I should probably clarify a bit. That might be useful.
About a week ago a tragic hospitalization brought many people together. Details aren't really necessary, but I will touch on the most significant recollection from that very trying week spent in close proximity to modern medical practices.
My overall reflections on hospitals, stability and the inherence of chaos:
Hospitals are shining bastions of stability in a turbulent sea of sorrow, confusion and anger (substitute these three terms with "chaos.") I have never experienced a more well-run, fine-tuned machine than a modern hospital; every possible need one may have has been thought of and pre-planned for. This structure, in contrast to the human emotions that run rampant through a hospital's halls, provide a comfort, an almost homely feel, that is priceless during a time of struggle. In a sense, it seems that hospitals thrive by recognizing and addressing the human need for the continued presence of order.
With that understanding, though, and in combination with my inability to understand the past week's circumstance, I think I have come to another recognition, perhaps one that is more profound. There truly is so much that I will never be able to understand. Matthew McIntosh echoes this sentiment in this novel, Well:
"The trick, he said, is to refuse to believe that any of this makes sense. Because when it does--when the world and life and the way things are make sense--then you know there's really something wrong with you...This world should be incomprehensible to us. Rape shouldn't make sense and murder shouldn't make sense and neither should car wrecks and bombings and loneliness and cancer and diabetes and television."(1)I think I agree. No amount of rationalization can explain tragedy which, of course, begs the question: why do we try to explain it? Attempts to fathom the unfathomable only frustrate us further.
Sometimes, it seems, inevitable chaos is best accepted allowing us to be thankful for the opportunities we were given. Namely, the opportunity for modern medical care.
References
(1) Matthew McIntosh, Well (Grove Press: New York, 2003), 102.
That's a beautiful passage from McIntosh. I'll be thinking about it (a passage that flies in the face of all of the ordering religion and other social systems do their best to instill and maintain).
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