Suffer Your Adventure
I've seen a 6 year old die from a massive stroke.There is no fairness in this. Only suffering. So in an unfair world, what should our expectations be?
She was crying. Tears streaming. Eyes red. Nose running.
She collapsed to the floor. Like a rifle round had hit her in the chest. Motionless.
Now beating the floor, the screaming erupted again.
"That's not fair!" she cried.
My 3 year old was learning a lesson.
"Life isn't fair baby girl", I thought.
All at once I was reminded of my patients.
And then a realisation.
In medicine we are taught "ICE".
Ideas. Concerns. Expectations.
I ICE my patients in clinic to see what they think. Often it's an eye opener.
Part of my job is to realign people's expectations of what surgery can achieve and what to expect afterwards.
My 3 year old had lost it because she couldn't have any more ice cream.
Her expectations were wrong. I had to realign them.
I had seen the tears and heard the cry of "That's not fair!" before when telling families that their loved one might die.
When I break this news, I am always aware that I have taken away someone's future potential.
We grieve for the loss of what could have been.
In a moment, infinite potential future stories are erased.
We mourn the loss of chapters closed, never to be written.
"The arc of the moral universe may be long, but it bends toward justice." - Steven Pinker
We expect people to be fair. That they make fair decisions and treat us right.
The majority of people do this. That's we live in the least violent, least cruel and most peaceful time in history.
Though the news would have you believe otherwise.
Our mistake is we transfer this expectation of fairness to the world.
People make up most of our interactions with the world.
But the big, life-changing interactions that alter our futures comes from the world, not people.
And the world is random and unpredictable.
I've seen a 6 year old die from a massive stroke, despite our best efforts to keep them alive.
There is no fairness in this. Only suffering.
So in an unfair world, what should our expectations be?
"The hero's journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, 'Look, you're in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that's not been touched. So you're at home here? Well, there's not enough of you there.' And so it starts." - Jospeh Campbell
All classic children's stories follow the same narrative.
It goes like this.
An imperfect character goes on an adventure. He or she learns lessons through mistakes, suffering and triumph. They win some sort of victory, and return home a different person.
You've seen this story before.
Pinocchio goes in to the whale Monstro to save his father and become a real boy.
Bilbo must go to Mordor to destroy The Ring and returns a different hobbit.
Luke's uncle and aunt are killed and he must go to learn the way of the Jedi.
And so on and so on.
These stories compel us. This is because we make sense of the world through narrative.
Foucault and Derrida taught us this.
Things in themselves do not have one meaning. We give meaning to things through story and culture.
"Suffering ceases to be suffering in some way at the moment it finds a meaning." - Viktor Frankl
People are mostly fair, but the world is not.
We expect the world to be fair because it is made up of people. This is a mistake.
Mistakes, suffering and triumph make the arc of your hero's journey.
Through mistakes we learn.
With narrative we transform suffering into meaning.
This meaning changes our view of the world.
As our view changes, so do we.
Then we triumph.
You must suffer your adventure.
Don't expect it to be any other way.