Some reflections on the day before treatment

I finally received confirmation from my radiology nurse that radiotherapy can go ahead as planned tomorrow, as does chemotherapy. This was unclear for a while because the American healthcare system is broken and my insurance was taking needlessly long evaluating my doctors’ request.

As it currently stands, my odds are bleak. Not without hope, but not great. In spite of that, I do not have the feeling this is the end for me yet. I don't know if I can trust this feeling, but I must trust it in a sense, because the next few weeks are going to be a hard ride in terms of treatment. My immune system, red blood cells, everything is going to be under assault. I’ll be nauseous.

I begin to see a things a bit differently now—things I’ve thought a lot about really, such as how to realize yourself fully, how not to be reduced to a fungible token, how not to be crushed by hopelessness, how to allow the feeling of joy to engulf you.

It’s like a beginning clarity as you look up at the sky—not briefly, but long, without any aim—and you take in its full blueness, and then it becomes too much to take in. You need to meditate on it. I cannot put it into words, hence my earlier post on philosophical prophecy.

(music is just a beautiful song by Venezuelan composer Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) who lived and worked in France, put here to calm your mind)

But to eventually find the words and to carry out this project requires years, not months, therefore, I need to survive. As Audre Lorde writes, the following is true of both cancer and racism“As warriors, our job is to actively and consciously survive it for as long as possible, remembering that in order to win, the aggressor must conquer, but the resisters need only survive.”

Like Lorde, I am a unique constellation of identities—I’m a philosopher, mother, scholar, non-binary person (leaning feminine today, probably as I am channeling Lorde’s feminine power), musician, spouse, lover, partner, artist, from working-class background, survivor of a near-fatal car accident, survivor of racist school bullying and difficult work structures, friend, writer of occasional (not great) fiction, and so on.

If I die now, or very soon, the message would be all wrong. It'd be like the twitter ban but obviously amplified: the message would say how sad, here’s a kind person whom few people dislike, gone now, appreciated. Kindness is hugely underrated as a virtue, so I appreciate it, but we cannot do the work of actual philosophical plumbing with just kindness alone.

I have some cool work in store (all in early stages) all requiring still a lifespan to go and not months. So, there's nothing to it but to beat the gruesome odds, find some compassion for my at the moment quite piteous body (I lost 30 pounds purely through misery and appetite-suppressing painkillers), try to find a way to live with it again and carry it forward to victory over this horrific illness.

(Another beautiful guitar song from Latin America, from Buenos Aires artist Jonatan Alvarado, Entre dos álamos verdes)

When I just got ill I wrote on FB that I decided to stick around and annoy standard analytic philosophy. People replied all sorts of things. What is analytic philosophy? What is standard? Why annoy it? Do I feel like I’m better than ye average philosopher? My view has changed significantly from before. I still think the grass counter may count grass if that’s what he truly wishes. We cannot know what will become important. We cannot know if your branch of very obscure epistemology or logic might not hold the seeds of a revolution. However, we should stop doing philosophy that we are not passionate about, merely because we feel others value it, because it’s trendy and lines the journals or it’s the debate du jour even if we do not care. Simply too much is at stake for this. Our opportunities for connection with the broader public. Our possibility to shape our own future, inside and outside of the academy.

We should write philosophy with a sense of urgency, a sense of survival, a sense of horror and wonder at the world. Enough with putting ourselves and our profession to shame. Enough with timid small moves as our profession is being dismantled and our planet is being destroyed.