LifeAfter

The nowhere that’s here.

Posted by piermar2 on February 16, 2024
Posted in: Culture, Insights, LifeAfter.

At some point, speaking leads nowhere.
Communication has reached its limit.

It is not about speaking different languages but there is a limit to what words can convey.
When the symptoms change from hour to hour, and the “how-are-you” assumes a response, to coin an answer leads to something that is clearly not valid anymore, and a waste of time.

How do we point to air, to what is too subtle for words/speech?

“Being, presence… ” is all that is needed.
But of course, like with most important things in life, those words are only pointing fingers, not the “thing itself.”

Did I forget to say goodbye?

Posted by piermar2 on January 30, 2024
Posted in: BrainScience, Death, LifeAfter, TheBleed.

None of this is a call for help, nor is it any kind of alarm.
It is just another reflection about a particular state.

While I can write, I write – there may be a time when writing is no longer available.
Am I trying to be ahead of my time? I remember thinking very clearly that “the true avant-garde is death” – that’s what I thought  in my twenties
This is not the topic here.

It has to do with the fact that there is a possibility that what one calls “brain fog” appears, and remains.
I had a few hours of it today & I wondered how thick it would get. And how persistent it would be.
But here I am, typing all of this down: the panic may not be warranted, but my concern is as thick as the isolation I found myself caught by.

It is not a matter of politeness.

Part of this thick haze consists of the distance between the medical words (the diagnostics) I hear, and the subtle yet concrete fluctuating sensations I am feeling.
All of this comes and goes, and I remain. For now.

“LIMPING” – towards Conversations with a big C.

Posted by piermar2 on January 25, 2024
Posted in: Insights, LifeAfter, Post-Rehab, TheMindChallenge, Uncategorized.

What do we do after a major crisis? We are here but we are also somewhere else.
What remains is a state where simple answers do not exist anymore.
Someone asks “how are you,” and it is absolutely impossible to answer – cf. below Robert Frost on voting.

Language as a whole seems to belong to a “universe of scoundrels.” Not that anyone has any bad intentions, but non-conscious exchanges – when normalcy is assumed (which is most of the time) – turns the limping into some kind of consolation dance.

“Insouciance” or “what-me-worry” was left behind.

Blood in the head… and he went back to sleep.

Posted by piermar2 on January 12, 2024
Posted in: Culture, Delirium, Humor, LifeAfter, Post-Op, TheBleed, Uncategorized.

This poem by Henri Michaux has been with me for a great many years.
Its refrain, “and he went back to sleep,” is echoing in me.

Much revolves around sleep, and avoidance.
Do we ever face anything else besides what we cannot escape?
The present is the only “stuff/embrace” we may handle…

A quiet man by Henri Michaux –  (my emphasis)
[English Translation by Marton]

Extending his hands out of bed, Plume was surprised not to meet the wall. “Well, he thought, the ants must have eaten it …” and he fell asleep again.

Shortly after, his wife grabbed him and shook him: “Look, she says, lazy you! while you were busy sleeping we were robbed of our house. “Indeed, an immaculate sky stretched on all sides. “Well, the thing is done.” he thought.

Soon after, a noise was heard. It was a train coming at them at full speed. “From its hurried look, he thought, it will surely arrive before we do” and again he fell asleep.

Then, the cold woke him up. He was soaked in blood. A few pieces of his wife were lying next to him. “With blood, he thought,  a great many conflicts always arise; if this train could have not passed, I would be very happy. But since it has already passed … “and he went back to sleep.
– Well, said the judge, how do you explain that your wife injured herself to the point that she was found divided into eight pieces, without you, who were nearby, being able to make a gesture to prevent it, without you even having noticed it. That’s the mystery. Everything lies there.
– On that path, I cannot help him, thought Plume, and he fell back asleep.
– The execution will take place tomorrow. Accused, do you have something to add?
– Excuse me, he said, I have not followed the case. And he went back to sleep.

Original
Un homme paisible par Henri Michaux – (mon emphase)

Étendant les mains hors du lit, Plume fut étonné de ne pas rencontrer le mur. ” Tiens, pensa-t-il, les fourmis l’auront mangé… ” et il se rendormit.

Peu apres, sa femme l’attrapa et le secoua: “Regarde, dit-elle, fainéant! pendant que tu étais occupé à dormir on nous a volé notre maison.” En effet, un ciel intact s’étendait de tous côtés. “Bah, la chose est faite.” pensa-t-il.

Peu après, un bruit se fit entendre. C’était un train qui arrivait sur eux à toute allure. ” De l’air pressé qu’il a, pensa-t-il, il arrivera sûrement avant nous ” et il se rendormit.
Ensuite, le froid le réveilla. Il était tout trempé de sang. Quelques morceaux de sa femme gisaient près de lui. ” Avec le sang, pensa-t-il, surgissent toujours quantité de désagréments; si ce train pouvait n’être pas passé, j’en serais fort heureux. Mais puisqu’il est déjà passé… ” et il se rendormit.
– Voyons, disait le juge, comment expliquez-vous que votre femme se soit blessée au point qu’on l’ait trouvée partagée en huit morceaux, sans que vous, qui étiez à côté, ayez pu faire un geste pour l’en empêcher, sans même vous en être aperçu. Voilà le mystère. Toute l’affaire est là-dedans.
– Sur ce chemin, je ne peux pas l’aider, pensa Plume, et il se rendormit.
– L’exécution aura lieu demain. Accusé, avez-vous quelque chose à ajouter?
– Excusez-moi, dit-il, je n’ai pas suivi l’affaire. Et il se rendormit.

Référence: Henri Michaux, Un certain Plume, dans Plume précédé de Lointain intérieur, Paris, Gallimard, 1963, pp.139-140.

Difference is everything

Posted by piermar2 on December 25, 2023
Posted in: Culture, Death, LifeAfter, LifeBefore, Post-Op, Post-Rehab, TheBodyChallenge.

One writes to make a difference, or simply to try to distinguish, not extinguish…
As each moment passes, one attempts to leave one trace, so each moment, in its particular uniqueness, is noticed — “I bore witness to myself.”

As much as the miracle of healing can take place – and we cannot take credit for that – there are points of no return.
What happened is what happened.
Overall though, I am where I am and you are where you are.
In that sense, we do not really communicate. As Artaud said: “we are (only) making signals through the flames.”
That difference is paramount. And unbridgeable: tears are not enough.
In this culture of denial, the dictatorship of positivity reigns; nobody has actually any room for what is conveniently summarized as “negativity” & real difference.

What

Posted by piermar2 on December 23, 2023
Posted in: LifeAfter, TheBleed, Uncategorized.

The questions continue… of course they mean well, but there is a irreconcilable chasm between what is asked and the immensity of what I could answer, if I could answer anything.
To summarize, just yesterday I was asked whether everything will soon heal; I answered that with blood in one’s head – as Michaux says in one of his Plume stories – all kinds of unpleasant things may happen.

What do I know?!

Brain sensations… sometimes pressure by the eye, sometimes by the ear, hearing the blood flow with every heartbeat. How curious!
A wonderful brain surgeon will check my CTscans! He saved my life in 2008!

Some kind of “antechamber?”
At the very least, I had time to prepare myself… you will say.
It is with calm that a final “curtain” may drop. Without any drama.
People will go back to their busy lives because that’s what life is about: being busy.

Missed opportunities for concrete information.

They mean well, but it is not what was needed:
– my mother was given a Kleenex when she was interviewed by the Shoah Foundation. The interviewer was a therapist, unaware of the history and the geography of WWII genocied in Hungary.
– a well-meaning nurse offered me the same Kleenex as she was “debriefing” me on the damage done (cf. below). I needed facts, not some office-compassion.

Primal Initiation

Posted by piermarton on December 11, 2016
Posted in: Culture, Insights, LifeAfter, TheMindChallenge.

“NO!”
— the shout that started the process of “recovery,” my “reincarnation” (coming back into my body/life) —
After weeks in an intensive care unit, I finally came back to life when, from the deepest place in my body, I found myself shouting “No!”

We are born…
And our brain is shapeless. Words and concepts have not yet colonized it.

There is a “self” (should we even use that word?) that exists that is pure perception.
In that state, nothing is stored for recycling.
You live…
It is neither “life,” nor “art,” nor “experience.”
You live.

Then come those who say: “tell us all about it! Make sense, let us know, make us understand!“

However hard this hospitalization is/was, it is a trip… an initiation into something that cannot be communicated.
Just like anything worthwhile.
Just like becoming a shaman.
OR
You can view this as a Torah(Teaching) Scroll where you will spend the rest of your life
trying to interpret it – my advice, as Susan Sontag says, don’t.
It is what it is.

ALONE.
AND UNIQUE.

In the extremely long road of recovery – one does not recover – everything appears as what it is: a series of addictions.

An Unlearning MindMap – Honoring the Emptiness

Posted by piermarton on May 29, 2016
Posted in: Books, Culture, Death, Graphics, Insights, LifeAfter, Tips.

– from the School of No Media site –

In parallel to the Chinese Yin and Yang principles, our digital reality is composed binary digits – the bits – composed of ones and zeros, yet our culture seems to emphasize only the ones, only the fullness
— at the expense of our emptiness —

As per the hourglass visualization, the clarifying process of decantation takes time, yet dramatic events like death or disease can speed up the unlearning phase.
Regardless of our books, our words and our philosophies, death – the so-called “great equalizer” – will create an outstanding silence.
What traces will be treasured by the next generation?

An Unlearning MapThe essence of normalcy is the refusal of reality. Ernst Becker

Solitude – Claudie Hunzinger

Posted by piermarton on November 20, 2014
Posted in: Delirium, ICU, Insights, LifeAfter, TheMindChallenge.

— As I have written elsewhere and will keep repeating, in spite of all appearances, “you’re on your own.” —
— The isolation of being in nature, or lost in ICUs can lead to a very similar wisdom —

Another way to be and to think — Une autre manière d’être et de penser

Claudie Hunzinger - Photo Françoise Saur

Claudie Hunzinger – © Françoise Saur

Claudie Hunzinger est écrivain et artiste. Elle vit en Alsace dans les montagnes des Vosges depuis 1964.
Wikipédia (en Français)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION BELOW

Interview sur Hors-Champs (France Culture)

Question (Laure Adler): Une dissolution?
Réponse (Claudie Hunzinger): C’est quelque chose comme ça la solitude. Il y a quelque chose d’infiniment merveilleux qui peut vous attirer très loin, qui est le fait qu’on se quitte soi-même. Quand on est seul, on perd son identité. On se déploie dans tout ce qui vous entoure, on devient ce qui vous entoure.
On peut devenir la maison si on est à l’intérieur, on se dilate et on prend toute la place; c’est un peu une expérience très “Alice,”
Et si on est à l’extérieur, on devient absolument ce qu’on voit. On devient l’air, on devient les forêts, on devient l’herbe, et c’est un sentiment très puissant, très reposant aussi.
L’élément humain… on devient un élément étranger, et quand je quitte la montagne et que je me retrouve à Paris, il me semble que j’entre dans l’élément humain, et que l’élément humain est un élément étranger. Que je suis, que j’appartiens à la montagne, que j’appartiens aux bêtes, que j’appartiens aux plantes, et que je me rétrécie que je rentre en moi-même et que je suis en face de ce micro…


Question (Laure Adler): Quand vous dites que la montagne vous appartient, elle vous appartient sensoriellement? Elle vous a capturé?
Réponse (Claudie Hunzinger): Sensoriellement. J’en fais partie. C’est quelque chose qu’on sent, c’st quelque chose qu’on remarque. C’est un bien–être.

“Le désir doit rester une fenêtre ouverte sur la nuit, sur sa foule d’étoiles.” La Survivance (2102)

Les Promesses Tenues de Claude Hunzinger –  © Françoise Saur

Claudie Hunzinger is a writer/artist who has been living in the mountains of Alsace since 1964.

Question (Laure Adler): A form of dissolving?
Answer (Claudie Hunzinger):  It is something like that, solitude. There is something infinitely marvelous that can draw you forth very far in the sense that one leaves oneself behind. When we are alone, we lose our identity. We spread out into everything that surrounds us, we become what surrounds us.
We can become a house if we are indoors. We blow up and take all of the space; it is a bit like an “Alice experience.”
And if one is outside, one becomes absolutely what one sees. We become the air, we become the forests, one becomes the grass, and it is such a powerful feeling, very relaxing too.
The human element… we become a foreign element, and what I become when I leave the mountain and I find myself in Paris, it seems that I enter the human element, and that the human element is a foreign element. That I am, that I belong to the mountain, that I belong to the animals, that I belong to the animals, and that I shrink and re-enter inside myself when I face this microphone…

Question (Laure Adler): When you say that the mountains belongs to you, do you mean that you do on a sensory level? It has taken over?
Answer (Claudie Hunzinger):  On a sensory level. I belong to it. It is something one feels, something one notices. A well-being.
“Desire must remain a window open onto the night, with its multitude of stars” La Survivance (2102)

Stop-Look-Go & The Given Moment: Brother Steindl-Rast’s Lesson in Gratefulness

Posted by piermarton on November 6, 2014
Posted in: Books, Culture, Delirium, Humor, ICU, Insights, LifeAfter, LifeBefore, OtherSupport, Rehab, Tips.

Brother David Steindl-Rast, A Network of Grateful Living (ANG*L) and his many books!

Br. Steindl-Rast, against solidification:
The religions start from mysticism. There is no other way to start a religion. But, I compare this to a volcano that gushes forth …and then …the magma flows down the sides of the mountain and cools off. And when it reaches the bottom, it’s just rocks. You’d never guess that there was fire in it. So after a couple of hundred years, or two thousand years or more, what was once alive is dead rock. Doctrine becomes doctrinaire. Morals become moralistic. Ritual becomes ritualistic. What do we do with it? We have to push through this crust and go to the fire that’s within it. — During Link TV’s Lunch With Bokara 2005 episode The Monk and the Rabbi.