I Was Not Fit To Live

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DATo
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I Was Not Fit To Live

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Excerpted from my novella ... My Great Big Philosophy

Chapter 3

I Was Not Fit To Live



I was destined to die at the age of five … such was my lot, and were it not for the marvels of modern medicine I would have achieved my destiny. I was also destined to discover that one of the most profound philosophical arguments imaginable centered on the question of whether I should have allowed myself to be saved. It's a long story, and it begins in Grandma Antonia's kitchen.

It was a weekday evening in autumn and as usual Grandma Antonia's house was as busy as Grand Central Station. Everyone was in the kitchen. They were eating and talking, arguing and singing, drinking home made wine and crying in that controlled and beautiful bedlam which described our family. I was sitting at my usual place under the kitchen table listening to the conversations and making mental notes regarding who needed a shoe shine. It was getting late, and I was getting sleepier by the minute when all of a sudden the conversation turned to my favorite subject - sickness and death - which aroused my attention, and suddenly I was wide awake.

The topic focused on the medical condition known as appendicitis, which in those days was still a very dangerous affliction. I learned that the symptoms included: vomit of a yellow hue, a fever, and a sharp pain in the lower right abdominal area. I especially enjoyed the part about cutting the complainant's guts open to remove the offending appendage which was the culprit and cause of this physiological inconvenience.

The evening visit ended and we made our way back home through the gate in the middle of the towering, gray, wooden fence which separated our concrete backyard from Grandma Antonia's brick-inlaid backyard. Pearlie came out with her flashlight to find out who was in the yard though she knew damn well it was us since we repeated this ritual almost every night at about the same time. Mom would assure Pearlie that everything was OK and Pearlie would light the old wooden steps to our second story flat for us with her flashlight while Fuzzy protected our rear as a result of some instinctive alarm generated by Pearlie's concern. Years later I came to understand that Pearlie was just lonely, and this daily event was probably the highlight of her day. Poor Pearlie! We were always kind to Pearlie and her dad in many ways but we should have done more. There are a lot of lonely Pearlies in this world. Today, as an act of family penance, I try to find the time to talk to the Pearlies I run into from time to time, or do them some small favor, or perform some modest kindness to let them know that someone takes them seriously, and that they have worth.

Well, the next morning I awoke vomiting yellow - so help me God. I also had a fever, and the right side of my stomach was killing me. I was only five years old but as a result of keeping my mouth shut and listening to the grown-ups I was capable of making a diagnosis worthy of doctors who's parents had spent thousands of dollars on their medical education, and who themselves had spent thousands of hours listening to lectures concerning the biological sciences. I was going to die … it was as simple as that. Or, they were going to cut my guts open for me; but one thing was certain, this was not a condition curable by Fletcher's Castoria or an enema. Despite my loathing of the occasional dose of Fletcher's Castoria, or the occasional hose up my a$$, either of these options was preferable to having my guts cut open.

My father had already left for work so my mom called Aunt Francis over and the two of them rushed me to the hospital in a taxi cab. During the ride I remembered the night I stabbed Aunt Francis in the leg and a new fear slowly crept into my brains. THEY WERE GOING TO DISEMBOWEL ME AND I WOULD FEEL EVERY BIT OF IT !!!! Another of my great fears was that they would find that pin I had swallowed in my stomach and the whole story of my sticking Aunt Francis in the leg while she was sleeping (to find out if anesthetics actually worked to eliminate pain when people were asleep) would come to light. I was also aware that I might die, but this concern took a distant third place to my other fears.

Our family doctor was Dr. Guccini who was a childhood playmate and schoolmate of my mother till third grade when my mother had to drop out to go to work to help support the family since her dad had gone to California with that whore, or died in childbirth, or whatever. Dr. Guccini was a slim man, and he had an uncanny resemblance to Douglas Fairbanks Junior. He sported a thin gray mustache and a look of chimerical playfulness, benevolence, and competence which inspired trust. Grownups think they are proficient at duping children but it can't be done. A kid can see through a grownup's bullish*t and can discern every nuance of coercive deception from a block away, but the truth comes through too. Mom had total faith in Dr. Guccini, a faith which was palpable, and as a result so did I. After we got to the hospital, and after enduring a battery of tests, I was wrested from my mother's embrace while kicking and screaming to the best of my ability under the circumstances, and I was placed on a gurney and wheeled to surgery to have my belly sliced open like a watermelon.

They wheeled me into the operating room and in my state of psychological trauma I desperately sought a familiar face. "I WANT DR. GUCCINI !!!!!" I screamed, "WHERE IS DOCTOR GUCCINI? I WANT DOCTOR GUCCINI!!!" A guy all dressed in white pointed to my left and there, leaning diagonally with his right hand propped against the top corner of the doorjamb and his crossed feet anchoring the opposite corner, was Dr. Guccini in operating room attire and sporting a million dollar smile beneath his Douglas Fairbanks Jr. mustache. He had been standing there all the while I was screaming and he was looking directly at me. You know something, like I said before, a kid can see through a grownup's bullish*t but grownups have adapted a remarkable proclivity for seeing through a kid's bullish*t too. My sincere caterwauling for him had produced a look on Dr. Guccini's face which I have learned over the years to identify with humble gratitude and pride. That moment etched itself indelibly in my memory as my fear subsided and I would later think of it often, and I bet Dr. Guccini remembered it from time to time too.

"See? Everyone in here is wearing a hat, so YOU have to wear a hat TOO.", said a voice behind me. Well that seemed perfectly logical to me, so even though my bullish*t alarm was glowing bright red I shrugged and nodded my ascent, and something was draped over the top of my head. "And everyone in here is wearing a MASK, so YOU have to wear a mask TOO." Hey, this was getting pretty good ! I was practically a surgeon and I didn't even have to go to medical school. Once again I nodded my agreement to the disembodied voice behind me. A cold rubber thing was placed on my face and the mysterious voice said, "Now take a very very deep breath." Now my bullish*t alarm was glowing bright red and klaxons were sounding but after all, Dr. Guccini was here right? - so what's to worry? So I took a very very deep breath. What came next was the most awful experience of my life up to that date. It was even worse than when Fuzzy bit my a$$. The cold, piercing, impersonal fumes of the ether passed through my head like a crashing plate glass window and produced a physical sensation which was not unlike drowning in gasoline. I had time for one muffled scream and the next thing I knew I was sitting in my play clothes on the empty gurney I was wheeled in on which now was parked against the far wall, and I was watching them getting ready to work on my guts.

As I sat there, through the doorway which Dr. Guccini had been leaning in earlier came an old man in a black greatcoat, a black hat, and white, silk scarf preceeded by a little dog on a leash. He was the most depressed looking man I had ever seen and I figured he would have made a great husband for Grandma Antonia. As he passed the operating table he glanced at it disinterestedly and slowly made his way to where I was sitting.

"Because of my fame I assume you know who I am." he said to me.

"Ummmmm, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ?", I replied.

WHAT !!!? YOU DARE TO MISTAKE ME FOR THAT PHILOSOPHICALLY MYOPIC, INTELLECTUAL CALIBAN Heeeeeeeeeegle !!!!???", he sneered. "I am Arthur Schopenhauer, the greatest philosopher who has yet lived. I suppose you are the rooting section for these doctors who struggle to keep you alive." he said, while gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb.

"Nope." I replied, as I swung my dangling legs. "That doctor over there ...", I said, while pointing to the guy sitting behind me at the operating table, "put some stinking stuff on my nose and the next thing I knew I was …"

"ENOUGH!!!!" yelled Schopenhauer. "If you had any sense at all you would die now while you have a perfectly viable excuse. Life is not worth living. Life is a monumental struggle that inevitably ends in failure. The only good thing about it is art, which makes this putrid vale of tears at all tolerable." He leaned closer to me. "Do it! Die while you have the chance to escape!"

As I considered Mr. Schopenhauer's suggestion two things happened simultaneously: a man with a beard came in through the doorway and walked briskly toward us wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his tie - a rumpled mess, and his collar was open giving him all the appearance of a UPS worker in civilian clothes, on a hot day, with a harried schedule; and the other thing that happened was that Mr. Schopenhauer's dog peed on his leg, but Mr. Schopenhauer didn't notice and I thought it best not to tell him considering how depressed he already looked and all.

"SCHOPENHAUER !!! I THOUGHT I'D FIND YOU HERE !!!! GET AWAY FROM HIM … GET AWAY FROM HIM RIGHT NOW!!!!" , said the man with the beard, who appeared to be beside himself with emotion.

"Buscaglia, Buscaglia, let the kid die in peace for Christ sake. " Schopenhauer sighed, "I suppose you are now going to go into your repertoire of theatrics to convince him to remain in this swamp you call 'existence'."

While Mr. Schopenhauer was talking to the man he called 'Buscaglia' I noticed for the first time that the operating room was a theater from which medical students could view the surgeries from a gallery above and learn how to work on people's guts. But the people sitting all around the operating room on the second level were not doctors. They wore a variety of clothing styles that seemed to be from many different centuries; for though I would not have history class for five more years (if I lived through this day that is) I knew enough from television and picture books to know that all these people came from different times and places. Later I would learn the names of these people; there was Descartes and Aristotle who sat together, Jean-Paul Sartre with his date Simmone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand (who refused to give up her seat in front to the diminutive Immanuel Kant who was jumping up and down behind her trying to see), John Locke, John Stewart Mill, Hume, Russell, Dewey, Bentham, Leibniz, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Spinoza … and they were still filing in. I didn't know what was going on but whatever it was was drawing a bigger audience than a Springstein concert. I had the feeling that something big was going down, and some great issue was at stake, but I didn't know what it was.

The man in the white shirt pushed past Mr. Schopenhauer, came over to me, and embraced me in a hug. "Hi, I'm Leo." the man said with a big smile and eyes as big as saucers.

Leo Buscaglia had a face that displayed a cornucopia of emotions: he looked sad and happy, he looked angry and concerned, he looked frightened and confident. The one look he didn't have was ambivalence. I sensed that this was a guy who plunged right into whatever he did with force, determination, and a deep and profound caring for his fellow man. There was also a gentleness about him that reminded me a lot of the guy who came and watched and waited with me the night my Teddy Rabbit disappeared.

"Schopenhauer, you are a sick lonely man." said Leo, "But it doesn't have to be that way. You can change! There is a whole world of joy and meaning out there waiting to be discovered if you would only take the time to look." said Leo.

"DO YOU PRESUME TO TELL ME WHAT LIFE IS ABOUT?!" shouted Schopenhauer, "AM I NOT ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS PHILOSOPHERS OF THE MODERN AGE?!!! And who are you? - 'The Love Doctor'? WHAT KIND OF GARBAGE DO YOU PREACH TO THESE IMBECILES WHO FOLLOW YOUR EVERY WORD?! Love, benevolence, compassion and hope. HOPE FOR WHAT!? Man is destined to inherit only death and decay. Mankind is destined to destroy itself like so many bacteria in a septic-tank cesspool. What hope do you offer this child amid the wars, chaos, disease and dissolution which has followed mankind's footsteps since the dawn of time? What legacy is his bequest but tears and sorrow heaped upon sorrow culminating in his final realization that all the paths of his efforts have led him only to the door of hopeless surrender, and Death!? Let him die now before he has to endure it all Buscaglia, ... let him know peace!"

Leo Buscaglia's face was pained. It reflected the very amalgamation and sum total of all of mankind's historic pain, fear, despondency and grief; for somewhere in Mr. Schopenhauer's words lay a subtle truth, a difficult truth, which has echoed down the ages. In the background I could hear Dr. Guccini saying, "scalpel … probe … forceps … hemostat … sponge", and the metallic tinkle of instruments being placed on metal trays.

"But life offers more than that …" began Leo.

LIFE OFFERS NOTHING !!!!!" Shouted Schopenhauer. "Life is but a mucous which learned to swim, and later grew legs and crawled upon the land, and eventually evolved an ability to …" Mr. Schopenhauer was interrupted by a smattering of applause in the gallery where all heads were turned toward Charles Darwin who was smiling, bowing, and being patted on the back by Louis and Mary Leakey and Alfred Russel Wallace. "AS I WAS SAYING !!!" shouted Schopenhauer, and then in a calmer voice, "Life is nothing. It came from nothing and it will return to nothing. The most nobel thing a man can do is end life, and in so doing claim his victory over the struggles and despair which constantly beset a man and make a misery of his existence. This child …" he said, while turning and pointing to me, "would be dead soon and at peace if it was not for these interlopers of science who meddle with the dynamics of nature. HE WAS DESTINED TO DIE! AND YOU WILL LET HIM DIE ... for so he shall, if he so chooses." In the gallery Franz Kafka embraced St. Francis of Assisi and both of them began to cry.

"WE HAVE ARRHYTHMIA, DOCTOR !"

I was taking this all in and it appeared that Mr. Arthur Schopenhauer was ahead on points. I began to have my doubts about continuing to live in this "cesspool" as he called it, and I was just about to chuck the whole thing when Leo Buscaglia turned and looked at me, as if to draw strength from a little boy. As he gazed into my face a calmness and a relaxation came over his features, and then he turned once more to face the famous Arthur Schopenhauer, and he quietly began to speak.

"You're right Arthur, the nature of life is, and has always been very hard. Even that mucus you speak of had it hard. Every flower, every insect, every living cell of every living thing has had it hard. It is as much a struggle for the bird to emerge from its shell, for the butterfly to emerge from its cocoon and for the flower to emerge from its seed as it has been for Man to emerge from the prison of his fears and ignorance. We find ourselves on a lonely road not knowing where we are going, we just trudge on - generation after generation, - not even knowing what we seek, or why. New life joins our procession and old life falls by the wayside ... but Life continues on."

"We are the stuff of stars, Arthur. We are the very atoms and molecules and the awful forces of physics which took that stardust and molded it, and kneaded it, and sculpted it until in time it was able to contemplate its own existence in the mind of Man. Think of it Arthur ! The very elements of matter of which we are made has achieved the capacity to know it is alive! Whether by chance or by the hand of God is for each of us to decide for ourselves. It is enough to know that it happened.

"We stand not only on the shoulders of all the men who came before us, but on the shoulders of all the LIFE that came before us." Leo wandered over to the operating table and looked over Doctor Guccini's shoulder as he spoke. "You say his legacy is death Arthur, I say it is life. He, and I, and you, and all of us are heirs to that legacy of Life, and with that legacy comes responsibility. We are the torch bearers and keepers of that flame of Life; for our species has mastered this planet, and when any squirrel, or tree, or man dies to no purpose we have failed that responsibility.

"You say his bequest is 'tears' and 'sorrow heaped upon sorrow' Arthur? Again, you may be right. Life dispenses enough tears and sorrow, but it also dispenses joy: the innate sense of joy to be found in the sound of a brook, in the serenity of a beautiful sunset, or the happiness found in laughing with friends, or perhaps the ultimate joy of holding your newborn child for the first time. And what about love Arthur? Love is Life's greatest gift and it is freely accessible if we choose to embrace it. I cannot speak for the rest of Humanity but only for myself now. I gladly accept all pains and sorrows I have endured in payment for all the joy I have known. There is no frown I will not endure for the purchase of a smile. There is no hopelessness I will not endure for the purchase of an opportunity, and there is no heartbreak I will not pay for the privilege of loving and being loved in return."

Leo paused. He had wandered back over to me and once again looked at me as he had done before. His face had the look of an innocent man who was on his way to the gallows, but his eyes were calm, and then began to speak again.

"Yes, you may be right Arthur. That day may indeed come when all of life will recede once more into the darkened void - to be erased forever from Time's memory: but just before the darkness falls, silhouetted in a last lingering shaft of light, the last bird will trill a final defiant note of song, - a final lonely note of requiem and celebration for that nobel pagent that was Life; for that titanic struggle that was Life, and for all that Life had ever been; and when that final note fades into eternal silence ... the very Angels of Heaven will weep."

During the silence that followed I struggled to get a footing on the gurney which shifted slightly on its wheels making a squeaking sound which drew the attention of a nurse who glanced only momentarily in its direction before she quickly and expertly resumed the work of trying to save my life. I finally made it to my feet and there I stood in my bib overalls and striped tee shirt, wearing the oversized baseball cap Uncle Dominic gave me. I stood casually, with one hand in my pocket and my other hand raised displaying a punctuating fore-finger, and for the first time in my life I had something important to say. "I gots a nanouncments to make." I said. Everyone except the medical people looked at me including Schopenhauer's dog, who sat there with his head tilted to one side like the RCA mascot. "After listening to Mr. Arthur and Mr. Leo I have assided to stay in the cesspool of my lives for awhile. I WANT TO LIVE !!!" Like I said before, and what everyone in that esteemed gallery was smart enough to already know … you can't bullish*t a kid.

There was a long silence. And then from the dimmest recesses of the gallery, far in the back, came a tapping sound - soft but distinct. As my gaze pierced the shadows I saw an old, bald-headed man wearing a toga sitting all alone. He was tapping his walking stick on the floor of the gallery with a slow, continuous, rhythmic cadence and then he slowly rose to his feet, all the while tapping gently. Everyone in the gallery turned to look at him and then one by one they each began to follow his example and pretty soon everyone was standing silently. For though I didn't understand what was going on at the time, the greatest and most fundamental philosophical question of mankind had been successfully addressed and its thesis had been duly defended by a rookie 20th century philosopher of 'Love'. And the answer was not 42; and the answer was not to be found in the New Testamant, or the Quran, or the Torah; and the answer, each member of that gallery knew, would not be found in any of their voluminous works. It was both exceedingly more complicated and yet fundamentally simpler than anything they had yet deduced. Socrates stopped tapping his stick on the floor, and after a pause he nodded to me and a moment later my vision of the room began to dissolve, and the last thing I remember seeing was Leo's smiling face.

I awoke in a hospital bed and Leo's face had morphed into that of my mother's. She was smiling down on me and brushing my hair with her hand. Dad was standing beside her, all dirty from work, holding his hat in his strong, calloused hands. I looked to my right and saw a subdued and hushed chaos ensuing which involved a couple of nurses who were desperately trying to block the doorway. Over their shoulders I saw Aunt Francis, grinning like a jack o lantern and shivering with excitement while waving excitedly to me; and there was Grandma Antonia, morose as ever, sitting in the hall in a chair someone had thought to get for her. She was toying with her rosary and shaking her head as if to say, I need to get a letter off to the Vatican as soon as we get home and get that goddamn pope to say a mass for this kid. And beside her were Uncle Dom and Uncle Joe in their work clothes, and Rosie and Aunt Aggie and her kids and they were all smiling and trying to wave to me too. My mom's cousin Jimmy, who was a door-to-door produce peddler, was trying to bribe the nurses to let everyone in with a small crate of seedless grapes he held in both hands, but as it turned out the nurses couldn't be bribed. Someone even thought to give Pearlie a ride over and she brought her flashlight with her ("just in case"). I couldn't see everyone since they trailed down the hall but I did spot a couple of guys I didn't know. I later found out they were a couple of new bums who had stopped by Grandma Antonia's for a hand out which I had not had the pleasure of being introduced to yet.

I had dim memories of a bunch of people in the operating room and an important grown-up message to tell everybody but I could never remember what it was. As I drifted off to sleep again in the soft comfort of knowing that everyone I loved was there with me, and despite the knowledge that my guts had been ripped open and fiddled with, I had a feeling of warm contentment which could not be formulated into words by any five year old, but if it could have, it might have sounded something like ... "Life! Yes, it's worth it!".

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy. All other questions follow from that."
- Albert Camus, Le Mythe De Sisyphe


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The video below is a lecture by the real Leo Buscaglia who I characterized in my story. He was the real thing - he was absolutely genuine. He didn't do this for money. He did it because one of his students committed suicide at USC and he felt he had to do something. So he became a speaker in addition to being a full time teacher and did what he could to make sure it never happened again if there was anything he could do about it. During the period he lectured his talks were the highest rated shows on PBS. It's about 45 minutes long but if you have the time to watch it it might just change your life. Buscaglia changed a lot of people's lives. He died in 1998. "... and the last thing I remember seeing was Leo's smiling face."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1YbSVA5eCw
“I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed reading accident. I hit a book mark and flew across the room.”
― Steven Wright
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