How’s your health?
Mine is mostly good, but I had to skip my newsletter last week because of it.
- Last Monday, I had my 3 month oncology check up. Nothing changed since last time. This is not a bad thing.
- The next day I felt exceptionally tired and achy. It was Covid!
According to the CDC, as of July 15, Covid cases are growing in Illinois along with eight other states. We don’t hear about this as much in the news these days. In fact, when I told friends and family I had Covid, some reaction was: “is that still around?” Please be careful.
Covid is not the main purpose of this week’s essay however.
When one of my friends asked how my oncology appointment went, I told him I had renewed my lease for another three months. He thought it was “morbid”. Not to be dramatic, but it is kind of weird to live in three month increments. What long term plans can one make with the likelihood of cancer coming back? I’ve been thinking about this for the last week. I know that there are no guarantees for any of us, however most of us don’t have such short term timelines. At least I hope not.
Of course, this whole situation brought me back to the topic of “meaning of life”, which has been occupying my mind quite a bit lately. As I’m continuing my research, I ran across the Philosopher Susan Wolf’s writings. She argues that the question, “what is the meaning of life?” is the wrong one for non-religious people. In her 2007 paper Meanings of Lives, she states: “An understanding of meaningfulness in life, however, does seem to me to merit more philosophical attention than it has so far received, and… that meaningfulness is an intelligible feature to be sought in a life, and that it is, at least sometimes attainable but not everywhere assured”
Interesting twist here but I like it. As an atheist, I am not inclined to look for my life’s meaning in religion. Meaningfulness in life can be found in three months, in three days, or even three minutes.
Have an excellent week, and please take care of your health.
