I don’t know about you, but today I feel freaking amazing. I feel healthy, strong – like I could a slice a watermelon into two perfect halves, just by looking at it. Chuck Norris ‘ain’t got nothin’ on me. Nothing shall stop me today – it daren’t even try. So come at me, life, hit me with your best shot. Today I will not fall.
It’s true. Most people in the world walk around everyday like we wear a cape and force shield, roaming around like immortal spirits in the Neverland. We feel like god created the world in six days, and on the seventh, he created me, because I’m so special; kissing me on the cheek and wrapping me tightly in cotton wool. Now go, my child. Fly, be free, he says – and sends us off from the heavens as we take a majestic leap of faith, soaring across the skies like an angel. Then we nosedive like a seagull that’s just been shot and freefall without a parachute, plummeting perilously to the bottom; dropping off one branch at a time in our greatest impersonation of Scrat from Ice Age.
It’s so ridiculous, it’s almost funny. We all have this hero complex etched into our minds that we are great and powerful; a survival instinct originating from the beginning of time as part of Natural Selection. It keeps us motivated to keep fighting; to achieve our goals and never accept failure. To convince ourselves that we can do anything; be anything we want. But as in everything in life, there is a cost, and it’s this unwavering belief in our invincibility – a modern, self- righteous interpretation of the Survival of the Fittest – that makes us forget that it’s because we are human that we have these limitations, and so we develop arrogance; becoming stubborn to the idea that nothing will ever defeat us.
‘I’m too strong to get ill.’
‘I won’t catch Corona, I’m too healthy.’
‘They won’t sack me from my job because I’m always late, I’m too valuable.’
‘I won’t die from excessive drinking, I’m too young.’
‘She won’t leave me because I’m a cheat, she needs me too much. ‘
You see, each of us go about our ways with this false sense of invincibility that we are immune to all of life’s trials and tribulations – that we can walk through the fire and come away completely unscathed. The one that was chosen; special in some ethereal way and will live forever. But we aren’t, we won’t and we can’t.
Some of the greatest figures in human history did not make it. In fact, their death in many cases was fatal. Socrates was poisoned. Jesus was hung on a cross. Emily Davison was run over by a horse. Martin Luther King was assassinated. Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash. David Bowie died of cancer. Despite their greatness; their strength and determination and success in creating change for a better world – none of them made it – what makes you think that you are any different?
I, too, thought that I could escape it – all that could cause me pain and suffering. I’m healthy, I go to the gym, I have a balanced diet, I am nice to people. I thought I was the modern-day Jesus or something – and I had the hairstyle to go with it.
Then one afternoon I answered a phone call from an anonymous number. It was my doctor – I was expecting a call that week. “Oh hey Doc, what’s up?” I said, attempting to soften the conversation as I braced myself for whatever news I was about to receive. I remember the next part vividly. “Listen, Lloyd, we have your results.” (I had a lump on my abdomen) “We have found evidence of some fatty tissue there, but there is also something else… You have a sarcoma – a very rare type of tumour. It is cancerous. I’m really sorry, I know this isn’t the news that you wanted to hear.” In that moment – before he could even finish, my whole world began to collapse as if it were made of straw. Everything that I had held to be true about myself had failed me, and I felt like I was losing. In one minute, my life had changed forever, and it was an unceasing countdown unto the last breath.
‘So that’s it then’, I thought. ‘This is how it ends, in cruel irony. What have I done to deserve this? I’m 21, I’m too young to die. I’m not ready. Not me – I’m different. I’m… special.’
That day I learned an important lesson. That the world didn’t care about me, who I was or what I stood for. It didn’t care that I was a ‘good person’ or that I had a family. Despite my good health and no wrong-doing, I had a disease – and I was forced to accept it. It never occurred to me that I would be the one that got unlucky, and the world was punishing me for my deniability. But it was true: I wasn’t special. I wasn’t ‘invincible’.
I returned to work two days later – a bit of an emotional mess. For the most part, I had to bottle it up – there were few people I could tell about my diagnosis, but I kept going, determined to maintain all the normality that I could, even if about 80% of my thoughts were elsewhere. I had to ask customers how they were doing, knowing full well that social etiquette dictated that same question be returned. “I’m good, thanks.” I would say, donning a coy smile. But in spite of my uncertain future, one week later I was setting personal bests at the gym, the brooding thoughts that I was having had reduced to about 40% in frequency, and I started to recognise the things that I still had to live for.
It was paradoxical: the acceptance of my mortality had made me stronger, and it’s in us realising this that we will live a better quality, more meaningful life. The majority of the strength we expend everyday is basic; we use it in monotonous routine. Like waking up early. Turning the alarm off. Going back to sleep. Turning the alarm off again. Trying not to throw it against the wall. Beating the traffic. Supressing angry emotions at annoying co-workers. Getting motivated for the gym. Eating our vegetables. Donald Trump. All of these things suck, but they are clearly surmountable, and so we fight them every day, with a degree of will, not because we want to, but because we have to. They are paramount in living at least a standard life; to ride the rigorous waves of everyday life and simply stay afloat.
Other times we must fight a little harder; to not just resist the tide, but push against it. To hit our personal bests. To reach the highest marks. Lend our time to those who need it more than ourselves. To keep moving forward even when if we fear that it could be the end. These things also feel like they suck because they take a significantly greater application of strength, but they also ultimately give our lives that purpose to not just keep going, but thrive, and achieve something greater than ourselves.
I’m fortunate enough that, after a scan, my results showed that my skin cancer had not spread. I was told that my tumour was not ‘benign’, but almost benign, and if left further would probably just cause me grief. It’s going to get taken out in an operation and I should be okay, at least for now. I got lucky, but something out there, one day, will take me – and it will take you too, mercifully, no matter what you do. The more you fight against your mortality, the closer you draw to it – and the more of a dick you become as a consequence.
So maybe you valiantly run into a road to save a hedgehog from a car but get sideswiped by a bus. Maybe a computer monitor fly’s out of three-story building and lands directly on you as you were passing by. Maybe you get eaten by a shark – my former lecturer always said that if he could choose to go, it would be in this way – to be food for another kind and die with purpose. Or maybe the sand in our life-glass eventually just sinks to the bottom. In the end, it doesn’t really matter how you go – it’s not about being invincible, it’s about being humble enough to accept the inevitability that you will go; to take on all the shit that life throws at you and be stronger and live a more fulfilling life because of it. All of life is like this. So just accept it. Let life come at you and let it give you scars. One day you will fall – you are not invincible – but strong enough to float until you reach the very bottom; and only then, will you have truly fallen.
Compulsively Human 