Here’s a question that was posed at the end of Sunday’s (February 12, 2006) two-part episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

“If you knew this was your last day on earth, how would you spend it?”

Wow, good one, eh?

And, if I were thinking of attempting to provide a personal response to that question here...could I do it? Well, as my fingers keep hitting the keys, I suppose I'm going to try...and, as I’m writing, I’m thinking of this particular holiday...

Only one day?

Actually, I put serious thought into this not long ago as I was in a state of worry and not-knowing about my peripheral-neuropathy symptoms. And, this question has come up other times as well, certainly in times of despair and/or deep introspection about birth, life, health or dying. When I was in the emergency room being mis-diagnosed with bladder cancer, for example, I stared death directly in the face. And, as Katrina was being treated for breast cancer, I thought very deliberately about what I could give to someone I loved if she had a short time remaining.

Then, last summer, a colleague at work died. He was a little younger than me; one day he simply collapsed at his desk. This came about at the time when I was stressed and depressed about the end of a relationship and worrying about my professional fate. And, I was all by myself.

This led me to the thought that I, very well, could die alone, and no one would know or care — well other than a few in my current immediate circle, perhaps. Acting on this fear, I made sure that my assistant had some very important phone numbers in case something happened to me. And, I did one other thing: perhaps impulsively. I wrote a letter to the person I’ve most loved in this life and told her that if I died right now, without saying “I love you” one more time, then that would be a source of eternal grieving for me. I hope she heard and understood.

So, what would I do with my last day, if I knew it was my last day? On this Valentine’s Day, especially, I have to believe that saying “I love you” to her, and everyone, would be at the top of my list.

Soundtrack Suggestion

Gonna close my eyes
Girl and watch you go
Running through this life darling
Like a field of snow
As the tracer glides
In its graceful arc
Send a little prayer out to ya
’cross the falling dark…

Tell the repo man
And the stars above
You’re the one I love
You’re the one I love
The one I love

(“The One I Love” - David Gray)

[What follows is an edited version of an email I sent to the science faculty at the college today. The task at hand is, quite simply, to propose a small number of goals for the study of the natural sciences.]

In my humble opinion, this is important stuff. By identifying and articulating goals for the natural sciences we are saying who we are. Do we know who we are? If we don’t, or if our answer keeps changing, isn’t it valuable to engage in thinking about this every so often? And shouldn’t we be publicly proclaiming who we are and what we do by identifying our goals?

I found myself reacting, initially, to one of the proposed goals in the email we received from one of our members, i.e., demonstrate application of the scientific method to real world. I would hope that we could eliminate from consideration a goal that uses such a pedestrian term as the “real world.” This, to me, connotes that there is, indeed, a discreet, identifiable, knowable, and objective “reality” — a concept entirely at odds with most everything we can infer from the field of quantum physics. We have come a long way in the manner in which we define our physical world, from a “scientific” viewpoint, just in the time I have been alive. When I was an undergraduate chemistry student, the only application of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle that I knew of referred to the position and momentum of an electron: the better we were able to determine the position, the less we knew about its momentum. I’m sure we still teach that. However, in more recent times, Heisenberg is cited widely in all areas of inquiry, namely that we now assume the mere observation of a phenomenon fundamentally changes it. That brings me back to “what is the ‘real world’ anyway?”

I initially became an organic chemist because it was, at that time, my way of “knowing the world.” My experience of the universe had a lot more to do with chemical kinetics and reaction mechanisms of carbon-based molecules than it did with anything having to do with human beings. I was darn good at what I did back then, publishing several articles as a grad student, but one of the reasons I moved on to explore other things in my life, is that I truly believed that there was more than one way of knowing the world and I wanted to continue “knowing” as much, and in as many ways, as I could. People had always fascinated me, and I eventually moved on from researching reaction mechanisms to inquiring about individual-, group- and organizational-dynamics.

Which brings us to “knowing.” The primary epistemological question is: what does it mean to know? (or: what is knowledge?) This is the question of continuing, and endless, philosophical debate. A question that fascinates me. Do you have an answer to what it means “to know” something? Were you, like me, attracted to science because you wanted to know, inquire, research, explore?

If so, shouldn’t we be saying something in our goals for the natural sciences that speaks directly to why and how we inquire into our physical universe (note I didn't say “reality”). What else we should be identifying as goals, I’m not entirely sure ... so I don’t really have a definitive set of goal statements that would replace the ones we received. I do know there is language out there, proposed by other science departments, that probably more closely match my world view, however.

For example, the General Education Core Curriculum of the State of Illinois, states that the purpose for studying science is to:

● develop students’ understanding of the methods of scientific inquiry, including the formulation and testing of hypotheses;
● familiarize students with selected scientific principles in the physical and life sciences;
● enable students to make informed decisions about personal and societal issues.

OK, well, maybe this is enough of a monologue for today! (I think there was a point to all of this.) I would like you all to participate. I would like for us to examine who we are as scientists. And I would like to translate all of that into goals for the sciences that we feel comfortable with in our public declaration.

I welcome your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and competing views...

Listen to your life. It’s showing you everything you need to know about who you can become. (Messiah’s Handbook)

Isn’t it amazing how it's possible that life can turn on your next conversation — or unexpected phone call, email or piece of paper? One minute the world is this way, the next it is something entirely different. The phone call I’ve been waiting for, obviously, is a job offer. Although I’m gainfully employed, I’ve been searching for that “permanent” position for two years now. It hasn’t arrived yet.

But, that’s not the phone call that came this weekend. The voicemail from my landlords this morning was news that the house I’m renting from them is going to be sold. Out from under me. I’ll have some as-yet-undetermined time period after the sale to move out. But, it will very likely be in a month or little more. I was handed a piece of paper outlining the intent to sell, the terms of working with the realtor, and the notice that I’ll need to move my body and possessions to some other location. Soon.

“Jim, it’s not personal ... it’s strictly business,” they said, as I was flashing back to Al Pacino in The Godfather, and Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail.

Of course, I’ve had other conversations, phone calls, and pieces of paper that have totally shifted the universe. One of those, obviously, would be the notice I received that August night in 1983: “Mr. Arnold, I’m sorry, you are under arrest for driving under the influence of intoxicants…”

Another would be the email I received from Katrina in October 1999 that said: “Had my annual today. Found a lump. More tests Thursday... Needing good thoughts.”

Or, the emergency room doctor who (mis)diagnosed me with bladder cancer — but was very convincing in his (ultimately erroneous) opinion.

And, of course, there was the paper from the Board of Higher Education terminating my employment with the Chancellor’s Office in the Spring of 2004.

Now, today’s news is not exactly a life and death situation, though with my current energy level, this development seems pretty overwhelming. On top of my regular job, and my job as a job-hunter, I now have to find a new residence, pack up, and move while I continue to look for “real” work.

It would appear that I am being challenged. I am experiencing the opportunity to find out what I’m made of.

Why did I choose this? What am I supposed to be learning here?

Let me guess: it must be about one of my lifetime issues.

Control. It’s all an illusion.

You may have caught on: I’m a worrier. I think a lot; I emote a lot. Not that I’m really obsessive, but perhaps there’s a tendency in that direction?

And, I’m a planner: organized and always thinking ahead.

These various elements of my personality seem to collide, in that it’s not a stretch for me to go, in my mind, to “catastrophizing,” that is, thinking about the future and saying to myself “this has disaster written all over it.”

I have an uncertain job situation. I have an infection. I have a muscular or nerve issue in my leg. I have a life alone. I spend all my “free time” trying to find a job. I have trouble sleeping. I need prostate surgery. I don’t have time to pursue my art.

Oh, my, I guess I could keep going…you get the picture, though: worry, worry, worry! (or, maybe: whine, whine, whine?)

Where’s the room for happiness in all that?

When I was about to lose my position with the Chancellor’s Office,  a good friend asked me once, “well, what’s the worst that could happen?” Of course, I went straight to catastrophe and saw myself homeless, on a street corner, holding a cardboard sign saying “WILL ORGANIZE THINGS FOR FOOD.”

There’s a lot of uncertainty in my future right now. But, of course, isn’t there uncertainty in everyone’s? I just read that two tornadoes hit New Orleans today! Yikes! What in the world is going on?

I guess, really, no one here gets out alive.

But the question remains a good one. “What’s the worst?” Here’s where I think the question has its origin:

When some misfortune threatens, consider seriously and deliberately what is the very worst that could possibly happen. Having looked this possible misfortune in the face, give yourself sound reasons for thinking that after all it would be no such terrible disaster. Such reasons always exist, since at the worst nothing that happens to oneself has any cosmic importance. When you have looked for some time steadily at the worst possibility and have said to yourself with real conviction, “well, after all, that would not matter so very much,” you will find that your worry diminishes to a quite extraordinary extent. It may be necessary to repeat the process a few times, but in the end, if you have shirked nothing in facing the worst possible issue, you will find that your worry disappears altogether and is replaced by a kind of exhilaration.

Bertrand Russell
The Conquest of Happiness

As I continue the path to wellness: I spent the morning at the doctor’s office and pharmacy. The best guess is that my viral infection has morphed into bacterial. I’m currently on antibiotics and a cough-supressant. Now we’ll see what happens!

After I got home, I opened up the Messiah’s Handbook to see if there was any new wisdom for me there today. The first thing that appeared (though I did a little shopping around on other pages later, not knowing what to make of this one at first) was:

How easy it is to be compassionate
when it’s yourself you see in trouble!

So, let me think about this a minute. Well, OK, I actually do see myself in some trouble. My position at work is a temporary one, and I’m feeling very insecure about that. I’ve been quite ill lately, and along with that, an emotional downturn certainly has me seeing the glass half-empty. I keep interviewing for jobs, and not getting them. And, I’ve felt some loneliness in the last year that has rarely crept up on me like this.

The question now is: has it been easy for me to be compassionate? Just because it’s me? Really, I’m not sure how compassionate I have been with myself. I possess an often self-critical tendency that does not necessarily seem consistent with compassion. Perhaps the lesson for the day is to focus more on self-love and acceptance.