De-Fearing Illness

December 10, 2009 · Filed under Illness, Popular Culture, Things People Said · Tagged Illness, Popular Culture, Things People Said

Deschooling was easy compared to this.

I have a situation going on inside my body that’s causing me to feel pain, fatigue, frustration, and, of course, fear. The fear comes mostly from the fact that I am waiting for a potentially ominous test result.

I don’t like to be afraid; nobody does, unless it’s the delicious kind of fear that I get from watching Halloween or When A Stranger Calls, the great horror movies of my youth.

Fear of medical conditions ranks high for most people. My favorite representation of that fear is the Seinfeld character George Costanza’s reaction to receiving a test result:

This is George Costanza, I’m calling for my test results. Negative? Oh, my God. WHY! WHY! WHY? What? What? Negative is good? Oh, yes of course! How stupid of me. Thank you. Thank you very much.
(he hangs up)

(from The Pilot, Part 2)

Whether my test result is positive (bad) or negative (good), I plan to keep working on de-fearing illness. To quote the writer Edith Wharton,

In spite of illness . . . one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.

Now, don’t worry, I’m not in a situation where I’ll be struggling to “remain alive,” even if I do get a positive/bad test result. What I like about the quote is the part about change, curiosity, interest, and happiness. In other words, the expanding life.

I’ll keep you posted . . .