Unnecessary

This post will be brief. I do not feel well, but then again I do not feel especially ill; just a little bit on the uncomfortable side of “blah.” Perhaps I ate something that doesn’t agree with me; but if I recall correctly, the last thing I ate was a reuben sandwich…sometime around noon yesterday. But I may be wrong about that. I may have eaten something else after that meal; I just do not remember. So what? Is my memory about recent meals important? Probably not. Certainly not as important as ongoing wars, famine, poverty, crime, and thousands of other intrusions on peace and comfort and human decency. Yet the degree of importance one assigns to any experience depends on context. The pain caused by a bayonet plunged into a person’s neck takes precedence over powerful hunger. But that pain probably pales in comparison to the bayonet’s cut made many times worse by the introduction of acid into the wound. I cannot understand why I would have these topics on my mind. At least I do not feel the burn of acid or the searing pain of a bayonet. But I have felt better. In fact, I usually feel considerably better. Maybe I will feel better after my chemo treatment. Just over an hour from now, I will head into town to the oncology center. Three hours later, more or less, the unpleasantness I feel now may have disappeared. And, perhaps, I will be hungry for something that now might seem unappealing. All of these words are simply unnecessary.