GOIN' ON A JOURNEY

I, like you, have a divided self.  One part of me says a human being is a composite of things; another part asserts that a human being is a conscious composite of thoughts and feelings.  One part of me claims that even the brain is merely a combination--albeit an amazingly complex combination--of elementary particles.  The other part believes consciousness is irreducible and may well have at least a partial, very important non-physical component.

My name is Thomas.  Thomas l (the rationalist) and Thomas ll (the believer) have been with me all my life. They were at loggerheads in the past, but now, calmed by age, they mostly get along.  Thomas l and Thomas ll are undoubtedly part of you, too, so you might be interested in reading about them.  Your story is different, yes, but not that different.  So let me introduce me, that is, you, and briefly discuss the two basic components of our divided selves.

Since the internal division I speak of is universal, I will dispense with the Thomases as being too specific.  I thought of renaming them Head and Heart, but this is a bit too direct, and sounds to me like the title of a bad poem.  So I decided to freely translate these terms, with a result that makes them sound like a couple of  lawyers arguing their case, which, I suppose, is exactly what they do.  Head becomes Breitkopf,  (wide Head in German--the adjective's hint of arrogance is appropriate), and Herzl (German for little heart--the adjective is also appropriate, denoting a humble person who has difficulty putting his insights into words.) I want to make clear at the beginning that although these "lawyers" have very different positions, they have never doubted that they are members of the same firm.

I will now proceed with a brief summary of the inner convictions of both Breitkopf and Herzl.

BREITKOPF

I, Breitkopf, am, like the Hindus--that is, Hindu sages-- a monist. I believe that reality is based on one thing, and one thing only.  In contrast to gurus, however, who believe that one thing is consciousness, I believe that one thing is matter.  I know of no irrefutable evidence that consciousness exists outside a material body, specifically a brain.  The Eastern school thinks that consciousness is everything and causes everything.   The claims are both irrational and wild.   The body is inert, consciousness is what gives the body life; it is an immaterial all-pervading essence which may indeed be conveyed by matter (that is, by a brain) but is nevertheless independent.  The modern analogy is that the brain is the receiver of consciousness, not its sender.  Yeah, right.
I am what I call a materialist-monist.  Everything is matter.  It is a fact that there is no atom inside the human body--and brain--that does not exist in the exact same form outside the body. Life, built from inert elements, contains no specific "life element." We are carbon-based life forms; the carbon inside us is no different from the carbon in an asteroid hurtling through space.  Our bodies consist of mostly water, molecules formed by two hydrogen and one oxygen atom.  The hydrogen of the water came into existence shortly--that is, 380,000 years or so--after the Big Bang, which occurred 13.7 billion years ago.  The oxygen of the water  (as well as all  the other elements in us) were forged in the furnaces of suns which, when they died in a supernova explosion, were spewed into space; the clouds from these explosions eventually became our solar system, our Earth, our bodies, us.   All through natural processes, of course!
Life began on our planet shortly after it formed.  But for over three billion years  life was unconscious life, bacteria.  Consciousness--at first, a very primitive consciousness-- began as more and more complex nervous systems arose, beginning with the Cambrian Era,  500, 000,000 years ago.  It culminated when the inexorable laws of evolution produced us, the most complex life forms that ever arose on our planet by far, so far.
I readily admit that consciousness remains a mystery.  I also believe that this mystery one day will be solved through materialist science.
The brain's complexity is enormous, no doubts about that.  100 billion neurons--as many approximately as the number of galaxies in the observable universe!  What is truly astounding is the amount of connections between these neurons, a truly astronomical number, estimated in the billions of billions of billions!
But complex matter is still--matter.  Consciousness is an accident produced by our genes; it permits us to survive better, and slowly, according to the laws of evolution, may even grow in complexity, helping us--if we mange not to destroy everything-- to reproduce ourselves more efficaciously.  There's nothing immaterial in this truly astonishing process,
Daniel Dennett, the materialist philosopher--a Breitkopf cultural hero--is of the opinion that consciousness is not qualitatively different from matter; the opposite assertion is nothing more than an illusion.  I share that opinion.  The materialist, empirical world view is responsible for all the amazing theoretical and practical achievements since the Enlightenment.  Where are the exceptions to this monist view of the world?  Nowhere; there are none.

HERZL

Herzl remains silent.


The next day, Breitkopf and Herzl, fused as Thomas Dorsett, are--that is, is--in his automobile, driving to a place where he will do some volunteer work.  He will be playing the piano at a senior center.  The last time one of the listeners suggested that he play a hymn.  Thomas replied that he didn't know any hymns, but he would order a hymnal and play them for all once he had the music.  The online department from which he ordered the hymnal informed him that it would take about a month for him to receive it--hymnals, he mused, aren't that popular.  In the meantime, how would he be able to quench the old people's thirst for a hymn?  Suddenly, the problem was solved. While he was playing the piano the night before, a hymn, words and music, came to him, out of the blue, as they say.
He arrives at the nursing home and sings the following hymn while accompanying himself at the piano:

GOIN' ON A JOURNEY
(alternative version)

Goin' on a journey,
it's all right;
I'm goin' on a journey,
it's all right--
As I leave this world behind,                        
Very soon I'll see my Friend
who knows what bright world I'll find?        
smiling at the tunnel's end,
Goin' on a journey,
it's all right.

Sister made that journey,
it's all right;
Brother made that journey,
it's all right--
I will have no cares at all                             
Mother, Father and my Guide
with friends and kin behind the wall;        
meet me on the other side;
Sister made that journey,
it's all right.

I have to leave my loved ones,
it's all right;
got to leave my loved ones,
it's all right--
It's hard, it's hard,
it's very hard--
I have to leave my loved ones,
it's all right.

Soon we'll be together,
it's all right;
we're gonna be together,
it's all right.
Soon we're gonna be together,
no umbrellas needed--EVER!
Soon we'll be together,
it's all right.

We're gonna be together, it's all right,
we're gonna be together, its' all right,
soon we'll be together, it's all right--
Everyone together: it's all right!

A few had tears in their eyes; everyone clapped.

On the way home the following dialogue took place inside Thomas's mind:

Breitkopf:  How could you compose such nonsense?  You have created something moving--but the music does not correspond to reality--and therefore has no meaning.  Are the words of your hymn to be taken  literally or symbolically?  In either case, it is emotional claptrap, what I call S.C.F.A., Santie Claus for Adults.  Grow up!  Accept the universe as it is.

Herzl: Your vast knowledge misses the one true mote that's essential.  You don't know everything.  I do; that's why I am silent.  And, by the way, the Hindus are right.

THE SUICIDE OF A SHAMED NURSE

1.

You all know the story by now.  Two silly Australian DJ's, a man and a woman pretending to be Prince Charles and the Queen, respectively, called the hospital where the  pregnant Duchess of Cambridge had been admitted for a severe case of morning sickness.  Despite their horrible accents, they were put through by the first nurse to Middleton's nurse, who gave a few bland details of the royal patient's very non-life-threatening condition.  The next day, one of the nurses, who undoubtedly felt more shame than she could bear for having been so royally duped, committed suicide.  Her name was Jacintha Saldhana, a reportedly excellent nurse; married; had a family, husband, son, daughter; gone forever at age 46.

It is important to note that she wasn't the nurse who gave the details about Kate's condition.  When the telephone rang, she answered as follows:

Hello, King Edward VII Hospital.

One of the pranksters, pretending to be the Queen, asked to be put through to her granddaughter.

Ms Saldhana replied:

O yes, just hold on, Ma'am.

Then the call was put through.

That's all she said--that's all!  For this was driven by shame into suicide.  It reminds me of poor kid I read about in an article the premise of which is that nowadays, unlike in  the past, suicides not infrequently occur at a young age.  The boy, age 7, hanged himself because of guilt.  He had clipped off the wings of a bug.

2.

What a horrible, unexpected--and preventable--tragedy!  I'm not going to write about the foolish DJ's who made the call, nor about  the society that paid them to act like spoiled kids.  I want to write about her.

Moved by such tragedies, I often fancy myself as being an Angel of Empathy--such is my vanity,-- able to travel not only through the air like Ariel, but also back in time, on the shoulders of  of a tachyon, to a person about to commit suicide.  Give me the gun!  You're thirteen years old and have no idea what you're doing!  If he didn't listen to my wise counsel--such is my vanity--I would get help or stay with him--or even restrain him--until the crisis passed.

I wish I could have talked with the young man, who had been one of my patients, as he got  ready to murder his parents and sibling.  I also wish I could have talked with Jacintha Saldhana, just before she decided to die.

 If I had been vanity-transported, I would feel like saying, almost in anger, "What is the matter with you!  You're 46 and the mother of two!  By now you should know that acute feelings of shame pass, like everything else.  How can it be that an educated woman has reached your age without perspective or a sense of proportion?  THINK OF YOUR CHILDREN--Do they deserve to be deprived of their mother FOREVER --for this?"

But, for her sake, I would remain calm yet say what I almost said in anger with understanding tempered by firmness.

She stares through me.  She doesn't even cry.  "For your children's sake, Ms. Saldhana, will you at least listen to what I have to say?"  She nods her head.

3.

You are an educated woman of Indian origin, thus by definition, a lover of Shakespeare.  Am I right?  She nods again.

Let me reacquaint you with Parolles, a cowardly blowhard from Shakespeare's All's Well that EndsWell.  He is corrupting the young, callow hero, Bertram, with his lies.  An older, wise gentleman throws this is Parolles's face:

Go to, sir.  You were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate.  You are a vagabond, and no true traveler.  You are more saucy with lords and honorable personages than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry.  You are not worth another word, else I'd call you knave.

Bertram, however, continues to think highly of his friend.  A war is going on, and a plot is devised to trick Parolles into showing his true colors.  Friends of Bertram capture Parolles and blindfold him before he can identify any one.  In a hilarious scene, he is brought to a place which "the interpreter"  informs him is the enemy camp.  He hears a nonsense language all around him which he believes to be the native language of the enemy.  The interpreter informs him that he is threatened with death and torture if he doesn't divulge information about his country's army.  He gives them more information than demanded, and denounces his compatriots, including Bertram, the Count of Rousillon.  He reveals himself as a vile, backbiting coward, doing anything to save his life.  Then the blindfold is taken off and he looks into the faces of those he had just denounced.

Now that's what I call humiliation.  Was Parolles, who had talked on and on about being a hero, driven to suicide? Left alone by those pranksters who thought Parolles wasn't even good enough to be killed, this is what Parolles said:

Yet I am thankful.  If my heart were great,
'Twould burst at this.  Captain I'll be no more,
But I will eat and drink and sleep as soft
As captain shall.  Simply the thing I am
Shall make me live.  Who knows himself a braggart
Let him fear this: for it will come to pass
That every braggart shall be found an ass.
Rust, sword!  Cool, blushes and, Parolles, live.

If shame can't defeat a bad man, why should it defeat a good woman?

If that didn't work I'd tell her about the true story of a man who lost his only child and wife in an accident.  He was drifting toward suicide but somehow went on.  He couldn't imagine that life would ever be worth living again.  Seven years later he was remarried, the proud stepfather of two children who adored him.  No, the tragic hole in his life would never be filled--but a delightful country had risen around it.  Point is, people in the grip of despair imagine it will last forever.  They imagine a desperate future, and, quite frequently, are happily surprised with what the future can bring.  That is, if they survive the initial shock.

If that didn't work, I'd tell her about the times I felt humiliated and terribly small.  Yes, sometimes I feel like a weed.  Then, after some time, perhaps just a day, I really feel like a weed.  A weed accepts life and fights to survive with no less vigor than a redwood tree.  And we're not mere weeds.  True, we can be racked by despair, but we also are able , if we work at it, to make amazing progress in wisdom and love.

Did you think you were SuperNurse?  Did your ego suffer shame?  If I found that to be true, I would quote Whitman: "Nor do I criticize the tortoise for not being something else."

I would go on and on.

If nothing worked I would restrain her, as the sailors restrained Odysseus, until all the destructive Sirens were silent.

If shame can't defeat a bad man, why should it defeat  good woman?

3.
After a while she would understand. She'd think of her husband, she'd think of her children, and think how dangerous--and  ridiculous--it had been to feel such shame. She'd take off a few days, then return to work and be an even better nurse than before.

Such is my fantasy. For you sake, Jacintha Saldhana, I wish that my inner Walter Mitty, the great Empathy Angel, had been on the morning of December 7th, no fantasy; I wish help had been real as the sorrow we feel.

Another fantasy: a potential Jacintha will access this article on the Internet, which will help her realize that dark emotions are as volatile as the light, and that--even if she's no better than Parolles--she would have a good cry, have a good laugh--and live!