Desultory Diary, Nr. 42: Cancer Journal, Continued.

 Yesterday was a very difficult day. It was the first day of 28 sessions of radiation to get rid of the cancer that intends to keep extending its tentacles. I was prepared for that, but not what greeted me when I got out of bed and came downstairs. It was raining cats and dogs--indoors! Water was drippping rather  rapidly from the ceiling. Dowsnstairs, in the basement, the cats and dogs turned out to be coming down like lions and danes. We had a plumber come who assesssed the damage, told us that walls had to come down and anxiety had to go up. In other words, they didn't know the source of the leak.

We notified the insurance company. I told them that it would be all right to come in the morning before noon, since after that I had to make my way to the hospital. Two Hispanics came at about one. I mention their origin since I had a long conversation with them in their native language. One said that my Spanish was excellent, but telling the truth on the job is almost an oxymoron. 

They found a lot of wet--no more rain, since the water had been shut off. I told them I had to go for treatment; they instaled two heavy-duty dehumidifiers and left, to return tomorrow. We need to get a plumber as well.

I was unprepared for the first day of treatment. One's bladder needs to be at leat 75% full, so that it presses on the prostate to prevent movement. (One's bowels need to be fairly empty; there mustn't be excess gas as well. With those criteria, however, I had no problem.)

My bladder was only 40% full. So I had to drink and drink and wait and wait. Finally they were able to proceed. 

What I am receiving is called Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), a very precise method to zap the prostate and, one hopes, destroy all cancer cells within it. After I received a simulation session including an MRI, the data were converted by a team of physicists into a blueprint for my treatment. This took about three weeks. For the first session, I had to lie on my back. The nuclear accelerator contained various apparatuses that rotated around me. I felt a bit like Gallileo's sun--how is that for an exaggeation--and said to myself, Eppur si muove. These are the apocryphal words that Gallileo muttered under his breath when founrd guilty by the Inquisition for daring to assert that it is the Earth that revolves around the sun and not the other way around. The Italian can be roughly translated as "Neverthesless it (the Earth) moves." 

Now we know that the sun moves as well, hurtling through space along with the Earth, I neverthesless had to keep still as I could. The revolving plates reminded me also of the great Zeiss projector at the Planetarium of the Museum of Natural History in New York. As the latter moved, patterns of stars were projected onto the sky-like dome of the planetarium. With the accelerator, however, the rays of the death stars, as it were, were projected inside my body, may the Force be with them.

After the treatment, by the way, my prostate didn't glow like Rudolph's nose. I am not radiactive. I feel fine, although side effects--yuk! are expected as the damage accumulates.

Every Friday, I meet with the doctor in charge of my treatment. I do indeed still have a lot of questions.

The miracles of modern science are truly astounding. I am very grateful to live in an age and in a community where such sophisticated treatment is available. (My treatment takes place at the Johns Hopkins cancer center.) And thank God for Medicare; without health insurance I would be lost among the indifferent stars. 

The awe I felt as I lay under this triumph of biomedical engineering made me forget about such horrors as the war in Ukraine--at least for a while.

I am to receive 28 sessions of IMRT therapy, that is, every weekday for about six weeks. Cancer take that! I hope each of your unhinged cells, each a little death star, will soon explode into oblivion, giving me some more precious time to live before my body goes up in smoke as well.

Is Abortion Really Murder?

 I am not a woman--although the chemotherapy that I've received to combat cancer has allowed me to see things from a more feminine perspective than ever before--Call me Tiresias! Even without the (temporary, I hope) hormonal shift in my body, I'm quite sure I would still share the acute disappointment of good women and good men everywhere regarding the almost inevitable demise of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision of the Supreme Court which made abortion legal.

If the draft leak is an indication of the Court's decision regarding abortion, which seems highly likely, we will awake to an even more divided nation. Most Americans will regret the decision, some vociferously, some with resignation, while a significant minority, represented by the Republican Party, will chortle in their joy.

The coming together of angry fist-swingers marching in the streets with triumphant fist-swingers  prancing in the streets will result in a wild, aleatory, Smug and Bitter Swing Dance indeed.  Just the salve our bloodied Ol' Uncle Sam needs.

I suppose I could preach to the choir. If I did, I would certainly point out that abortion has been protected for nearly fifty years and precedent should be respected; I would also certainly add, that if Roe vs. Wade is overturned, poor women (surprise!) would be the most affected. 

But I don't want to preach to the choir, I don't want to preach at all. I would rather present myself as a kindly, avuncular speaker at, say, a pro-life church. My main message: the idea that abortion is murder is not as sound as some may think. Why?

First, I'd like to make it clear that I'm no rabbi; far from it. Some of the details I present might be wrong, but I think the gist of my argument is well within Jewish teaching. 

Second, Abortion is widely available world-wide; if abortion were murder, this would mean that the majority of liberal democracies condone murder. Are women who consider abortion potential murderers? This view, I think, is an extreme one. There must be valid arguments that tone down this murderous rhetoric. This is the subject of this little essay.

2. A Jewish Perspective

In the Kabbalah, according to mystical tradition, there are ten sefirot, or divine manifestations; the last sefir is called Malkuth or 'kingship.' It is a hidden divine manifestation; its presence in the phenomenal world is called Shekinah, the presence of God in the world, said to be a feminine manifestation. (The Arab cognate is Sekinna; I once had a female patient by that name.)

When the Shekinah and the fetus meet at birth, the fetus then, and only then, becomes a full human being. Before then, the fetus is viewed as part of the mother's body. Abortion then, always a difficult decision, is not murder. 

The mythology here is both beautiful and profound.

3. A secular, scientific view

'Shekinah' from a secular perspective, can be replaced by the word, 'environment'. It is true, as anti-abortionists claim, that both the embryo and fetus contain a full set of human chromosomes, but genes are far from everything. Who can imagine a human being that is not the product of the interplay between genes and the environment? Can genes in the womb learn to love? Can genes in a lab ever learn to say "I" without the guidance of humans? Has anyone heard a glob in a petri dish say, 'Cogito, Ergo Sum?' Fetuses, genes in a womb, constitute a living being, but not a human being. Abortion, whether caused by human intervention or Mother Nature, is, therefore, not murder. It is the elimination of live tissue, but not the elimination of a human being.

Some aspects of theology, especially Christian theology, take things far too literally. For instance, according to Catholic doctrine, most forms of birth control are forbidden. God created sex, according to this view, as a means to create children; let no one, therefore tamper with nature. But couldn't God have given sex more than one purpose? What about communication, intimacy, love, pleasure? The mouth, after all, has more than one purpose--One can talk, eat and kiss with it, for instance.  Trying to limit sex to the sole purpose of reproduction, is, I think,  way too restrictive--another example of taking things too literally.

I don't like abortion, but I don't like a lot of things, e.g. beef, body building, pizza. This does not mean I advocate turning  one person's don't likes into federal law. 

I hope I have demonstrated that abortion is not murder. Opposing abortion is one thing, but calling fetuses children and calling abortion providers murderers is something quite another. We must never forget that the most important rule of religion is some version of loving your neighbor as yourself. Such gross exaggerations encourage disrespect for those with a different opinion.

There is enough suffering in the world. Adding to it by fanatical opposition to abortion is of no help. Abortion will always be with us. It is humane to assure that abortions are done safely and supportively.

No woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy against her will. In addition, abortion is about fourteen times less dangerous than pregnancy; not to mention, many times less expensive as well. It is ironic that Republicans, who advocate limited social spending, also support the abolition of legal abortion, the expense of forcing women to bear unwanted babies notwithstanding. 

Illegal abortion guarantees that many women will die; who will be the murderers then?

 

Desultory Diary Number 41: Cancer Journal, Continued

1 

How should I end it? Having achieved wisdom by an encounter with death; at last having realized that he isn't the center of the universe and never was, shall I pen him, (plume him?) into Danish kingship in the last act? America isn't even a country yet, yet I'm about to write a happy end? No, I'm writing a tragedy; gotta bump him off. How about if I have Laertes dip his sword in poison and nick the sweet prince to the other side? That's it! Methinks I got it!...

Then Shakespeare woke up. 

Who ever thought that an Elizabethan would have reached old age? The bard might be still young at heart, but inches below that heart was an almost octogenarian's hyperactive bladder. The great man might be slowing down, but the yellow bubble between his hips was about to burst. Shakespeare almost didn't make it to the toilet.

Then I woke up. Great man? Once again almost nobody, mirrored, is watching almost nobody brush his teeth. Almiosr nobody, by the way, has cancer.

2.

After the insertion of the little gold markers into my prostate, which I discussed in a previous blog, I returned to Johns Hopkins Hospital for further preparation for my impending 28 radiation sessions. This time I was scheduled for a 'simulation' session, that is, a scan to determine the exact position of my prostate relative to the surrounding tissues, in order to devise a blueprint for my treatment. According to that blueprint, very sophisticated machinery will be programmed according to the exact topography of my body.

I had been given a handout to prepare for this test. I was informed that I neededd to have a full bladder and a reasonably empty rectum so that the test would be successful. The prostate evidently has a propensity to move about; a full bladder presses against it and helps anchor it in place. The more precise the radiation beam, the more successful the treatment. Stool and gas tend to move the prostate around, so these two factors were to be kept to a minimum.

I am writing this blog not only to document my treatment, but to inform others in my condition what to expect. So I must be frank, and impart more information than innate shyness would like.

I suffer from urgency and incontinence.  When my bladder is full, I have an irresitible  urge to void. If I don't get to the toilet in time, my underwear becomes dry as swim turnks after a few laps in a pool. Not only underwear; my pants become wet as well, and I might even leave a little puddle on the floor.

This is not much of a problem at home; I usually can manage to get to the toilet in time.  You can imagine my frustation, however, if I should find the bathroom occupied. Nothing to do in those oeccasions but to 'go with the flow.' Restricting fluids helps as well.

I was in a quandary. If I drank the amount of fluid the handout recommended, I would pee on the table. If not, I would have to repeat the test at another date.

I gave up.

It turned out that nobody asked me whether I drank enough fluids. The scan was acceptable. I was told that my bladder was full! After the test, I just about made it to the bathroom.

I was reminded of questionnaires patients often need to fill out before being seen. After many visits to various specialists, I became aware that doctors never refer to the answers of the questionnaire; he or she obviously doesn't t read them. How many times do I have to get up to void at night? It wouldn't matter if I put down one or a hundred.

I couldn't manage to follow the guidelines precisely. Turns out it didn't matter.

After the scan, I was informed that my doctor had ordered an MRI of the prostate as well. I was surprised, since I hadn't been informed about this test.

Since it was an MRI, I had to remove the little gold chain I had been wearing  around mi neck for decades. Which got me to thinking...

The chain is from India. It contains a gold medaillon, which contains an engraving of the god, Subramaniyam. He is usually depicted as a non-thretening youth, holding a spear. The god is mythologically related to a Northern god of war, but he doesn't seem at all bellicose in his South Indian manifestation. Yes, Murugan, (another name for him), is holding a spear, but apparently it is used to dispel ignorance. Subramaniyam is also the subject of one of my favoirite carnatic hymns, Ka Va Va.

Nirmala had given the chain to me shortly after our marriage. Since then, I never take off the chain unless I have to. (I can only imagine what would happen if I continued to wear it during an MRI.)

On a trip to India several years ago, I decided to purchase a similar chain for Nirmala. We went to Mylapore in Chennai, where a famous ancient temple is located--and the stores of the gold merchants as well. I asked one of them for a chain with a Subramaniyam engraving. They didn't have one. The salesperson thereupon tried to pressure me into purchasing another one, with the image of a god who is 'much more powerful.' He obviously took me for one of those anemic and ignorant Westerners who hang around gurus in the hope that the pixie dust of Eastern Wisdom would fall upon them. Tried that once, long ago; turned out to be dandruff. 

"Thank you," I said to him, "but my country is full of would-be powerful gods who in actuality are no more powerful than the god you tried to sell to me. Do I look like a hippie?" With that, almost nobody exited the jewelry store.

Almost nobody is also growing blind, wizened, and wiser. Cancer smanser. Thanks to Subramaniyam's spear, as it were, ignorance now hums about like a wounded mosquito. 

3.

My next appointment is in two weeks. Time is needed to program the complex apparatus which adminsters the "image-modified radiation," the so-called IMR.  

Farewell, Eumenides! You're about to get zapped.

Desultory Diary Number 40: Rumi, Cancer, and Me

1.

Well, I knew it was coming, and I must confess, I was a bit nervous. On 4/28/2022, I had an appointment at the Weinberg Cancer Center of Hopkins; I was scheduled to have tiny gold markers, called fiducials, surgically inserted in my prostate. I was slightly nervous because I was required to come to the clinic to get a dose of Ativan (Lorazepam) which is an anxiolytic. Was the procedure going to be that painful? Nobody had explained to me what to expect, which added to my apprehension. Only a slight apprehension, mind you; I usually divide myself into Big Self and Little Self. Little Self is the worrier;  Big Self, unacquainted with grief, remains calm always. Now that I'm older and a seasoned meditator, Big Self has become my prominent identity.

I was given the Ativan and told to disrobe and wait for about a half hour until the procedure was scheduled to begin. I used to be shy about taking my clothes off, but old age and the fact that I've had so many procedures recently have caused me to lose all sense of modesty when required to take off my clothes. I feel as embarrassed as I would be if I had to roll up my sleeve. Nobody is interested in gawking at an old man in the nude.

Soon the nurse called me into the room in which the procedure was to take place. I was instructed to put my feet into stirrups; huge rubber boots locked my feet into place. The flimsy gown covering my nakedness was pulled back so that I could assume, in the nurse's words, 'the position of a woman about to give birth.'

A fellow (Hopkins is a teaching institution) began to jab my perineum with lidocaine under the chief doctor's guidance. I felt like a trussed-up turkey being attacked where it hurts by a porcupine.

After about an hour of fairly minimal discomfort, the fiducials had been inserted. The purpose of these markers is to help fluroscopy identify the prostate so that the beams meet their target. At the end into my end 20 cc of hydrogel was injected, The liquid soon hardens and lifts my prostate from the rectal wall, thus enabling the radiation to spare my rectum somewhat. This injection was the most painflul part of the procedure.

Everyone was nice to me, extremely professional, albeit somewhat impersonal. The feeling of being a lump of clay in the hands of the doctor, however, never left me. 

Now I am ready to be zapped. Not so fast: in a week I have to return for a mysterious 'simulation session'. The five weeks of radiation therapy will begin three weeks thereafter, once the equipment is programmed according to my topography. 

I am so grateful for the miracles of modern medicine, and for all the professionals who put progress into action. One of the doctors informed me that without treatment my aggressive tumor, which fills up much of the gland, was likely to metastasize within three years. I will soon, I hope, have the chance to live longer than that.

2.

Whenever I have an appointment and am likely to sit for some time in a waiting room, I am like Linus with a security blanket, except that the blanket has pages, except that the blanket is a book. My waiting-room default position is outstretched hands supporting a novel, non-fiction, poems or whatever, between the covers of a book. Even when I go to the ophthalmologist to be treated for macular degeneration, which I periodically do, I have, while waiting to be seen, a book in my hands, This doesn't do me much good, for I'm soon given dilating drops in my eyes, after which I can't read at all. (My right eye can see forms, but nothing else.)

There is one problem, though, I am a bit vermischt, aad often forget to pick up a book once I put it down. So I'm loath to take library books to my appointment. To have something to read while waiting for the surgical procedure, I took a book at random from a bookshelf in the hall. It turned out to be, "Open Secret, Versions of Rumi, translated by John Moynbe and Coleman Barks", a book I didn't even know I had.

In the cavernous underground waiting room for urology patients at the Weinberg Cancer Center at Hopkins, I was fascinated by reading such lines as:

Stay in the company of lovers.
Those other kinds of people, they always
want to show you something.

A crow will lead you to an empty barn,
a parrot to sugar.

and:

What is this competition we feel then,
before we go, one at a time, through the same gate?

What a serendipitous choice of reading material! Just what my need needed. I was especially fascinated by the following lines:

We take long trips.
We puzzle over the meaning of a painting or a book
when what we are wanting to see and understand
in this world, we are that.

and:

In the body of the world...there is a Soul,
and you are that.

Sufis say what Advaita Hindus say: tat tvam asi, Thou art That. Whenever we realize that we are the stuff stars are made of, and that there is nothing in the body that is not found in the outside world, maya, the ego, disappears and we experience ecstacy. This is wisdom, the path of the East. But we're humans, not mountains; the West stresses love, the ecstacy of relationship. We need both to live a balanced life.

I mentioned that my Little Self was a little nervous, while Big Self remained calm. Little Self I refer to as this, Big Self I refer to as That. 

Rumi, thank you for demonstrating and deminishing the variable distance between this and That!

3. 

Actually, I had been thinking along those lines on the night before the procedure. I had read a poem in the latest edition of The New York Review of Books; I liked it despite its having been written in the modern style, which I find to be somewhat prosy if not prosaic. The author put metaphor over language; I usually prefer the other way around. 

I was very tired. Before going to sleep, I decided to write a poem that recounts what was going on in my mind. In other words, my inner critic fell asleep before I did. I make no claims for this stream-of-consciousness poem; I include it here to show that Rumi's this and That were images in my mind the night before I took that book off the shelf.

The Mirage

On the evening before the procedure
During which the doctor will place
A few tiny stars, golden prostate markers,
each a solitary light house guiding
Rays to avoid healthy cells and to depredate

Those striving to choke away life.
 

Dart about, doomed little poisonous minnows--
How lucky I am, whatever I am, having already
survived three score and sixteen years!
If those minnows had their way, I wouldn’t be here
Writing this poem, another vain attempt
To transcend life and hopefully reach yours?

Now in old age, I am very much uselessly occupied,
Reading and writing essays and poems no one needs.
I had been a bug in isolation’s amber far too long;
Nevertheless, it has been a very good life,
With a great wife of fifty years, and a great son
For over forty--even if I died tomorrow: joy,

Right up to the moment this world disappears.
A famous Indian guru, diagnosed with throat cancer,
Refused all treatment, proclaiming that cells,
Roiling health within him, were also alive
And deserve to live as well. I don’t believe it; if I did,
How could I let radiation zap me on?

I love faith undogmatically, religion not too much,
Despite its dreadful valleys in which I lay in tears,
I love life, and, only when I have to, accept death.
Before I’m taken down, perhaps forever, I’ve risen
--For how long, who knows? and intend to cherish
Every godless minute I have left.  Amen.

Though the last word is silent, cancer,
If you are not defeated, so be it. Who knows?
Young and splendid in a sari, Nirmala and I
Might meet again, and again, for the first time--
Cancer cells, normal cells which one or sum of you is
That? This, this, what a doomed, happy mirage!

Antonio, or The World Seen Through Gray-colored Glasses

The pandemic, if not over, is at least controlled;  those wise enough to have been vaccinated can at last venture about without a mask; those foolish enough to avoid vaccination are lucky that they're not lying under death's mask. I'm sanguine about the course of the pandemic--sure, other variants might still arise, but vaccines can be developed quickly since the variants would be genetically related. Besides, we already have much better treatments for those who contract covid, and even better treatments are probably on the way. 

Very, very serious problems, however, remain. Climate Change, the volatile war in Ukraine, etc. The subject of this little essay, however, is a different plague: the mental health crisis which is proving to be just as contagious as the SARS-CoV 2 virus and just as deadly.

That there is a mental health crisis in this country there can be no doubt. The pandemic lockdown has affeted negatively the education of the young. The resultant lack of socialization, a primary cause of mental illness. has increasd the anxiety level among the young. Suicides, deaths, and injuries due to gun violence have risen as well. Although the suicide rate among adults has decreased somewhat, I have my doubts regarding the accuracy of this statistic. Deaths from the opioid crisis and addiction in general have certainly increased, and are not usually counted as suicides, although an unknown number of them certainly are. There has been a notable rise in suicide among African Americans, although the rates for white males and Native American males are still very much higher..

Another important factor is an inadequate supply of mental health services. Many psychiatrists, for instance, have opted out of Medicare and other insurances, because of what they consider to be inadequate reimbursement. This means that a large number of middle income and poorer persons are left untreated. There is also the stigma factor. My wife has had many patients who do not follow through with a mental health referral, because one or both parents insist that their child is not 'crazy.' In addition, if mental health treatment is part of a child's record, some parents fear that this might limit their child's opportunites in the future--which is too often the case. 

Shakespeare's genius for creating vivid characters is unprecedented; no writer in the past four hundred years has come even close to his achievment. His use of soliloquy to express what a character is thinking is done with such aplomb that the late critic Harold Bloom attributes 'The Invention of the Human' to him. His characters often seem more alive, more psychologically profound than we are. 

What was Shakespeare's view of depression, a very common aspect of mental illness then, and, especially, now?

2. Antonio, The Other Merchant of Venice

 Perhaps the first and maybe even the best example of the mystery of depression is found in the character of Antonio, the other merchant of Venice. The play begins with Antonio saying the following:

In sooth I know not why I am so sad.
It wearies me, you say it wearies you,
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn.
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
That I have much ado to know myself.

Not only do the above lines reveal with few words a very human individual, they also tersely and profoundly describe depression. Mood is still very mysterious, and I think ito will remain  mysterious, perhaps forever. For all moods are part of consciousness, and consciousness, as the philosopher scientist David Chalmers asserts, presents a very hard problem indeed. Activities of the brain and moods are undoubtedly closely related, but how these result in conscious feelings is a mystery indeed. 

Antonio's friends display no hint of understanding the internal nature of depression. They attribute Antonio's dark mood to external events, such as business worries. When one of them says that Antonio may be feeling sad because he has 'too much respect upon the world,' he replies,

I hold the world but as the world, Graziano--
A stage where every man must play a part
And mine a sad one.

This view occurs several times in Shakespeare, most notably in Jacques's famous soliloquy in As You LIke It. (Jacques, by the way, is a moody pessimist/depressive.) It also occurs in philosophical Hinduism; you are not the doer, teaches Advaita Hinduism. You, as an individual, an embodiment of maya or illusion, have a part in the play of life, but you are essentially the Self, the author and spectator of what occurs upon the stage. Identify with the Self, your true nature, and relax, problema resuelto. 

Here we have a possible indication of the evolutionary purpose of depresssion. It makes the depressive more ruminative; this pensivity often leads to a deeper insight into the nature of reality.

That depression often leads to a deeper understanding of life there can be no doubt. I will now quote the first stanza of one of Goethe's most famous poems, Harfenspieler:

Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen ass,
Wer nie die kummervolle Nächte
Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,
Der kennt Euch nicht, ihr himmlishen Mächte!

(He who has never eaten his bread in tears, he who never sat crying on his bed through sorrowful nights, does not know you, you heavenly powers!)

Too much of a good thing, though,  is a very bad thing indeed.

3. 'It wearies me, you say it wearies you'

In Act IV the conflict has come to a head. Antonio had agreed to put up a pound of his flesh as surety for the loan of 2,000 ducats from Shylock. His ships, however, on which he counted on receiving enough money to pay back the loan, have all sunk. Antonio is now penniless and is unable to pay. His friends have gathered money to save him, but Shylock refuses; he wants, literally, Antonio's heart. Everyone is desperate to find a solution. Antonio, however, states the following:

Therefore, I do beseech you,
Make no more offers, use no other means,
But with all brief and plain conveniency
Let me have judgement and the Jew his will.

                              Act IV, S. 1, lines 80-84

"Let me have judgement!' Antonio is not frightened by the prospect of death, he seems to welcome it. I think he uses the word 'judgement' here not only as referring to Shylock's revenge, but primarily to self-judgement. He is weary of his depression, and weary of the effect it has on others. Antonio has thus passed from depression to suicidal depression. After Portia defeats Shylock, and Antonio's life is saved, he thereupon thanks everyone--rather perfunctorily, I think. Later, he advises his friend to give Portia (disguised as a man) the ring which his friend had promised never to take off his finger. At no point does he rejoice that his life has been saved. Joie de vivre and Antonio seem to have nothing in common. Then we hear from Antonio no more. I get the impression that Antonio will soon resume similar words to express himself as he did at the begininng of the play. For depressives, good news is not really good news, and bad news is that which is expected.

Note: My edition of the bard's works, The Norton Shakespeare, correctly states that the reason for Antonio's melancholy is never given. The editor states: "In productions, directors often imply that it results from au unrequited romantic attachement to Bassanio." In my opinion, while Shakespeare is modern, he is not fashionably modern. Male friendship in Shakespeare's time included exaggerated terms of endearment. That Anonio declares his love for Bessanio doesn't mean he is a homosexual, or even a closet homosexual. If such desires exist, Antonio seems totally unaware of them. I think it would be better to take Antonio at his word: his chronic sadness is a ineffable mystery to him, The chronicity of his depressions seems to indicate that he felt sad perhaps even before he knew Bassanio. How else can we interpret Anonio's low-key reaction to Shylock's defeat?

4. Antonio

As one who has admittedly been 'acquainted with the night,' it is not surprising, at least to me, that I would write a poem on the issue of melancholy. Mood is still very much a mystery!

Antonio in Jersey City

What humor in me sours humor in me?
Has science really proven Plato wrong?
A mind chained to defective flesh, change
Ever making me less? Is sadness just
Quicker uptake of neurotransmitters?

Am I just a thing thought up by thoughtless
Evolution? Self a sad computer, stuff? If all
Is matter, no gods; materialism isn't a psalm.
Do things sing? Why do I sometimes feel
Hopelessly, haplessly, horribly, harmfully

Wrong?--After mindful exercise, forty munutes
Later: How can complex things make choices?
If I'm just flesh, what happens when I die?
Yesterday's coffee grounds have been discarded.
Flow, endorphins! What still pins mindbody down?