What I've Been Reading

"You scratch my back, I scratch your back."

That has always been one notch above the golden rule. But we conveniently forgot to ask one simple question - What was the root cause of the "itch" to begin with?

Most of the time, the answer is we cause the itch. Then we want someone else to scratch the back and we cause an itch to someone else and so on. This ridiculousness has been going on since the evolution of apes.

The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown by Catherine Burns another book which covers again the story of scratching.

Now that we got the reality out of the way, some of the stories are fascinating - obviously, since it is biased towards the rare trait of "better angels of our nature" but a couple of stories don't involve scratching.

Here's Christof Koch's on how Francis Crick reacted to his cancer diagnosis and ultimately how Koch stopped believing in magic.

At lunch he discussed his diagnosis with his wife, talking about what needed to be done to accommodate him. But for rest of the day he worked.

That was it. There was no doom and gloom. There was no gnashing of teeth. There we no tears. It immensely, this living embodiment of an ancient stoic dictum: accept what you can't change. 

[---]

I finally found the strength to ask him, apropos that letter, "Francis, how do you feel about your diagnosis?" (Studiously avoiding any mention of the word death). 

Here again he was very much down-to-earth. He said something like, "Everything that has a beginning must have an end. Those are the facts. I don't like them, but I've accepted them, and I will not take any heroic measures to prolong my life beyond the inevitable. I'm resolved to live my life out with an intact mind. "

And so he did. Over the next two years, as cancer weakened his body, but never his spirit, we continued to write. We finished my book. I was just immensely impressed by how he could deal with this. I, of course, reflected on my own future demise, and whether I would be able to have this calmness, this composure, to meet my own end. 

[---]

With a view toward the inevitable, he gave me huge life-size portrait of himself sitting in a wicker chair, gazing out at me with a twinkle in his eyes, signed, "For Christof - Francis- Keeping an eye on you."

And so it does today in my office. 

I've never had another encounter with God, nor do I expect to, for the God I now believe in is much closer to Spinoza's God than the God of Michelangelo's painting or the God of the Old Testament. 

I'm sort of saddened by the loss of my belief in religion. It's like leaving forever the comfort of your childhood home, suffused with warm glows and fond memories. But I do believe we all have to grow up. 

It is difficult for many. It's unbearable for the few. But we have to see the world as it really is, and we have to stop thinking in terms of magic. 

As Francis would have put it, "This is a story for grown men, not a consoling tale for children."