Words 23

I DREAM OF SARAH

I DREAM OF SARAH

 

“How did you manage to dodge the crowd that follows you around?’

She looked at me with that shiny flash in her eyes and slowly removed her fashionable eyeglasses. She smiled and replied:

“A few months in that governor’s office and you learn to become absent, or you lose your hair!”

There was a moment of silence that she used to assess me from head to foot. Then she added:

“I was becoming hysterical from all those questions. Am I really that odd? Am I that silly? “

“None of the above, Sarah. You are the proverbial breath of fresh air, or should I say the welcome artic breeze?’

She laughed and asked me:

“Have you ever been to

Alaska

?”

“Never had the chance and I doubt that anyone in my profession has ever had that opportunity. Spending a lifetime on research of pyrolitic graphite and exotic carbon crystals, does not leave time for visits to faraway locations.  But, Sarah you have revived the level of curiosity for other environments that I owned some years back; it kept me alive. Tell me about it.”

Two hours later I regretted this last request.

I learned about fishing salmon, Alaskan trout, and bagging large Red King sea crabs, halibut, sea urchins and the ever popular

Resurrection

Bay

sockeye.  She told me all about the various ways to detect the presence of Kodiak Brown bears, Grizzly, Mountain goats, Sitka Black tail deer, Caribou, moose and

Roosevelt

elk, avoiding traps, making snow shoes and looking for wild berries and those nourishing Alaskan hazelnuts. It was a lecture full of technicalities and references. So I changed the subject and asked about her duties as Governor.

Before she answered, we had another beer and some of those Camembert cheese delights. She seemed to be eager to answer the question:

“My friend” she started and the she caught herself. “Since spending time with John McCain I have picked up his favorite greeting, or that tiresome ‘my friends’. Please forgive me.”

“Sarah”, I replied, “You can count on my forgiveness, pardon and total absolution, plus my granting you two indulgencies of the second degree!”

Again her laughter brought a note of cheerfulness to the somber corners of the lounge that I had located far away from the Congress Hall. She continued:

“Briefly, I was concerned with a clear system to be able to keep the largest state in the

Union

in good shape. That is, I monitored by the hour all revenues and of course all expenditures and adhered to a rigid CBRF. Keeping those Prudhoe Bay and

North Slope

oil and gas fields under surveillance is a fulltime job, even if good old Parnell keeps adding overtime charges to his check. 750,000 barrels per day are no peanuts, my friend!”

After thirty minutes of detailed discussion of Budget features, enhanced by equations, investment profiles, non-oil unrestricted revenues, tax exposures, curves and numbers on a napkin, she asked for another beer. She looked at me and smiled. She said:

“My friend, it is so nice to talk to someone who is not comparing you all the time to Obama, Hillary, Hitler, Britney or Oprah. It fills me with joy when there is real interest in my state.”

I added: “Real interest also in your person, Sarah!”

Big smile. Then I changed the subject:

“Have you read about the Hadron Collider tests in

Geneva

?’ I thought that moving into high physics would eventually lead to dialogues of a more personal nature. She replied:

“Of course, silly man! I have followed for years the work being done by CNRN in Nyon, in the outskirts of

Geneva

. It always fascinated me that a simple collision of protons might result in subatomic versions of collapsed entities. Some of us theorized that the appearance of ‘black holes’ with enormous gravity pull, might suck-in other planets and perhaps even systems. In theory this event might refer to initial work on quarks and gluons.”

She paused to take another sip of that lovely beer and bite with enthusiasm one of the little Camembert Cheese sandwiches. Then she continued:

“You see, my friend, this experiment is most important since it could lead to the elusive Higgs Boson, a hypothetical particle that could give mass to all other particles. That would take us into the creation of matter in the Universe”

“What is God’s role in this whole process?” I dared ask.

“My friend, you should know the answer. It has been there in front of the collective noses of the human race since it rented its first cave!”

Clever answer. I could not resist getting closer to her, grabbing by her sensuous shoulders and was ready to kiss her slightly open and expectant lips when I woke up!”

Suicide Anyone?

Suicide 

Suicide is the last resort of the weak, the despondent and the coward. But it takes an instant of courage to pull the trigger, drink the drink or step off the ledge of that twentieth floor window. 

I have thought of suicide a number of times in my life. Along with the few satisfactions and triumphs I have enjoyed, I have had as many failures and heartaches and as a result have experienced more than once the need to consider a swift exit from my here and now. 

Suicide is after all a drastic cure. You can count on the sudden arrival to nothingness and the finality it represents. Your woes are over; someone else will have to carry the load. Someone else will have to do what you have so miserably forfeited. To those around you, your suicide is a dirty trick; one that will be added to the poor memories you evoke as you transfer to them a long list of complex responsibilities, beginning with exhaustive police inquiries, unwanted publicity and the painful explanations and rationalizations to those near you. 

If you are a deeply religious person, you can count on your arrival at another sphere of existence where deities, peace and beauty as well as heat and discomfort are present, depending on the nature of the deeds you have accumulated while on Earth. 

My experience with suicide victims, or "suicidees' (?) has enabled me over the years to identify classic warning signs. The more common are depression and those emotions that range from indifference to anxiety and hopelessness, expressing all along an interest about dying. Then there are other signs like irregular patterns in daily habits and reactions we can call "odd behavior" or even "suicidal behavior"; these result from deep emotional disturbances known as bipolar disorders and schizophrenia. Statistics show that more than 90% of all suicides are committed by people suffering from these disorders, representing about 1% of all deaths occurring yearly in the US.

Bipolar disorders have their origin in disturbances in the areas of the brain that regulates our moods. It affects people with serious depression followed by periods of manic depression. This condition creates an unusual perception of self in some people followed by anxiety, self deprecation and suicidal tendencies.

Others that suffer from a similar condition, known as Disorder Two, seldom experience full-fledged mania. In its place they live through periods of hypomania that increases their energy and impulsiveness but are not profound as the symptoms of mania. These so called hypomanic periods occur before and after episodes of major depression have taken place.

Beyond the emotional or mental problems that could also have a genetic origin, there are some social factors that can lead to that that peculiar state of mind that leads to suicide. Overwhelming events of a negative nature can transform the integrity of social behavior of most people. Things like unemployment, failed love affairs, serious illness, dependency on alcohol and drugs and those incidents of an unfortunate nature can lead to despondency and social isolation. People thus affected are easier to find in a state penitentiary than in a golf country club. 

The only solution that suicide might suggest to you is instant removal from a given environment; that is fine for you, more or less. However, that convenient exit of yours creates new problems that will require new solutions. In other words, suicide can only benefit you and is often recognized by others as a final selfish gesture on your part. 

You can not expect legitimate sympathy from people, even those close to you. There will be the usual head shakes, the insincere phrases that point to the suffering and stress that assaulted you during your last days and perhaps a timid mention of a good quality or deed of yours that deserves some recognition. 

You can not expect tears and true sorrow. 

At what point is suicide a valid option? 

Never. Suicide should never be considered an option, let alone a solution. This might sound a bit extreme but it agrees with a simple postulate that says that while there is life, there is hope. Any one of the roads that leads to suicide has valid detours. Whatever afflicts you can never remain a permanent condition unless we consider incurable disease or serious impairment. Asking someone to pull the plug is a medically sophisticated procedure for those beyond medical cure, same as those insisting on hourly doses of a lethal pain killer that will swiftly take you, peacefully and painlessly, into posterity. 

As personal as suicide might be we must not ignore that it is the type of decision that puts an end to doubt, fear and uncertainty. It is a decision that can be arrived either through long analysis or as a result of a sudden urge. In either case, you have to evaluate the need to commit suicide even if it answers to that unexpected urge.

You might not have enough time to assess how your sudden absence is going to affect others. And I do not mean the paramedic, the police, the cremationist or your aunt Frida. 

Your sudden departure has untold ramifications and unpredictable consequences. In respect to this you must make an attempt, before you commit the final act, to arrange matters in such a way that your demise will not cause more than a distant sigh and the kind thought that "at least he had everything arranged!" 

I should mention that scientists have identified a rare tendency in some people to yield to an unidentified urge to commit suicide especially even if they are faced with questions difficult to understand and impossible to answer, or not. Under these conditions, the person, acting on an impulse is ready to. . . . What am I doing on the edge of the window on the 20^th floor? Well, I. . . .