Mortality

If you haven't done it yet, go to registry-cleaner.net and download the program. Took a long time cleaning up my registry with this program on trial version (seriously considering getting the full version), but now the computer runs like new. Of course, I've regularly run SpyBot and AdAware beforehand. Until I ran this program, though. . ..

Onto the main topic, though, mortality:

While driving home from work today, I recalled the one night during the first time I went to Montreal. I had been dealing with a real painful, swollen cyst in my belly button. The whole cyst thing came to me as a new thing then. It still comes as a strange, uknown territory to me.

The second night in Montreal, though, I had come back to the hotel room, alone, as the third person out of five. The other two had stayed out on their own, following individual adventures. Coming back home alone didn't bother me. The many drinks that night had affected me, but I found myself coming down from being drunk.

I had reached that feeling sorry for myself stage. That time, I didn't feel sorry for myself on any kind of existential or relationship-based level. Instead, I focused on this thing that had decided to inhabit my belly button. Put simply it sucked.

After some thought, though, I had begun entertaining the idea that this bump in my belly button might come as the beginning of cancer. I've had lumps similar to it on other parts of my body before and since then. Nonetheless, none of those bumps had ever given me such pain before. Remember, though, that I had a fair amount of drink that night. My inhibitions had come down. I had become more willing entertain the idea that I might have cancer and possibly might die soon.

A sobering thought, this mortality, even when I'm drunk. I got so sober to realize that this thought tangent may simply have originated from the fact that I had a fair amount of drink in me and that leads my thinking to more easygoing thinking.

Wait. . .I'm not approaching this topic right. My getting drunk then might just have an effect on my writing now. See what they mean. You know, THEY. They talk about drinking affecting your future. This writing comes as a great sample of how drinking can screw with your future. . ..

So anyway. . .I'm coming down from inebriation, and I'm thinking that I might die soon. I took the whole idea pretty calmly. At that time, I had already done plenty of thinking about the topic. I had done thinking, at least, of trying to live as if today was my last day on Earth but also making sure I have something in place, just for that chance that I might show up on the planet tomorrow.

By the way, I would consider that time in my life as something of a very low point. I've never considered suicide as a viable choice, but life hadn't made me happy at that time.

That night, though, I took some time to seriously think about this idea that I might not live past tomorrow, the next week, the next month, the next year. I tried to think about the things that I would do. Would I withdraw all my money from the bank and follow my dream of travelling the country or the world as I had dreamed as a teenager? Would I withdraw all that money, start up some kind of charity organization or just donate it to some good charitable cause? Would I just live the day like any other, go back to school and follow the same course I followed the day before? Would I mouth off to all the people I resented? Would I engage in promiscuous sex, party all the time, hang out with people I hadn't and couldn't hang out with for a long time? Would I commit crimes?

At that time, I had decided that I would live life as I would the day before. . .plan on going back to school, trying to find meaning, trying to make meaning, trying to find companionship, etc. etc. I wouldn't change anything out of the ordinary.

Suffice to say, that swelled belly button was just a cyst, not a tumor. I've had many cysts since then. Over the past Thanksgiving weekend, I've actually had cysts where I hadn't had cysts before. Learning more about cysts this time, I realized that I've had many of them in the past. I just didn't know what they were all about.

In the car, this evening, on the way home from work, though, I decided that if I were posed with the same dilemma, I would change things. I would quit my job. I would cash out my retirement funds and take the penalty. I'd put that money into a nice interest bearing money market fund. I would draw on that cash. While drawing on that cash, I would work, from dawn to dusk, on my thesis and novel. I would work on it as if I had only that one day left to work on it.

Finishing it, I would go forward with the necessary processes to get my BA. If I finished it but died or wasn't healthy, I would submit it and ask for a posthumous BA.

Either which way after that, I would then try to sell both the thesis and novel to some publishing company. If I had any proceeds from that, I would work on finishing my short stories then try to publish those.

If I died and had any funds leftover, I would try to set up a scholarship with my leftover funds.

That's how much I want my BA, how much I want to publish my work and how much I want to leave a mark on this world. I would do all that if I knew I would die soon.

Knowing my luck, though, I would get a clean bill of health the moment I spent my last penny. Here's to the healing power of doing something that I love. . .. ;D