Death by laughter

Chrysippus of Soli died from laughing.

Can you die from laughing? Today I learned that Chrysippus of Soli, the Stoic philosopher, was said to have died laughing at one of his own jokes.

I remember Father mentioned one time that he thought he was going to die of laughter. I was somewhere else for the event itself, possibly away at college. But it was one evening and he was sitting up late. I don't remember if Mother was sitting up with him, or if she had started getting ready for bed. Also, I don't remember what provoked his laughter—whether it was something he read (perhaps The Funniest Joke in the World), or just a funny idea that occurred to him. Probably it was something he read.

Anyway, he described that he started laughing and laughing, and then found that he couldn't stop. This "couldn't stop" experience wasn't frightening though—just very pleasant. Finally he laughed so much that he felt himself detach from his body. He said it felt like he could just float away and go somewhere else, and he thought about it for a while. Finally he decided, no, he would rather stay where he was. So he nestled back down into his body, stopped laughing, and let his life return to normal.

When he told me this story, Mother commented that she could hear him laughing (or, as I say, maybe she was still in the same room), and was worried if he would be OK because it went on so long. She did not say she was afraid he would die. And for his part, he didn't appear to regard the prospect of death with fear. The way he described it, it just sounded interesting. But no, he had responsibilities still in life, and people to attend to. So he decided not to move on just yet.

If I've remembered the approximate year correctly, that would have been before his grandsons were born ... possibly even before I married Wife. So he would have missed a lot.

When he finally did die, it wasn't from laughing. I hope it was as free of fear and as interesting to the inquiring mind as the time he almost laughed himself to death.

I guess there's no way to know.    

      

Blast from the past: Intentions

Hosea's log: Star date 1992-10-11 ... or it might have been 1992-11-10. It was well into the autumn of 1992, and right around the full moon—maybe plus or minus a day. No more than a day.

People who are comfortable with what might be called the woo-woo end of New Age spirituality sometimes talk about "releasing intentions into the Universe." It's not always clear how this differs either from prayer or from magic, but the language is vague enough to offer plausible deniability if one is challenged by a hard-core materialist. "Oh no, I wasn't doing anything supernatural. I was just focusing my attention on a certain goal for the sake of psychological clarity."

The thing is, sometimes it works. Debbie once told me that a few months before she and I met up again after twenty years, she found herself getting tired of living alone after her divorce, and released an intention into the Universe that she meet someone romantically. Then she met me.

Normally I'm not really organized enough to do the same thing, but I remember one time that I definitely did. It was a long-term intention; and while I didn't follow up scrupulously to check every bit of it against a schedule, in the long run it did more or less come true as well.

The time was 1992. I was working a contract job nearly 120 miles from home—by which I mean the apartment I shared with Wife, while she was in graduate school. I drove down on Monday morning and back on Friday evening. During the week I stayed with my parents, which was just a little over 40 miles away from my work. The traffic was terrible, and I wasn't making a lot: enough to pay our rent, but not enough to keep up with Wife's already-riotous spending. But it was what I could get, and all that driving didn't leave me a lot of time to look for a better job.

For some years I had still nursed fantasies of going back to graduate school myself. I had left abruptly (as I describe briefly here) and my faculty advisor was kind enough to hold open my space in my fellowship program for one year. Well, by this time it had been closer to six years, and I wasn't still in touch with him. But I still clung to the fantasy that maybe someday I could go back.

Then in the fall of 1992 I learned that my former faculty advisor had died. Of course there was no realistic way that I would ever have gone back, but this shattered my fantasy. I wept for him—by which of course I mean "for myself and my lost dreams"—harder than I have ever wept for a dead relative. And then, not long after, I found myself walking out to the parking lot after another long day, after sunset, with the stars twinkling, and the most enormous full moon hanging just over the horizon.

Parallel lives

As I listened to Schmidt talk about the Hired Hand this spring (as I discussed in my last post), I began to think about the unexpected parallels between Schmidt's life and mine.

Plutarch of Chaeronea, author of a more
famous set of "Parallel Lives."

___

Schmidt and I met in college. He was quiet and introverted; I was loud and seemingly more sociable, but my loudness and sociability were protective masks no different from Schmidt's quiet and introversion. "Talks loud, laughs louder, thinks silently." When we talked about things that we both knew, we found that we nearly always had the same take. We both had fathers who were loud and boisterous, and who not infrequently offended people; also mothers who were quieter and could get along with anyone.

___

College is when a lot of people start dating and fucking. But I didn't lose my virginity until my Senior year. Schmidt flunked out after the end of his Junior year, so he didn't have a Senior year. And I'm pretty sure he didn't fuck anyone while at school. Years later, Wife told me she had talked to Schmidt privately, and he had admitted that for a while he was interested in Flora. She had the right body-type to attract him: slim, trim, and athletic. But she was already fucking a couple of our other friends (R– and Mac), and Schmidt determined that "Everyone who fucks Flora goes crazy." He didn't want to go crazy, so he decided not to join the party. Also I suspect he didn't want a connection with Flora to drag him into any more intimate connection with R– or Mac.

___

After college, I went home. I didn't date anyone. It was only through a weird coincidence that I met Wife, and we started fucking a week later.

After college, Schmidt went home. He lived way out in the boonies, so the likelihood of a weird coincidence throwing him together with someone attractive was correspondingly a lot lower than it was for me.

___

Part of what attracted me about Wife was the powerful energy that accompanied the highs of her bipolar cycle, when the air around her crackled with her enthusiasm and nothing seemed impossible.

It seems like part of what attracted Schmidt to Hand was something similar. He said that he thought Hand was undiagnosed bipolar, and he agreed that the highs of bipolar people can be attractive. Also, remember that Hand lived his whole life in the shadow of colon cancer, and responded to it with a determination to enjoy his short term to the hilt. For someone as broodingly introspective as Schmidt, I think Hand's willingness to live thoughtlessly—taking no thought for the morrow, as Scripture would have it—must have felt profoundly liberating. Even if he couldn't do the same things himself (because he, personally, couldn't stop thinking about his actions), he must have found Hand thrilling to be around. (Why yes, I am interpreting him based on my own personal experience. Why do you ask?)

Schmidt and the Hired Hand

I have one more story left over from my time this spring at the Schmidts. I've got the notes right here, and I keep planning to just sit down and type them, but ... well ... you know.

The story is about a former friend of Schmidt's, now dead. Because he worked for the Schmidts for a while, I'll call him the Hired Hand (or Hand, for short). I think Schmidt showed me a photo of him, but I don't remember what he looked like. Big and gregarious. Beyond that, I forget.

I don't know if Schmidt remembers this, but I remember once, many years ago, getting a letter from Schmidt where he talked about Hand. He said that in Hand he had finally found someone he could settle down with for the rest of his life—except for the awkward fact that Hand was romantically interested only in girls, not guys. To be clear, Schmidt said nothing directly about his own preferences in "plumbing." Wife claimed that Schmidt told her he was gay, and once upon a time I believed her. (See, e.g., the brief reference here.) Now I'm not so sure.*

What did Schmidt find so enticing about Hand? When we talked during my most recent visit, Schmidt said that he thinks Hand was probably bipolar (though never diagnosed). When I remarked that Wife was probably bipolar, and that her highs could often be delightfully charming, Schmidt agreed with the principle.

Anyway, Schmidt says that Hand was probably an undiagnosed bipolar, who self-medicated with "alcohol, methamphetamine, and bimbos in heat." But then he went on to explain that Hand was diagnosed with pre-cancerous polyps in his colon when he was in his early twenties. All the treatment options were terrible, so Hand just decided to live with them as long as he could—and then die. Since he had no idea how long he had to live, Hand never worried about the long term. He lived for today: fucking and drinking and toking like there was no tomorrow, ... because there might not be. (He took this to the extent of driving drunk, and was incarcerated for it several times.) Schmidt says that he wouldn't have made the same decisions Hand made, but he can understand why Hand made them. In a quick formula, Hand was reckless but not crazy.

The other thing Schmidt said about Hand is that he should have been born as a Labrador retriever. Hand was very friendly, winning, charming, and cheerful—also a good builder and contractor. Except for the building and contracting, these are all virtues that make Labradors so adorable. Plus, Schmidt added with a half-smile, if Hand had been born as a Labrador, he would have been neutered at an early age. He went on to say that this would undoubtedly have made Hand's life more manageable. 

In a nutshell, then, Hand was friendly, winning, charming, and cheerful. He was totally incapable of managing his own life, or his addictions, or his libido. And I think Schmidt still misses him. 

Do breakups cause breakage?

So here I am, minding my own business, reading John Michael Greer's "Magic Monday" column, and someone writes in anonymously to say, "at the end of my marriage, everything started breaking, one thing after the other." Someone else replies, "The day [my partner] died my phone went haywire too."

And suddenly I remember. The first time I had Debbie as a guest in my new apartment, after I left Wife, I went to make us a pot of tea and the handle broke off the tea pot. (Interestingly, the tea pot had been a wedding present to Wife and me; I no longer remember who from, but since I ended up with it, it might have been from one of my friends.) Debbie suggested that this was a sign, and I should get rid of the teapot. But I kept it. Only now if I want to use it, I use hot pads so I can pick it up by the body to pour it.

And I remember the first time Marie came to visit me, a few years later. She broke a crystal butter dish that I had salvaged when Wife and I divided everything up. There was no way to keep using that, so yes, I discarded it into the trash.

So now I wonder: is this a repeatable phenomenon? Do breakups cause breakage?

Inquiring minds want to know ....  

     

Is Wife sundowning?

I learned a new word today. Sundowning. Apparently that's when someone who is suffering from dementia (or borderline dementia, I guess) gets progressively more confused as the evening wears on. Sometimes it can lead to agitation or violence.

Son 1 visited me for a couple of hours today, and he explained it like this. "You remember Joe Biden in the Presidential debate? Everyone said he was fine at lunchtime. But by the debate he was lost, because it started at 9:00 pm."

Son 1 thinks that Wife is experiencing the same thing. Maybe I should back up and tell the story.

Son 1 texted me this morning, asking if I would be here later. Sure, no problem. Turns out he was flying in from a week where he was somewhere else for work. My apartment is en route between the airport and the town where he lives with Wife, so he was thinking of stopping by. Sure, that sounds great.

The nominal reason for his visit appears to have been so that he could wish me a Happy Father's Day, which he did. We never made a big deal out of those holidays when the boys were growing up, but sure that's fine. And it's always nce to see him.

We talked about his work for a while. He told me funny stories about the trip he was just on, and I told him (or reminded him) of comparable stories from when I was working. It's ironic that while his job title is nominally very different from mine, he has nonetheless ended up doing work that is topologically very similar. I asked whether he has any prospects for future advancement, and he discussed one possibility that might be on the horizon. (But nothing is certain yet.)

Then he shifted the conversation pretty abruptly to talk about Wife. At first he was talking generically about her inability to read people, and her consequent tendency to get into fights with everyone. He says he cringes every time she calls one of her doctor's offices, because she always gets into a fight with them over nothing. He described times that he has to handle difficult tasks for her, when he deliberately leaves her at home because it's easier that way. I agreed, and tried to describe some of the techniques that I used to manage her behavior when we still lived together.

Only towards the very end of the visit did he say that he thinks she is starting to experience dementia. He was careful to say that he didn't just mean occasional forgetfulness. But apparently there have been numerous times when he has come home from work, talked with her for half an hour or so, and then gone back to his room to rest before making dinner. If he comes out in ten minutes, all is fine. If he comes out in an hour, Wife says, "Oh, Son 1! When did you get home?" She has no memory of having talked to him before.

And she will get into spirals as the night progresses, where she can't stop obsessing about something long enough to go to bed.

Just as he was getting ready to leave, he asked obliquely if I've had to deal with the same things with Mother yet. (Answer: not exactly, or at least not that I'm willing to think about.) He also said he has no idea what steps need to be put in place to care for her when the time comes: power of attorney, for example? What about her accounts? He hopes maybe I can give him some guidance on these things. Maybe he can come back for another visit next weekend.

Wow. I don't know much about any of this stuff. Maybe I need to learn.

First Ma Schmidt, and now Wife. I'm starting to see a pattern. If these things go in threes, then I guess Mother is the logical third.

I suppose it's a good thing I didn't follow up that job opportunity last year. Maybe. We'll see.     

         

Talking about vacation

Memo to the reader: I thought about titling this piece "On vacation," in the same way that one might title a treatise, "On the Gods," or "On human nature." But I realized that most people would assume it just meant, "I'm going to be away from my computer and not writing for a while." In this case that's not what I mean. Hence the slightly clunkier title.

It's late at night. I've drunk too much. And I need to do things in the morning. Why am I not in bed asleep?

Well, I almost was—at the end of another highly unproductive and useless day. (I keep hoping my days will be productive. But that would require that I actually had the will to accomplish something, and that will is often missing.) But then I thought of an interesting pattern. I wanted to record it before I forgot it, and so here we are.

It's just this. You've heard me complain about being stuck, dead in the water, accomplishing nothing. I've blamed it on booze and on Twitter, both of which are indeed serious contributors to my time-wasting. But both of them are enablers, not root causes. The reality is, This is something I do.

So for example:

The unlived life of the parents

While I'm posting random quotes from Twitter (that's a reference to this post over on the Patio), here's one I found yesterday that is way too accurate.

"The unlived life of the parents," or in other words, we get stuck on the same things that our parents got stuck on. 

Is it true as a general rule? I haven't the slightest idea. But does it explain why I'm so stuck right now? O boy, howdy.

I don't even mean that it explains things at a causal level (though of course it might). But at a descriptive level, it is unerring. Father worked for years running a family business in a field that didn't espcially interest him, but in which he became (by necessity) something of an expert. Then events conspired to allow him to retire early, so that he could do whatever he wanted. He made a few half-hearted attempts to find other work—he got certified as a hypnotherapist, for example, and also as a college-loan planner, and for each job he set up an office for a little while. But what he really wanted to do was to act. And in fact he found work in a few small things here and there—commercials, and bit parts in unsuccessful movies. But he never made it big in acting, and he pissed away a lot of time on the Internet.

Sound like anyone else you know?

The worrying part is that if "the unlived life of the parents" really does affect the children, then I risk passing this very same stasis on to Son 1 and Son 2 in their turn. 

And as if that weren't enough motivation, you remember that Kimberly Steele told me that getting a book published is a major task of mine for this lifetime. So if she is right (and if I have more lives beyond this one), I'd better get my ass in gear or I'll be dumped into exactly the same situation next time (but with less favorable circumstances).

I don't know whether I believe in future lives (except in this sense), but I certainly believe in my children. So maybe I'd better get my ass in gear.

Maybe tomorrow.