Temptation

Every so often, fluorescent lime green spots of color appear on the t-shirts and shorts and tennis shoes people wear. Nobody I know, of course, but quite a few strangers who pass me on the street or in stores or honk at me from their lime green cars. I am not certain that I am viewing reality. The spots of color may be hallucinations brought on by an intense yearning to understand experiences outside the dull-normal circumstances surrounding all of us. Anyone reading this knows those spots of color are evidence of free sanity; sanity unbound by our interpretations of drabness.

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For thousands and thousands and thousands of years, humans have engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the natural environment. Without constant efforts to protect ourselves against the ravages of Nature, we would have been, by now, long extinct. If Nature had not fought against us in so many ways, humans might have succeeded in weakening Nature enough to reduce all but the utterly unbeatable natural dangers. And those unbeatable dangers probably would have erased human blight from the planet. One way or another, Nature was assured of conquest—it was and is just a matter of time. What Earthly creature actually needs humans in order to survive and prosper? Few, if any. Yet, in order to survive, we need Nature to submit to our demands or, at least, to refrain from attacking us. If Nature were proven to have intent, I would say Nature simply wants to enjoy roughhousing with human toys.

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Roughly fifty years and seven months ago, Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). About nineteen months later, she was captured by the FBI; not as the kidnap victim, but as a bank robber and common criminal. Today, September 18 (as reported on the NPR website), is the anniversary of her capture in 1975. The final member of the SLA was caught in 2002. Though many people believed—and still do—she joined her captors due to being a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, she was tried for her actions in the SLA and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Her sentence was commuted after two years and, later, she was pardoned. I wrote an even shorter blurb about Patty Hearst ten years ago. My interest in her story is not based on fascination. It is a matter of simple curiosity; just not enough to justify the effort necessary to learn every facet of her SLA experience.

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Yesterday was another day of extended sleep; so much that I could not sleep well last night. But just after 4 this morning when I decided to get out of bed, I drifted off for half an hour. And the same thing happed a half an hour later. And then the half hour after that. And on and on until, finally, I got up around 6:30. Here I am, half an hour later, feeling moderately comatose, but I do not want to emerge from the coma. I would prefer to get back to sleep and stay in that state for another five or six hours. I only wish.

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I’ve been dealing with the recurrence of my lung cancer since the end of December 2023. Had my treatments gone the way I had hoped, I would have finished the formal chemotherapy in three months; treatment would have continued for two more years, but that follow-up treatment would have been immunotherapy designed to keep the cancer in check. Instead, different poisons are being tried; evaluations of their impacts will determine whether any of them should be continued for its effectiveness. Ach! Nine months and then some, with no certainty. I haven’t asked the oncologist how my body might react if I simply stopped the treatments; she probably would say I would die within a fairly short timeframe…months, perhaps. That’s what she said when I asked the question when I was first diagnosed with cancer almost 6 years ago. Cancer has the potential to end life and, in the process, wreck what’s left of it. Far too many people successfully deal with cancer, though, for me to give up on it. But it can be tempting.