Monthly Archives: April 2010

The Unlived Life

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How many of us live in the heartbreaking company of the unlived life? 

This chilling question brings two quotes to mind: "For of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’ " from John Greenleaf Whittier (the most haunting sentence I know) and Henry David Thoreau’s “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

And what is the unlived life? It is the life we want to lead, were meant to lead. In short, it is being who we are.

Being who you truly are can be a daunting task given the fact we are in so many ways taught to be anyone but. Moreover, we live in a culture that seeks to control and dictate who we are. More than many are wedded to texting, computer games, television that saturates us with the message, buy, buy, buy. And, while your at it,  buy these medications because if you don’t horrible things will happen to you and oh, by the way, if you do take these medications, watch out for side effects that include growing eyes in back of your head, sprouting apple trees from your tongue, and waking up to discover your butt cheeks have melted together. Humor aside, we are controlled by fear and the nurturing of greed. And through it all, we are distracted and forget to be who we are and live in the world we live in.

I watch people of all ages walk by sunsets, beautiful skies, marvelously designed buildings, and never see a thing because they are glued to some wireless device. And then of course there is the ever present underlying poison of capitalism which is misguided belief that life is about gaining  material wealth, which is a load of crap, if you’ll forgive my eloquence.

Be you. As my friend David says, “Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.” And to give you a lift, think on these two quotes from Thoreau, “Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each”  and “Live the life you’ve imagined”.

You were put on this earth to be you. Not some dysfunctional version of you. Being you, after all, is the greatest gift you can give to yourself, and, believe it or not, to the world around you.

You have a right to claim the unlived life that is you.

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The Scum Among Us

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Watching the plethora of lying and and stain of arrogance, deceit and greed  in the testimony today of Goldman Sachs financial executives (the latter term becoming a synonym for scum) is a sharp reminder to me that there are those among us who don’t care about their fellow human beings and will go to any lengths to convince you they do.

I watched people today and know specific people in the field of New York’s Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver without conscience who profess to have conscience, those who don’t care about the value of human life who profess to care about the value of human life. They are an insult to humanity as a whole. They are also an insult to those who honorably provide waiver services with their heart and soul. I would call on the latter to expose the former.

Like the financial executives referenced above, the scum of the waiver providers deserve to be exposed, criminally charged whenever possible, and jailed.

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Stealing Time

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I still do it now. Wake up in the middle of the night, pad quietly through the dark still house and sit silent in the living room or at the kitchen table and just be. No need to turn lights on. No one in the whole wide world knows I’m up. It’s just me in the middle of the night quiet, when every house sound banished by daytime activities can come out to play, the clicking of the wall clocks, the on again off again whirr of the refrigerator and, once in awhile, if I am lucky, the one renegade bird in the night who doesn’t care that it’s dark out and sings anyway.

I did this as a child of course. Get up in the middle of the night and move like a secret shadow through the house, my body tingling with joy, my parents still asleep, those two God like forces deep in slumber. Back then I realized I was stealing time, living moments I think I’m not supposed to have, which of course makes them the most delicious moments of all.  Moments when the all of me is present and alive and happy and smiling, I am swooning with unutterable joy.

No doubt stealing time spurred Beethoven into writing the Ode to Joy  despite being completely deaf at the time.

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Life Electric

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I get to hug you again

Coming to me incandescent

Pumping electric singing

Whitman’s barbaric YAWP

My hand touching your

Waist through soft cloth

Registers the moment

Welded full complete

Never to be forgotten

And oh God I thought (hoped!)

You were going to kiss me

Melting

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Criminalize Dehumanizing People with Disabilities

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If you deny someone their equal rights you deny them their freedom, and for that you should face criminal charges.

This happens all to often in the world of disability. I’ve seen it, endured it, fought it, and will fight it until the end of my days.

If you are going to treat someone with a disability as if their humanity is less whole than yours, you should be charged with a crime. If you are going to treat people with disabilities as if each and everyone of them is a cottage industry for you to profit from, same thing, criminal charges should be brought to bear and if you are convicted you can do the community service by going to jail. In other words, leave the community.

I hear many things from many people on many fronts, particularly in the world of people like me who live with brain injuries. Sometimes I can reveal my sources, sometimes not. Sometimes discreetness is the wisest choice, sometimes in your face is. I am willing to play both cards if I genuinely believe doing so will further equal rights and or hold accountable those who willfully deny others their equal rights.

Here is an example that typifies a lot of what goes on. I know someone who lived with a brain injury. She is extremely bright and nobody’s fool. Were she in a coma she could likely outwit 99 percent of the people I know. Anyway, she was attending a day program and made it known she wanted to get a part time job. So the program tells this woman that they will clear out a little office space they have and set it up with candy and soda that she can sell a few hours a week and she can keep some of the money. This woman said to me, “Do they think I’m stupid or what? Do they think I don’t know that the only reason they’re offering this is so they can bill for the hours I’m in selling their damned candy?” In other words, all this Albany-based provider cared about was not losing the money they would lose if this woman had a part time job in the, wait for it, community!

There was a time in life when I believed that in everyone’s heart of hearts there rested an active or untapped reservoir of compassion for others. Wrong. There are plenty of people that simply don’t care, not at all. And they are the ones that need to be exposed,  criminally charged when possible, and given a leave of absence from the community, and if not the community, a permanent leave of absence from working in an arena designed to help people reach their maximum level of independence.

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