Things feel different. It's hard to explain.
I've lived my life over again in the past few days, in a different body, through different eyes.
I know myself much better.
I'm happy. I'm confident. My purpose is growing.
These last few days of this cycle are getting harder. I think doing full out Ondansetron has been a challenge for my digestive system. I'm hoping that a week of serious maintenance and upkeep on the equipment will be able to bring it back up to optimum performance in time for the next assault. I think tonight though I'm going to try switching back to just Zantac instead of Ondansetron. My last vomit incident was on a night I felt I moderately mismanaged my dosage prep eating, as I felt slightly full still when taking them. I switched to Ondansetron for safety to avoid triggering a pattern of vomiting, then ran this cycle on Ondansetron to see what effects would be on digestive system. My concern was I would not continue to expel waste appropriately leaving a higher chance of residual absorption of the Temozolomide in inappropriate context. Dietary changes did manage to keep the cleanup systems going, but I do feel it has had an effect on my digestive system nonetheless. The level of progression in mild nausea/discomfort has been not a linear progression as it was showing on all previous cycles. Hypothesis for explaining that is the Ondansetron blocking acid/killing bacteria is reducing absorption speed/power of digestive system, contributing to absorption of Temozolomide to higher levels. Reason for testing tonight is last night of the cycle means I can break pattern and won't set psychological reaction of vomit if I do trigger without the surgical anti-nauseant. My concern approaching this is that my shift of dietary input (by subjective evidence seems to have) reduced mucus production through esophagus/bowels and raised PH of stomach, therefore if I've changed the conditions of the environment I'm taking the drug into I'm not isolating the variable to identify cause as the change of anti-nauseant to explain change in effect of chemotherapy. I'll track the info.
It fascinates me how much I've changed. One thing that remains a central area of focus is maintaining the balance between confidence and arrogance. I feel like I've learned a ton, so I get excited, I want to share this positive energy I've taken in. When I try to put it together in my head well enough to put it out there and explain everything that's going on I feel like I'm just being some arrogant turd. Part of it too is I'm definitely having arrogant turd moments. I'll have a moment of insight, in it empathize and feel connection to some significant world-changing person, and then some times I have a moment where I feel like "oh yeah it's hard to be so wise" or some other shit. I find that pretty annoying in myself, I'll realize I've done something good for once and then decide for a second I'm Superman. Not to say I don't deserve a good deal of confidence and self assuredness on my accomplishments, effort, and the potential within me. Just if I start thinking I'm actually better than other people is when I feel like it gets wrong. I've got some evidence which seems to suggest I'm "better", statistical representations of particular forms and/or representations of performance/quality/??? wherein I have record of competing very strongly/exceptionally. The trick is, I think, that when I'm getting onto the point where I actually let myself go arrogant wad for a bit is that I'm focusing on a selective set of priorities that emphasizes my strengths and not my weaknesses. It seems like finding a balance is clutch. Some parts of your life need more emphasis on the high points, some maybe it's time to remind yourself of the low. The underlying key for me has been trying to find a way to hold to myself that no matter what is showing on the outside the fundamental being on the inside is on the same level as me and deserves as much respect as I do. If it doesn't come naturally out of me to look at it that way then I have filters on my vision and I need to learn to look differently.
Letting myself believe this was also a huge release for me. I rejected religion viciously when very young, and all belief alongside it. I clung to the rational structure of life desperately. I think I thought I was learning more watching Bill Nye and Magic School Bus than I was in the religious school I was sent to, where they told me silly stories I couldn't possibly be expected to believe. I also had some bad times and experiences there, I was a troublesome little lad with a bit more energy and ...whatever it was, than your average student. In my time there I had some experiences which led me to viciously reject authority and belief. For around 18 years of my life if it couldn't be brought fully into the rational structure to the point where it could be objectively verified and I could say I know it it was not a part of my life. While I hold to the value for me, as the kind of intense person I am, to reject religion completely (I think if I'd gotten into it I'd have gone zealot at least for a while...eeehh...) it seems like an unnecessarily large step for even an agnostic to reject believing in anything beyond the quantifiable, objective terms of expressing reality. When scientists specialize and chase their studies either down the tunnel into the deep darkness or up the mountain to the peak, they find an end of the verifiable truth that often leads them to transcendental conclusions. My best interpretation and analogy of this truth is actually fairly succinct.
We used to try and look at the Universe using algebra, one variable, and that didn't work. Now, we're looking at calculus. It's still limited. The new problem, the new variable, and the unanswerable one is both simple and complex: the number of variables. Quantum physics identified the inability to synchronously identify location and vector of subatomic particles, that was the fact that seeded this idea in me. As I learned more about it, I found it seemed to mean less than I thought, and the tunnel grew. I don't think this is the final answer, but it works pretty damn well for me.
If we accept that, it is easy to see that we're trying to answer an infinite question with a finite representation. Accepting that allowed me to open myself up to things which didn't have to align perfectly with the rational structures of my right brain. I still test them and am careful with their use and value but I feel very strongly I've seen value in them. As I let them in on hope and trust I test them as best I can against more verifiable points of reference. I've opened myself up to thinking of my history and where I come from more freely, taking it as having deeper meaning to who I am than I'd accepted before. I've found it resonates very well with my own introspective review of my life. I see who I am more by looking at where I come from, I understand drives and desires and needs within myself. Allowing in thoughts like positive energy coming my way, and just the open minded concept that there is more there than I understand, and it's trying to help me realize my purpose, because my purpose is in its interest, so if I open myself to it, it can help me. I can definitely see going through this shift of experience how some people have reckoned the experience of rebirth with discovering religion. It's a phenomenon through different religions and cultures. My hypothesis is what happens in those events is people are given through one method or another a shift in perspective and resulting gain which they then attribute credit to for all their happiness and peace, because they don't understand fully what's going on within themselves, and it's easier to attribute it to a definable source of outside help. By rejecting religion and belief (as best I could) I forced myself to come to this point of wisdom on my own terms. That's not to say there's been no outside influence or help!! There has been a ton. Far, far more than I know even, and I know a whole hell of a lot too. Just that they've been mostly helping me stubbornly blaze my own path, rather than leading me down one that has already been set.
The other avenue which this has opened which is contributing to my belief in it is meditation. The sensation, experience, clarity of thought, and undefinable gain I experience from meditation is FREAKIN SWEET. My best interpretation of it is that it seems to be enabling a freer flow of energy through, into, and/or out of my body. I feel as though it can form a bond between the conscious and subconscious operating processes of the mind, allowing in that negative space free of thought a synthesis between the insight of the two, and for them to reckon each other and come to terms. It seems as though this reconciliation allows your body to freely investigate and invigorate itself. I've mostly so far explored meditation on my own, having gone mostly by feel to find what works. My focus has been on bodily symmetry, breathing, and clarity of mind. Another excellent enabling agent has been finding body engaging postures which place mild emphasis/stress on areas experiencing tension, as meditation focus can seem to enable freer flow of energy or even blood to these areas in those times. I've adapted meditation to an old childhood habit as well. For much of my growing life I was very hyperactive, and would impulsively engage in random activities at almost any time. I'm similar now, where just on impulse when I feel a few spare moments I will often turn my focus inward and then clear it and engage in a brief moment of meditation. Sometimes I let myself draw energy from the earth through my feet and let myself feel it flowing through my body for a moment, to warm myself up and brighten my environment. Listening to the ocean helps this immensely. When I tried in the city I couldn't really reach the feeling of flow I can out here.
I think what I found out tonight makes more sense out of my love for the forest and discomfort of the city though as well. Speaking to my Dad, I found out that I'm actually quite likely part Native. My great-great-grandmother was Acadian in Cape Breton, and we can't trace the history back further than that. My Dad hower has isolated the rest of his family story. His Father is Irish. We can't seem to find the details yet, my cousin Matt has been working on them a lot and I hope he has more when I check with him. His father's father came over 1908. His mother was French, and I don't know her full story, but she was solidly french, from Guernsey island I believe. The catch is my Dad did a genetic test when he was younger, and it showed him as 1.5% Asian/Native American. He has an open hypothesis between Native/Asian, due to the amount of sailors in his family and their overseas conduct. He agreed though it was unlikely any of them had brought back an Asian wife with child. This leaves my great-great-grandmother in Cape Breton. It's known that the Acadians were chased out of Nova Scotia by the English after the war, but some went into the wild and hid with the Natives. My guess is part of my family was here when that happened, and stayed here, and at one point we made good friends with the locals. I don't know for sure if this is true but I hope it is. It would help me understand and feel even deeper in my connection with this land. Nova Scotia has always been deep in my heart, and it's felt like it is in a way a lot of people I know over here in Canada don't seem to be connected to their home. It really felt like my home. The other part is when I allowed this filter onto my perspective my childhood seemed to resonate with clarity. I looked back at how I felt so at ease so quickly in the woods, how young I was when I insisted on getting an axe, how I instinctively began making spears of sticks around (I think) age 5, and even caught fish with them a couple times. How easy swimming came to me, and just how deeply in touch I felt with the land, nature, world around me. I also thought of the few Natives who I've gotten to know honestly, and somehow it seemed we got along easily and quickly. Part of me even looked back at some of my experiences with animals and let myself wonder. I still can't dismiss the way that cougar and wolf each held my eye so steady so long and the way it felt as having held no meaning. Being unable to dismiss it is far from confidently associating it though. I still have a ton more to learn, but it's just another world to explore, freshly discovered.
It's also exciting because I've felt lately the Natives' old way of life carries more insight than we have attributed to it, and perhaps if I open myself up to this as a part of myself, even if I turn out to be wrong it has already opened me more to the ideas and made it easier for me to learn from them. That is enough for it to have value. Hopefully if I gain from them I can give back too, or really it would be nice to give them something even if I can take nothing. There is a lot of feeling inside of me which I attribute to empathy with their perspective on our transformation of their world, and it makes me feel like giving them a whole lot. When I say they I know I risk generalization and discrimination, but it refers more to a feeling than a true general collective. It seems in my broad perspective filter as well as from my personal experience Natives are more often in tune with their world around them and have more issues with how we're handling ourselves. Their role in the protests against the pipeline and other oil handling procedures has been instrumental. Having a cultural and personal history more directly connected to the environment around you would also have some real sense in having a greater feel of personal interconnection. An idea I open myself to on the principle of belief, can gain some standing on rational terms if thought of carefully. The question is investigating whether that seemingly supportive evidence is objective information or constructed and reinforced subjectivity.
Time for a puff and then some meditation.
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