filed in Daily Life
Is Life Fair?
Reading a review of Christopher Hitchens posthumous memoir Mortality, I was reminded of how he answered the why me question, after being diagnosed with cancer, “why not me,” he said. It would take a lot of spiritual counseling for me to have that grace.
Image by Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber
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I can’t answer that. Life is life. There is a lot of unfairness in life, for different people at different times.
Crazy question. Too big to answer, really. But I think about it in those stark terms, sometimes.
Life is random. We humans just have a difficult time with that, always wanting, expecting, assuming that we can somehow control outcomes.
It’s our instinct to connect the dots where there are none that get us into the most trouble.
Working in medicine and currently rotating through an intensive care unit, I’m thoroughly convinced that life isn’t fair. But fortunately it’s wonderful at times, so it’s still worth plowing through the unfair aspects of it.
I’m amazed at the equanimity of healthcare professionals who deal with people in the last phases of their lives. (My father’s hospice nurse, for example.) They seem to understand something about it, that I don’t.
I hope your work goes well. It sounds hard but gratifying.