During my last extended hospital stay for brain surgery, I experienced a lot of disturbing hallucinations. I think I was mostly unconscious during these times, in my mind, I was convinced that I was being held captive by alternately two separate underground terrorist groups who for various reasons wanted me to pay for my alleged betrayal to their respective causes. Despite not being able to walk, I managed to avoid capture for long periods of time by riding the rails all over the U.S. Despite these situations all being imaginary, I found solace in forgoing my fight and flight instincts and giving up. I allowed the hospital worker terrorist group to capture me for their surgical experiments and the military terrorist group to capture and imprison me for my beliefs.
It was all incredibly scary and I have had a difficult time putting these imaginary battles behind me. However, the idea of giving up has continued to feel like a great decision – one that gains more and more appeal as time progresses. In one of those hallucinations, I was trapped, so I simply laid down and tried to sleep. I was done trying to find ways to allude my potential captors. In reality, I am also finished with trying to find ways to continue to survive. My long time fight against VHL (Von Hippel Lindau) has found me at a stalemate, yet it is a very precarious position. I have lasted longer than I ever thought, and I am tired.
I am fully aware that millions, if not billions of people have much more difficult struggles which they handle with strength and grace. In addition, I am fully aware that there are some people close to me who are in crisis. I understand crisis and am absolutely out of energy to deal with it. This is about me losing the desire to fight anymore. VHL is a relentless and endless genetic syndrome and I am done with trying to navigate the unforgiving bureaucracy of health coverage in its many forms. It is not enough that my health continues to decline, but that I constantly have to prove to faceless entities that I am broken. There is a lot of paperwork necessary to prove that I am "sick," and most of it is insanely repetitive and incredibly inadequate. I find it all discouraging and exhausting, which is why I am too tired to fight anymore. I have fought very hard for a long time to live as normally as possible and not allow my medical asides to be anything more than an occasional distraction, which is why trying to convince others that I'm unwell is so awful.. I want to rest. I want to crumple up all of the forms, pile it up, and climb atop and rest.
Hey Chris, you’ve been through so much, I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t be exhausted. In reading your blog I was trying to figure out what I could say. I was struggling with that so I went on scrolling. The first thing I landed on was this, from a surfing post that comes my way every now and then. It comes the closest to what is in my head about your situation. Hang in there…
ReplyDelete———— HOW TO Let go & Surrender ————
All surfers know the feeling of going over the falls. It usually happens when you paddle for a wave, under-commit, hesitate, pull back… and then…for a nano-second you think you’ve gotten away with it.
But oh no… you notice you are getting sucked over… in slow motion… and then with relentless fury, as you become one with a million gallons of ocean unloading onto the reef or sand-bottom.
You feel as powerless as a bug caught in a spiders web.
In big and powerful surf the free-fall is usually followed by the unique experience of being DRILLED to the bottom by the power of the wave, while the ocean unloads in your face. Its ultra humbling. Highly invigorating. Really wakes you up.
Of course this is all happening in seconds.
But the intensity of the experience warps time, and it sure as hell clears you of any sense of self.
Your powerlessness in the face of raw ocean energy creates that classic crossroad all explorers of consciousness know so well:
Hello my friend, so do you choose to STRUGGLE or SURRENDER?
Now, when I was learning to surf, I chose STRUGGLE every time, because… I was afraid of letting go. I felt kicking and writhing around might help. It didn’t. It never does. It simply exhausts you. It accelerates you toward panic state.
These days, after a couple decades of surfing I’m an experienced receiver of oceanic beat-downs. I’ve mastered the art of salty SURRENDER.
Today when I felt myself getting sucked over the falls I started laughing. It’s a reflexive response to getting humbled for hesitating.
Safe in the knowledge I can hold my breath for more than long enough, I can laugh at the cosmic joke, the perfect metaphor for why to always fully commit in life. I’ve learned to love this experience.
I’ve learned that it can feel amazing to feel powerless, contrary to my ego’s opinion.
So now, when the ocean is serving up a slice of humble pie, I take a deep breath, release tension, laugh in the face of the universe.
Allow the energy to rush through every cell…. SURRENDER TO THE BEAT DOWN.
Some of them can feel like an enema of your mind, soul and body. You can get sand under your eyelids and in your bum-hole.
Only a surfer knows the feeling.
ANYWAY… what’s the point of all this?
Surfing is like life… you get pummelled, pinned down and humbled… you get sand in your orifices… Life is washing out the cobwebs and challenging you to JUST LET GO.
As Bruce Lee said:
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend, be water“=>
Allow the processes of life to flow through you. Then get back, wiser and stronger. Ride the next wave, commit and allow every fibre of your being to light up with LIFE FORCE ENERGY.
📷 via MEDIUM / Jiro Taylor
Hey Chris, it's mc (for some reason i couldn't sign in for this comment). Anyway, your post is touches on a topic i think about a lot. When do we give up? It's not a conversation most people want to have or acknowledge. But as a child of a person who *did* give up, and facing tough choices for another parent, i think about this all the time (and have conflicting feelings about it). When does one give up? How much of it should be their choice, not influential family members or society? Thank you for giving voice to a super complicated issue. There's no good solution (unless you are an adherent to a religion that clearly defines the rules around this!). Keep writing, my friend. Keep writing. What you express is really important and not often a part of the conversation.
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