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3-14-12 // 7:51 pm so it goes I just found out that a guy I know...pretty much just an acquaintance, but we've hung out occasionally and interact a lot online...he's been battling cancer for years, but it's always gone into remission, even though he's had some hellacious times and been hit really hard. But he's always came through. But I found out just now from my landlady, who's a mutual friend and far closer to him than I am -- that he's dying. His oncologist gave him five years, but it's in his blood. There's really nothing they can do... And he's such a great guy! Amazingly talented photographer, witty writer, king of local DJs (his weekly radio show is the best in the known universe, seriously, it's attuned to my precise wavelength), and all around solid guy. And even though I know his hold on this world's been tenuous for years, this is different, and even though he's not even a close friend, how do you react to it? How do you process it? And he hasn't even made it public info yet, so I can't mention it to other folks that at least semi-know him like I do. I've offered to my landladly to help her plan a benefit for him (get something in the 'hood together where he can exhbit and sell some of his photography, raise some $ through fundraiser nights, etc.) and get the word out, 'cause I'm good at that. But it's still such a horrifically helpless feeling. I hate to stream of consciousness secret-diary dump this out, but I can't say anything to anyone else who knows him since it's not public info yet. At the very least, it puts any/all of my BS daily problems into massive perspective. Still...it's not fair, even though I really don't believe in a fair universe, and I don't believe in god or any higher power. I'd like to believe that good people doing good things occasionally get a break. But he never seems to. I just thought maybe he was due some sort of cosmic break, not a removed hunk of lung and cancer in his blood... It doesn't make me lose faith in the world, 'cause I don't have faith in "spirits" or "gods" or whatever. I believe in people, and stuff like this can't necessarily shake that, in fact it can only make it stronger, get them to rally, help, and celebrate the beauty in life. But still. What a damn raw deal. Perhaps, then, it's fitting that as of late I've been immersed in that Vonnegut biography. There are two things I think of right now, that even though they seemingly reinforce the random, careless nature of existence, seem to also lend credence to my nonbelief "Why are we here? Because we're here. Roll the bones." --Neil Peart "So it goes." --Kurt Vonnegut Why do bad things happen to good people? Because it's the bad luck of random probability...that shouldn't be comforting, and it's not exactly, but it also sort of is? Thinking that there's some kind of deity or god or whatever that sees shit happen or actively makes shit happen, that's even worse. I could never get on board with that. Anyway, life has been, for some time now, on balance, pretty fucking great. It's just that crap like this, along with my grandparents' steady, gradual decline that make me furrow my brow and get thinky. But the universe carries on, and it's all we can do as fancy monkeys inhabiting a gassy rock for a blip in the cosmic calendar. We keep going, and we keep trying to sort it out. And we double up our faith, our belief, our stock in people. I tell people I'm a humanist, not 'cause it's an intellectual buzzword or whatever, but because I believe it and I believe in people. They're all we have when the universe, most of the time, simply shrugs.
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