Another victim of esophageal cancer, Christopher Hitchens, died last night of pneumonia - a complication of his cancer and feeding tube.
Here's a link to his last Vanity Fair article.
The crux of it is that he finally disavowed Friedrich Nietzsche's Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich st�rker (�Whatever doesn�t kill me makes me stronger.�). Although EricS can take comfort in the fact that since this did kill him, this criticism of Nietzsche seems misplaced.
Trial of the Will
He of course could not resist an cynical twist on another saying
[quote]But really, that�s to say no more than �There but for the grace of god go I,� which in turn is to say no more than �The grace of god has happily embraced me and skipped that unfortunate other man[/quote].�
He had the best TX possible and I liked the way he described the pain of radiation: [quote]This put me in a rare class of patients who could claim to have received the highly advanced expertise uniquely available at the stellar Zip Code of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. To say that the rash hurt would be pointless. The struggle is to convey the way that it hurt on the inside.[/quote]
It's long but worth reading.
Charm

Charm,

We are so very much alike my friend. I posted this same link late last night to my Facebook wall (why aren't you on Facebook again???) However I hesitated posting it on these forums due to some of his thoughts in the article and how they may sound to a new patient about to start treatment. Hindsight tells me I should've so I'm glad I could count on you.

Hitchens was a fantastic writer and extremely intelligent, although given his views on religion many had issues with him. Personally I enjoyed his writing and the debates posted on YouTube, he definitely was a personality both you and I could appreciate even if we didn't subscribe to his beliefs.

I would say that he did find his "why" to live though in his wife and therefore related to my favorite Nietzche quote

Thanks for posting this here my friend, it is a good read from a prolific writer

Eric

A brilliant guy and an amazing writer even though I didn't agree with all his positions. That piece is pretty terrific, Charm. Vintage Hitchens. Thanks for posting the link.

And so it goes.

Eric

No facebook for the same reason, I use Charm. I like virtual privacy.

David

Hmmn, Adding Kurt Vonnegut to this thread makes me feel like we're all part of a "karass"
Charm.

Well, Charm, that was not my intent and in fact I needed to look up the term since I'm light in my Vonnegut lore!

David

My bad for jumping to the conclusion that your "And so It goes" was a reference to the biography of Kurt Vonnegut of the same title as well as being the seminal quote of KV's novel: Slaughterhouse 5. It's not a bad thing: Karass comes from the KV novel Cat's Cradle : [quote]karass - group of people who, often unknowingly, are working together to do God's will. The group can be thought of as the fingers that support a cat's cradle.[/quote]
As EricS posted in another thread, we share an habit of overthinking posts but I also spot allusions that may be illusions..,
Charm

I probably ripped him off sub-consciously.

An intuitive comment, to be sure.
Perhaps it is why we are here together on the OCF forum. Thanks, Charm!
Funny how the mention of God found its way into a post about Hitchens. Maybe not funny...but a cosmic commentary. Hummmm...

Charm -Thanks for posting the Christopher Hitchens Vanity Fair article and the quotes:
�Whatever doesn�t kill me makes me stronger.�
�There but for the grace of god go I,�
�The grace of god has happily embraced me and skipped that unfortunate other man.�
Which i venture to say may lead to -
"Yay! God likes me better than the other guy!"

I�ve always wondered why we sometimes see groups of young men huddled together praying for a football win against the opposing team. Do they think God (or Buddha/Universe/Higher Power) likes them better? And what if the other team is doing the same thing?

Seriously, though -In another part of the article, Hitchins notes that -
�If I had been told about all this in advance, would I have opted for the treatment? There were several moments as I bucked and writhed and gasped and cursed when I seriously doubted it.�

My son expressed these very same sentiments to me, during his Tx, and this is why Eric�s signature quote from Niezche is so important to recovery. I had tried in vain to show my son how important it was for him to fight this disease and recover. It was not until I mentioned his 5 year old daughter and what it would mean to her to lose him that he rallied and continued the fight. He had his �Why?�. And I�m so glad he did. It matters not Who or What is the "Why" but that you have it!

Anne-Marie, good stuff. I realized right away, and have never forgotten it for a single day since - especially as I read about the real heroes on this forum - how lucky I was a) to have had a cancer that my doctors said they could cure (ok, well, my ENT didn't go that far, he's kind of a laconic guy) and moreover b) that living in LA and thankfully having kept my health insurance paid up, however exorbitant it has been, I had access to such fine medicos in the first place.

I think at some level or maybe at certain times in our lives at least, we all have the feeling that we won't ever die. Naturally as we get older that feeling tends to recede a bit. And going through what we go through with our illnesses tends to sharpen the debate, so to speak. Or at least it did for me.

Yale University makes a number of its courses available free online. There's a fascinating one I'm plowing through at the moment, a philosophy course concerning, well, death. I'm actually reading the transcripts rather than watching the lectures, they give you the choice.

I'm doing it because I want the perspective. Or perspectives. I know that many people here and elsewhere take comfort in the thought of some kind of life after death. I have never been among them. But in no uncertain terms, going through these last few years has sharpened my appreciation for the here and now. I wouldn't say, as I've read from some (not necessarily here but in general) anything like "Getting cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me!" If that's true of some people I have great admiration for them. Mixed with some pity to be sure.

However if undergoing this stuff gives you insight, all the better. Hitchens clearly went through an ordeal that made mine seem like a walk in the park (even though it certainly did not seem so at the time!) and bore it all courageously. Would that we all could be so aware and able to express ourselves, even in limited ways, under such duress.

As far as football players praying for a touchdown... I would have to think that any god out there would have more important things to do with his or her time. As the coaches might put it, I'll stick with fundamentals, team speed and hard hitting.