a club and an iphone, no matter how thin they are.  They gently put an I.V. in your arm and use…I’m not sure what.  I was in la la land.

The worst part was the day before.  No food all day.  (This isn’t Ramadan.  I couldn’t even eat at night either).  Man was not meant to live on bread alone.  He was meant to eat large chunks of meat and pasta, and a lot of thick and tasty sauces.  In addition to no food, I had to drink four liters of a solution that tasted like saline mixed with a small sugar packet.  I consumed 8 ounces, every 10 minutes, for 4 hours.  And after the first 5 cups, I had to stay about 3 feet away from the toilet.  Four hours later I was instructed to take 4 Dulcolax.  What?  How can there be anything left in me?  There was.  Eight hours after the demented cycle began, I was crying out, “Stop the violence!”  Around midnight I was able to bring myself to go to bed without fear of soiling myself.

The next morning, weak and pale, I enter the building where it all takes place.  It’s kind of like going to the men’s bathroom in a sports arena.  As you stand at the long trough, no one looks each other in the eye.  No one lets on as to why they are there, yet everyone knows.  Can you imagine a conversation in the waiting room?

“How’s your colon?”

“Seems to be o.k. No blood, but you never know when cancer might be forming.  You?”

“ Great. Great.  This is my third time, my polyps are doing really well since I’ve started my new diet of celery and beet juice.  Thanks for asking.”

No, its better to look down at the ground and try to blend in.  You see, some people are there to drive the patients home.  How do they know I’m not just one of them, right?  Then the nurse opens the door.  “JOHN GUNTHER?!?!?”  “Geeeez Helga, could you scream a little louder?  I don’t think all the people outside heard you.”  Why didn’t she just yell, “ARE YOU READY TO TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES TO BE FONDLED AND PROBED?”  This takes “turn your head and cough” to a whole new level.

Then I’m taken into a small room, and have to put on the ghastly hospital gown.  They’re giving me all these instructions, and I nod my head and think “cheeseburger.”  But then I start to get nervous when I have about 3 different people hand me release forms to sign.  “What can happen to me that makes them so nervous?  Should I be nervous? Are you nervous?  Where are you taking me?”  So they give me the I.V., wheel me out to another place, give me some more instructions, and put some tubes in my nose.  There were three female nurses around me, all with that ominous look like vultures waiting for me to die. That made me even more uneasy.  It’s like the dentist who tries to hide that foot-long needle he’s about to stab in your throat.  I think I may have a trust issue.  Then, last thing I heard was, “Bring out the gimp…”

Next thing I know, I’m waking up, on some island in the Pacific, tied to pegs in the sand as the tide moves in.  Not really.  There I was, on the other side of the room.  I had just lost a half hour of my life.  I didn’t know where I was, or what exactly happened to me.  And from talking to some of my older friends, who experienced this procedure without being knocked out, I’m glad that I don’t know what happened.

Strangely enough, this ridiculous experience relates to what Rene Descartes calls Cogito ergo sum -- I think therefore I am. (This is a bit of a follow up on the “Groundwork 2” blog entry.)  It means that if “I” am here to think, I exist.  Or even, if I can doubt my own existence, I must exist.  As you would expect, other philosophers through time, question, scrutinize, analyze, and add to the simple idea in order to make it complex and irresolvable.  I’ve done it many times.  Sometimes it’s legit, other times, I just don’t want to consider a different way of thinking, so I fog it up to get what I want.

Nevertheless, some assert that the Descartes’ “I” might just be a momentary thought, or that maybe our minds are here, but not our bodies.  i.e., there is no material world.  Or that God is deceiving us by making us think we are here.  Or that maybe I’ll wake up one day and realize I am just a butterfly who dreamed of having lived as a human.  I AM NOT KIDDING.  Look it up yourself.  Philosophers extrapolate endlessly.  You can look at all the criticism.  It tends to become ludicrous.  We are here.  Just take a moment and consider the framework of this, or any other issue worth debating.  Everyone is using his or her mind to make an argument.  We are using logic, common sense, and rationality.  Many go to great lengths to argue that we don’t really exist or that we can’t really know anything.  How do they know?  Do you see what I mean?  It’s like being in a swimming pool.  Some are on rafts, some float, some swim, whatever.  We’re all in the water debating whether or not the pool exists.  We can’t even articulate an idea without thinking it.  We can’t think unless we are here.  One can speculate all they want.  Every speculation confirms the fact that we are thinking and are here.

So what does this have to do with a colonoscopy?  It is interesting to note that when I was immobilized on the hospital bed with my bare ass hanging out, I did not wonder about anything.  I was so anesthetized, that my mind ceased to comprehend.  I didn’t contemplate whether we existed or not. I did not have the capability to realize that there is even a question being asked, let alone come up with a witty explanation for an answer.  That is how it would be if we did not exist.  We couldn’t even discuss it.  It is so preposterous; I can’t even fully explain it.  Very intelligent people with lucid articulations attempt to convince everyone that we are not here, that we are not able to make intelligent and lucid articulations.  It is like saying, “I am not hitting you with this stick.  That is not blood coming out of your mouth.  We’re not even really here.”  It just doesn’t add up.

Several movies like to play with our understanding of reality:  Total Recall, The Matrix, Premonition, and, The Final Cut, just to mention a few.  They contain different shades of questioning whether or not we can trust our own perceptions on reality.  All very stimulating, but ironically have some elements in common that betray their speculations.  First, all the movies contain “perception” articulated from an intelligent mind.  The very mechanism the writers used to make the movie, the audience uses to watch the movie, and the characters in the story use to resolve the movie, is the component that is in question, our own perception.  The fact that they are presenting it and we are receiving it, and mulling over the ideas authenticates the fact that we are preserving, thinking and therefore are here.  A “nothing” cannot discuss “something”.  Second, the movies all produce a longing inside to discover what is real.  Where can we put our feet down in security?  The inner desire for resolve confirms that “human purpose” is important and intentional.

A thought:  Maybe, instead of minimizing our existence in order to explain philosophical dilemmas, why not think in the other direction?  Maybe life’s mysteries are due to the fact that we were meant for so much more, but have settled for less.  It is common for us to acknowledge three dimensions: length, width, and height.  “Time” is an additional component.  Maybe there are more dimensions?  The Bible refers to Length, width, height, and depth.  What is that fourth term of measurement?  Chuck Missler points out that the crucifixion painting by Salvador Dali called Corpushypercubus -- http://flickriver.com/photos/tags/corpushypercubus/interesting/ -- is an attempt to visualize this fourth dimension. 

What about a spiritual world?  What about God?  Is it not ironic that on one hand a person will say that we don’t even exist, and then on the other hand have the arrogance to deny even the possibility that there can be a God.  Does a person that claims there is absolutely no God, nor a possibility of one, realize the precariousness of their situation?  First, the skeptic is typically a relativist, but would be speaking in absolutes.  Second, the above absolute statement is all-conclusive.  Does the skeptic claim to have all knowledge?  Have they been to every corner of the universe?  No.  Then how can they know for sure that God is not in the majority of the universe to which he or she has not had the privilege of visiting yet?  Finally, if the skeptic is consistent and does not believe we exist or doubts that we can ever really know anything, why is he or she so sure of his or her position?  Is it not a contradiction?  Of course a person may not accept the law of non-contradiction, but that is a whole other topic altogether.  Besides, someone should inform the skeptic that their opinion about God probably doesn’t matter because they don’t even exist, right?

Finally, the skeptic may be right.  Maybe we are just puppets to some kind of malicious god playing a game.  Or maybe I’m a butterfly.  But there is no way to prove it.  Much is anecdotal evidence.  Speculation is fine.  Heck, at times, that’s all I seem to do.  But it seems more sensible to operate from what we know to what we don’t.  And, unless someone can wake me up from my dream in order to tell me I’m not here, I know that I am here.  I’m thinking.  And, if I have felt the warmth of your companionship, I know that you are here too.

Until next time…