My whole attitude to life has been gradually changing for a few years now. I think more due to the loss of the leg, than from the cancer.
I am seeing the "Black Swan" philosophy in many aspects of my life.
I recently got food poisoning.
A month of wonderful, home cooked, healthy, meals is not worth one bout of food poisoning. Food poisoning, harmed me more in a day, than healthy eating for months could possibly benefit me. I would be healthier eating from MacDonald's everyday and NOT getting food poisoning.
Visiting a friend and getting lots of attention and caring, would be negated in a one second fall down their stairs. A fall could break an arm or leg to make crutches and a wheelchair unusable. That means months in a bed. I don't think a few months of love and caring are worth that risk. I would rather be in my safe home, in my safe wheel chair, than taking small risks, that have such super consequences. There is the desire of safety, in all that I do.
It used to be that the pluses of life were balanced by the negatives in life. It was worth doing exciting things if the worst that could happen was proportional. Life was in balance.
Now I see the positives in life as being minor, and the negatives as being huge.
A month of enjoyment playing with kittens, is not worth once, tripping over one, and falling.
Some people will act super concerned about the health of their children, spend big money on car seats to protect them, buy the safest car, and the best medical care money can buy, and yet, text while driving. In one second they can do more to damage the future of their supposed loved ones, than a whole life of caring and love could ever make up for. Their "love", is false love.
I would gladly forgo the positive pleasures of life, for the absence of the negatives of life.
The Buddhist philosophy, is of minimizing both the peaks of life, and the valleys.
I think about statistics of falling while using my prosthetic leg.
If the prosthetic is reliable 99% of the time, then I would fall every 100 steps.
If the prosthetic is reliable 99.99% of the time, then I would fall every 10,000 steps. That is only one day of walking.
99.999% reliable is a fall every 10 days.
99.9999% reliable is still a fall every 100 days. A broken arm, or broken leg every three months is un-acceptable to me.
Stairs, kittens, uneven ground, carpets, and wet floors change the percentages to make me want to just stay home in my wheel chair.
I seem to have made peace with the cancer. Death no longer scares me, like it did a year ago.
Injury, or falling, however, terrifies me.
I am sure the psychologists would have lots to say about that.
How unlike the "Me" that I used to know..
