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What A Piece Of Work Is Man

Jan 16, 2018
by Caroline Miller
brain surgery, Dr. Marsh, Heisenberg principle, Karl Ove Knausgaard, quantum physics, Tromp l'Oeil, truth is fluid, tumors and brain tissue
2 Comments

One of the challenges of living at my retirement center is keeping up with the reading recommendations of fellow inmates.  My list is long and growing. Nonetheless, when I heard about an article on brain tumor surgery, one that obliges a patient to remain awake while the surgeon saws  and  removes the upper skull, I had to know more. (“Open Mind,” by Karl Ove Knausgaard, N. Y Times Magazine, 1/3/16, pgs. 32-41, 50-52)

During the operation, the patient stays awake in order to respond to the doctor’s probes.  As tumor and brain tissue look alike, assistance is vital and for safety reasons, only part of the growth is removed.  

Writer Karl Kanusgaard was present during two of Dr. Marsh’s operations, the surgeon who invented the procedure.  As the physician touched tissue that controlled facial muscles, the writer seemed awestruck:  “…all the joy, all the grief, all the lights and all the darks that filled the face in the course of a life was it traceable this?” (Ibid, pg. 40.) w. 

Soft tissue does shape our entire commerce with the universe.  Yet what is this collection of “100 billion brain cells so tiny and so myriad they could only be compared to the stars in the galaxy?” (Ibid, pg. 40)  It is matter fueled by chemical substances and sparked by electricity. This simple formulation proves to be greater than the sum of its parts, however, capable of great abstraction, ideas and feelings with which we regulate ourselves and the systems we create to do so: capitalism, communism, religion, art, science, philosophy… 

I have written many times that reality rises from illusion. ( Blog 1/15/16).  My novel, Trompe l’Oeil, draws upon the same point.  Of greater importance, quantum physics assures us we live in an unpredictable space which, somehow, we have the power to affect. (Heisenberg principle: Click )  Given what we know about the fluidity of our world, shouldn’t we wonder at minds which insist upon rigid certainty, minds willing to persecute or  murder those who think differently? Can’t they see, these poor, blind zealots, that even in a court of law, the witness who raises a hand and swears “to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” is suffering from delusion?  Don’t all the innocents released from death row give us assurance of that? 

If we must create our world and our reality, let us choose wisely about what we leave in and leave out.  And of greatest importance, let compassion be a major element.

(Originally posted 2/2/16)

Witness swearing in

Courtesy of powerpictures.crystalgraphics.com

 

 

 

 

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2 Comments
  1. John Legry January 16, 2018 at 10:38 am Reply
    Very existential - Sartre would be very proud. Believe much the same. A back fence elderly neighbor, no longer able to maintain her home, lamented, "O, why does everything have to change?" She was deeply christian, didn't help. Sartre (rightly, I suspect) says that we create the world that we inhabit as we make our personal choices. He would have it that our pain is our own, sympathy notwithstanding. Great post, Ms Miller.
    • Caroline Miller January 17, 2018 at 8:28 am Reply
      You remind me why I am such a great fan of Satre. We need a greater understanding of ourselves before we can understand our world.

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Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published five novels

  • Getting Lost To Find Home
  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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