HW 23

Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom
Published in 1997 by Random House

                     The second third of the book hurls the reader straight into the conversations and connections between Mitch and Morrie. In the second third we see insights that are beautiful and well worded and some that are repulsive and not part of the dominant discourse of illness and dying. An insight that many feel isn't acceptable to talk about is Morrie's inability to wipe his own behind. Morrie had been dreading the day that he lost that bit of independence. But now that he has come to terms with it, he embraces it and finds comfort in being nearly fully dependent on the aide of others. Another insight that seems to be the overall theme of the book is; When you learn how to die, you learn how to live. This is beautiful, but one can't say they agree or disagree until they are in that position.

Precis:

Morrie is pulling me out of my lifestyle where I just chase a paycheck. He is showing me the world through his eyes and I'm coming to comprehend the overwhelming significance of everything. I am fearful that his time will soon come to it's last act, and all I can do is hope that my presence makes his last days better.

Quotes:

"I don't want to leave the world in a state of fright. I want to know what's happening, accept it, get to a peaceful place and let go."

Morrie seems to have everything planned out, except for the last split second. His actual death, as well as anyone else's, will come as a surprise and how exactly it will happen is up in the air until it actually happens.

"I grin at my brother, and we are united by childish pride. That wasn't so hard, we think, and we are ready to take on death again."

When we are young, life is endless and death is at the back of our minds. Youth is the ability to be care-free and not worry. When we are young, nothing can stop us.

""Every day, she did the same thing: came out in the morning, lay on the floor, stayed there until the evening, talking to no one, ignored by everyone. It saddened Morrie. He began to sit on the floor with her, even lay down alongside her, trying to draw her out of her misery."

Morrie was such an amazing person, but not only that, he understood people and rather than turn them into a science project, he interacted with them and came to understand them.

The second third of Tuesdays with Morrie has been arresting and moving, it has tested everything I know about death but for some reason when I read it, I still see Hollywood. I see Morrie looking pristine even though he is sick. I see the perfect setting with two men having a deep conversation. I can't bring myself to see Morrie as he probably looked. Maybe that's the affect society has had on my way of thinking and perceiving, or maybe Mitch Albom wrote it this way to make something that looked horrible seem angelic and divine.

HW 21b - Comments

Your insights are well organized and very detailed. I like how you addressed the insight of a man's choice to not see a doctor. It made it that much more personal that you connected it to your life. I think this adds a the personal touch and allows for your readers to become more engaged in your writing.

Your post is pretty insightful and raises questions that we havent really addressed. One part in particular that stood out to me was; "Now that I think about it if people didn't have to worry about there death and were always surrounded by people who loved them, there passing would be more peaceful an a lot more relaxing" This is interesting, because I think that at some point if someone is ill, they do worry about it. And if they dont worry about it specifically, they are worrying about its repercussions. Such as the inability to provide for their family, and how they will be thought of after death. Also, how can passing be relaxing?

Your post is not lacking in detail, which is interesting seeing as you werent here. I found this quote to be especially insightful; "I’ve noticed that when someone dies the people they leave behind often feel as though their lives need to stop. They find comfort in hiding from the world verses just living." I hadn't really thought of that in my analysis of Beth's presentation. That people stop living after a death close to them. But you didn't explain why, or why you think. That would have reinforced your point.

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Steph said...
The way you chose to list your insights and experiences was creative. unlike other blogs you intertwined the insights into your paragraphs and explained them with depth and thought. I believe if you connected your thoughts to yourself in more depth your pst could have been more powerful. other then that i really enjoyed reading your work and I look forward to reading more.


 megumi said...
Overall, I enojoyed reading your post. One of the insights that caught my attention was, "At some point they need to maintain a distance and fully remove themselves emotionally. Is it better for a doctor to be cold and calculating or emotionally connected?" I thought you raised a question that was not only insightful, but a question people don't like to think about. Personally, I don't have a clear answer to that question. I think a doctor needs to maintain a balance between distance and connection with a patient, but that's easier to say than done.


 Sarah L said...
You posed some interesting ideas based off of what Beth said, one idea that stood out to me the most was, "At some point they need to maintain a distance and fully remove themselves emotionally. Is it better for a doctor to be cold and calculating or emotionally connected?" It makes you wonder the tolerance a doctor has for sadness. If they are loosing a patient everyday I can't even begin to imagine the range of emotions they must experience. Constantly feeling a sense of mourning, as you said though, do they become immune to death? Do you think out of all of the human beings on this planet they are the least scared to die?

Vin (older) said...
Not a bad post, all-in-all, if a bit short.

The question you pose "Is it better for a doctor to be cold and calculating or emotionally connected?" has quite a bit of validity- should a doctor seek a more personal method of care for his/her patient in order to restore a semblance of humanity to the situation, or should they present you with the simple facts and not try to encroach on your life unnecessarily? It could be a good cause for discussion.

As for the phenomena you're touching on, like "another interesting common practice, is saying "sorry" when we hear of loss, as if we could have stopped it or something." is empathy, how we seem to understand the feelings of another by being able to associate the kind of pain they feel to us.

I'd work on your grammar here- mind where you put your commas and be careful of your word choice. This could be said more simply, with more eloquence.

Good work, boy.
Vin

I need to find a new younger, I had one set up who agreed to do it, but I came to the conclusion that she is too immature and a little too young.

HW 22

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom published in 1997 by Random house is a heart-warming and intellectual novel that gives some pretty interesting insights about our dominant social practices regarding illness and death. When Morrie is diagnosed with ALS, he sees a doctor, which is a dominant social practice, he also takes medication. However, an odd factor that one might not see often is Morrie's choice to teach about his death. He tries to make the best of it rather than just wither away.

I have grown out of my college life and subsequently forgotten about my favorite teacher, Morrie. I have reconnected with him as he has now again become my teacher, and I feel I will learn more now than I ever have.

"The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it." (p.42)

This is an interesting quote, because we all know the first part, but people hardly practice the second part, which is more important.


“Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do”
(pg 18)

I agree with what Morrie is saying, I just don't know if I would be able to accept the inability to do things like run. I feel that in accepting your abilities and inabilities, you're kind of giving up your independence.


“There are some mornings when I cry and cry and mourn for myself. Some mornings, I’m so angry and bitter. But it doesn’t last too long. Then I get up and say, ‘I want to live . . .’”
(pg 21)

If I were in Morrie's position, I would want to be as strong as him. I doubt I would be able to though, I feel as though I would give up on life altogether.




When people get sick they give up.  Morrie got sick and decided to use it for something.
When people get sick they go to the hospital and stay there. Morrie got sick and went back to work. When people get sick, they feel their life is over. Morrie got sick and realized that his students' lives were just beginning. This book grabs dominant social practices of being ill - such as staying in the hospital and giving up on life - and kicks them in the face. Morrie finds productivity in the face of illness. He uses it for the benefit of others, and doesn't feel embaressed. The fact that this book is non-fiction makes the story that much more inspirational. This actually happened, this man died and left the biggest mark possible, educated minds.

HW 21

           Beth's story was very touching and she masked nothing, there were no falsehoods or exaggerations. Her story was raw, explicit, and very evocative. It made us think about death, rather than just hide it deep in the back of our minds. Which is interesting, seeing as she told us after that, before her husband's death, she hardly though of death and even up to his death it was never spoken of or acknowledged. I think in a way, she was doing what for us what happened to her, she was forcing us to think about death. I, personally, never think about death, not that I'm scared of it, as she said she was, but because it's unpredictable and eminent.
           Her story also showed me that you have to be human about it, especially in the hospitals, you have to show them that you're human. You can't just be your disease, these doctors need to understand that you are a human. But that also raises another question; How human can a doctor think you are? At some point they need to maintain a distance and fully remove themselves emotionally. Is it better for a doctor to be cold and calculating or emotionally connected?
           What I also took from this was the idea of keeping your loved ones alive through your actions. One seldom sees the cliche line, "they are alive in our hearts" put to work. Beth practices it all the time. She continues to do art workshops that he started, in remembrance of him and in his honor. I think this is amazing and shows us that even though someone may be gone, they are not lost.
           Another interesting thing is that when we hear a story of another's loss, we can't help but feel sorry for them, and "fell their pain". As we wrote the thank you card for her I noticed that while most people didn't really get into detail, they all said that they were touched. While they may have just been writing this for the sake of common courtesy, I believe that most of us were touched, we felt for Beth, Evan, and Josh. The human mind loves a happy ending, and when we come face to face with a sad story, our perception of it becomes biased because we feel the pain of those who are directly affected by the loss. Another interesting common practice, is saying "sorry" when we hear of loss, as if we could have stopped it or something.
          Overall, I felt Beth's presentation was courageous, but more than anything, it was thought provocative. I think when humans hear of loss, they can only feel sorry for the person.  But given time to think about it, we can become more analyctical.

HW 19

My parents' views on death are little to none, they have little to say about the topic. My dad believes that it's unpredictable and unavoidable, so we shouldn't dwell on the topic. For illness, I'd like to focus on my dad. When he was 14 years old, he was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma, a cancerous bone tumor, on his right leg. When I asked him about it, and how it was to be ill his response was, "It sucks". He said that chemotherapy was horrible as well, it has been 36 years since then, and it hasn't shown up at all, and I really hope it doesn't. The conversation didn't go much farther than that, and I didn't want to push. I just think my family and I don't think of illness or death, not because we're scared of it, but because, well you can't do anything about, everyone's going to die. And, chances are, with the amount of illnesses out there, you're bound to be sick at one point in your life. How can you worry about something when you're positive that it's going to happen?

HW 18

                   Thanksgiving dinner in the McCarthy house is never a big to-do. The huge feast isn't very huge, and the topics of table conversation are basically the same as any other dinner table conversation. The only thing that made it special was that my brother was visiting from college which sort of gave the homey family feeling. Food pleasure was the same as any other meal, my family finds that the family aspect is far more important than the huge feast. When it comes to family, we're lacking in quantity, my whole outer family lives in Ireland, so we don't have that archetypal huge american family meal on thanksgiving, but we still sit together and feel thankful for one another's presence.
                   Watching football is commonplace in my house, so of course we tuned in on Thursday. I think that counters the argument of anti-body. We are watching big guys knock each other around to win a game. Their bodies have to be big, fast and agile, the players and coaches pay close attention to the human body and how to make it perform at it's best. I think sports are a combination of mind and body and their collaboration. The mind makes the plays and tells you when you need to throw, run, block, or tackle. A great example of the mind factor in football is an audible, in which the quarterback makes a last minute decision to change up the play. By looking to see if the defense is adjust themselves to correctly counter his play, the quarterback will call an audible to use the defense's thought out positioning against them.
                  On the other hand, the physicality of football is clear, but is often times misconceived. People like to think that football is dumb and is just hit for hit stupidity. That raises good questions about our society and their views on physicality, people think that a sport that involves many intricacies, is mindless brute-like fighting. An athlete hones his body to it's peak in order to challenge his opposition who has done the same. For example; a wide receiver needs to have good hands and quick feet,  a cornerback, who covers the receiver, also needs good hands and quick feet, but also needs to be able to tackle, which in turn makes the receiver need to have ability to break a tackle. These are good examples of how we use our bodies to achieve a goal of sorts. You can see this in any sport, I used football because it always goes hand in hand with thanksgiving. On thanksgiving day, before eating, I went to a friend's high school Fordham to watch them play their rivals Xavier in football. Sports are body centered, which can be seen through not only the game itself, but the fans. You will often see fans out of their seats screaming, arms flailing. Many use their bodies as canvasses to promote their team. But people look down on fans, seeing them as animal like creatures, who are idiotic, loud and obnoxious, when really, it is just a deep fervor that is sometimes religious for people.

               We use our bodies a lot, we just like to think that we don't, because we've established some sort of false notion that using our bodies is wrong and that we should refrain from doing so.

But hey, isn't that really what "society" is? A fuckload of false notions.

Jay M.

HW 17

My experience with illness and dying isn't so extensive. I have known people that died, the closest being one of my good friends when I was in fourth grade. Two of my grandparents died two years ago, but I wasn't really close with them. My best friend's brother died almost four years ago. My grandparents' deaths were of illness. The other two were from, respectively; being hit by a car, and electrocution from train tracks.

I haven't been around illness ever really, so I don't know how it goes. Dying, I don't think there are any social norms really. You just die, there's no socially acceptable way to die, because people can die from pretty much anything. Illness, presumably, involves visiting a hospital and having those close to you come to visit and be with you in your last moments.

I think illness and dying are such personal things that no can really set a social norm to them. Each individual person  is going to deal with an illness their own way. If I were terminally ill, I wouldn't want to be hooked up to a bunch of machines that were keeping me "alive". I'd rather be out doing as much of the stuff that I'd always wanted to do that I could fit into whatever time I had.

In what we see to be the regular, I guess, people are supposed to be with their families. But what if someone doesn't have a family? We think that they're are depressed at their death because their is no one with them. How do we know that that's not how they wanted to go? Maybe some people want to be alone in their last moments, but their families want to be there to the end. Do you respect the dying person, or do you stay because you know you will never have them again? It's extremely depressing, and this unit will be hard to stomach, but I'm sure we'll uncover a bunch of stuff that we never knew. To be honest, I don't know what my family does with the whole illness/dying thing. I know that my father went to see his parents when he knew that they were almost clocked out, but other than that, I don't really know.