Now, after the warmest and most helpful send off I could have asked for, I’m waiting for an hour at my CDG departure gate. The sky was a perfect blue on the way here and the air had a pleasantly cool freshness. I’m noticing my compulsion (which is a characteristic tendency of literature professors) to turn even the most ordinary and banal setting and occurrence into a bearer of symbolic meanings. I can imagine what Jean Cocteau might have made of it here, more than Jacques Tati could manage, more than Hollywood could even dream of. Symbolism and Surrealism opened up our sensitivities. An airport waiting corridor is a classic liminal space, a dreamy Bardo or a low-key Purgatory. Aha! I have boarded the plane. I’ll stop using my phone so I’ll have power when I need it upon arrival.
Arriving early at O’Hare, I get the assistance I need. The young woman who pushes my wheelchair is interested in languages. A native speaker of Arabic, she knows French and Spanish but apologizes for her English accent. After some confusion, I find Veronika and we are soon on our way out of the Chicago area. I’m hungry and thirsty, but finding a place to stop doesn’t work out. I’m pleased that the tone in which I’m received is friendly, but I’m disappointed that no one asks or wants to hear about my experiences in Paris. At 8, I go to bed and sleep 8 hours.
In the morning, I have coffee and read some of the old NY Times that have accumulated. I’m interested in the feature on therapy from last week’s Sunday NYT Magazine. This or that detail is interesting, but so far it hasn’t touched on what interests me most: the context and effect of commodifying human dialogue and our search for personal truth. The good effect of interacting with my wise and caring friends in Paris cannot be commodified, but that healing effect is what should be compared with the paid and commodified equivalent called therapy. My uncommodified human interactions were possible because I shared in causes common to myself and my friends. Those ends were larger than our purely personal issues. I’m sure that the same distinction applies to everyone or at least could apply. Aren’t there causes and issues that we all share in common?
Commodification is always directed toward the individual consumer. If we were directed toward the common good, the focus of value would veer toward socialism, or at least away from the atomized me-first society that’s at the root of so much of our suffering. Therapy in general assumes that the problems of commodification can be resolved within the realm of commodification. Why do we expect this to work? Because therapy, like every true commodity, costs money and is purchased by me, the individual consumer. Therapy knows who I am: a paying customer and a commodity in need of adjustment all in one. Criticizing therapy is as outrageous as expressing anticlerical sentiment in the olden days.
I’m coming to the conclusion that the idea of keeping this ALS Diary was much more problematic than I realized. If I’m honest, it’s a perpetual downer for me and any possible reader. What was I thinking? That there would be some luminous revelation in the face of death? In reality, you only think deeper by thinking harder and divesting yourself of the delusions of your unique ego, which may be fed by the self-importance of the journal intime mode.
These diary entries are really only for me. In the future, they should all go on the personal page section, not to the Socialist Blog. I don’t want to withhold my notes on the ALS process and the thoughts that accompany it, but I also don’t want to shove it in people’s faces.
Signed,
Andrew (Weeks)
Normal Thoughts 