Cancer 248

I did a short speech at the living wake, trying to explain my views about cancer and death. A couple of people have asked me to summarise it here, so in the interests of breaking my own rules of blogging, here goes, beraing in ming that, two days later, I am still very tired and might fall asleep while typing, I found it difficult to give the speech, not because of emotion, which I did fear, but because I could hardly speak given the tumour pushing up against my diaphragm. I was constantly out of breath. My natural ability to throw my voice across the room was severely affected. still, I had a go.

I started by welcoming everyone and thanking them for coming. Their presence was important to me. It does give me strength to try and continue the fight. I called it a living wake, explaining that people would if possible want to be at their own wake, if only to hear people being nice about them in a way that doesnt happen often in your life. I said I wasnt going to spend time thanking everyone who needed thanking, but I was going to make an exception for Sue, which I did, and she got a good round of applause because of what she does for me, what she puts up with, and how she manages it.

I then moved on to the philosophical side of the speech, arguing that there are three key stages of life, childhood, adulthood, and retirement. I have experienced two of these stages, and I have been very happy in both. I had a fantastic childhood, building tree houses, digging escape tunnels, having a fort on a hill, woods, a quarry, a field (I had a big garden). I also had a fantastic adulthood, developing a family, a network of friends, making some sort of contribution in my work. I pointed out that I only had one ambition, to write a book, which I achieved at the age of 29. I said that I supervised around 40 PhD students and hundreds of MSc students from around the world, and I had learned a lot from them. I pointed out there are things I have never done, such as skiing, but someone in a stetson in a gulch near Death Valley said ‘howdy’ to me and I said ‘howdy’ back. There are lots of other small but meaningful examples.

I am missing out on that third stage, retirement, where I was supposed to have enough money to live on, and to go on holidays and travel around. We had planned to roam Europe, but it is not happening. We have done a little since my diagnosis, but that is coming to an end. But as Marcus Aurelius said, “You have lived for 5 or 100 years. What is the difference?” He was clear that from atoms we come, to atoms we return, with just a short time between that is our life. Take what is given and be happy, don’t regret a future you were not fated to have.

Dealing with cancer has been the biggest challenge of my life. When I was diagnosed, I was given 2-2.5 years to live. It is now 3.3 years, so in one sesnse I have done well. I do feel a bit of a fraud, telling everyone I was dying and then living this long.

I studied philosopohy for two years as an undergraduate. I was drawn by many areas, but two in particular are relevant here. The stoicism of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor, is important to me, the way we take what we are given with strength and reason. We don’t give in to irrationality and emotion. It is important to be strong. the experience of cancer has taught me that people are strong, that they are resilient. the language of war is better than the language of the psychologist to explain how we should deal with cancer. The other philosophical approach is existentialism as explored by Sartre, the idea that life itself has no meaning except that which we give it. Life is just a matter of breathing from birth to death. To make something of it we ourselves as individuals must decide what the point is. There is no external force that determines our purpose.

This has its importance for dealing with cancer. According to Nietszche: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

I have always been an atheist. Getting cancer did not challenge this at all. I do not fear death, but I do fear dying. I fear pain in particular. Death is nothing. Most of us are known in a two up two down fashion. Beyond our grandparents and grandchildren we are nothing. David Eagleman said: “There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.”

My life and death is summed up in one of my favourite Bertrand Russell quotations. “I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.”

My final piece of advice is that life is what you make of it. We don’t need grand ambitions, the smallest things can bring the greatest contentment. Live for now, not for a future that might not exist, but don’t forget your community, your friends, your family, your commitments.