Saturday, February 19, 2011

medical update

Well, here's the scoop. Some time ago I found myself experiencing significant difficulties in a variety of life areas, and after a period of research and testing, was diagnosed with what has come to be known as Oymbr Syndrome. It's an affliction approximately as old as dirt, but most of the currently available remedies are still in the experimental stages. I did some looking around and decided on one called Imncleuiaseomo. (What, did you ever hear of a prescription med that was easier to pronounce?) It came highly recommended, and the fine-printed columns of possible side-effects and fatalities weren't noticeably longer than average. Plus it was cheap. Good deal, right? The only thing is ... it isn't working. Not only is it not taking care of the Oymbr Syndrome from which I already suffer, but it has turned against my system and added to my calamities a developing case of Toad Disease. The longer this goes on, the slimmer grow my chances of surviving - and, frankly, they weren't that great to begin with.

Now, confession time. Pretty much everything written above is, in its own way and to its own degree, true. However, the following points should be taken well into consideration when evaluating these claims:

  1. The Oymbr in Oymbr Syndrome is shorthand for the ailment's more scientific description, Oh, You Must Be Right.
  2. The original name of the drug mentioned was also judged overly lengthy - I Must Now Commence Learning Everything Until I Am Strong Enough On My Own - hence the acronym, Imncleuiaseomo.
  3. Toad Disease is named after its three most distinguishing symptoms: Tired, Overwhelmed, And Depressed.
Let's flesh this out a little. First, Oymbr Syndrome - closely related to, but not to be confused with, its very healthy counterpart, Wycbr-Icio Condition (Well, You Could Be Right - I'll Check It Out). Patients afflicted with Oymbr Syndrome typically begin their self-inflicted descent into poor health by setting their foundations in the unqualified proposition that the self knows very, very little indeed. The patient goes on to observe the vast quantities of knowledge and wisdom available in (and beyond) the universe, as well as the apparently unshakable confidence of many of its inhabitants. The patient then concludes, rather hopelessly, that by simple virtue of being other than itself, the bulk of the intelligent-seeming members of the human race whose ideas come into conflict with its own, must by default be correct about most things. Faced with an argument or opinion to which the patient has no immediate answer, the instinctive response is owl-faced uncertainty of potentially indefinite duration.

Except in rare, often terminal cases (in which the patient is rendered practically non-functional by an absolute failure to stand on any kind of principle in the face of any kind of contrary breeze), the most severe symptoms of Oymbr Syndrome manifest themselves only sporadically, and generally in response to semi-methodically selected types of stimuli. Ideas out of sync with the mob are frequent targets, as are subjective or ambiguous topics, and assertions made about the patient's own self.

This may be why the antidote known commonly as Imncleuiaseomo has gained such popularity in the general public. The alluring promise of the Knowledge of Everything is hard indeed to deny, and who is there among you that does not hotly desire the glorious defense of being Strong Enough On [Your] Own? It solves handily the double problem of knowing very little indeed, and of uncertainty in the face of disagreement. If you know Everything - I mean, seriously. What could go wrong?

Well, this is where Toad Disease comes in - an ancient, pervasive, and extremely contagious ailment if ever there was one. It has more causes than science has yet been able to number, but it's been confirmed that one of them is as a side-effect of the drug discussed above. Because, you see, To Learn Everything is a tall order. Really tall. Like, ain't-no-way-in-a-million-billion-years kind of tall. And even if the patient somehow did manage to miserably live that long, the cold fact is ... s/he will never be Strong Enough On [His/Her] Own. No can do, sorry. 

Faced with those statistics, who wouldn't be Tired, Overwhelmed, And Depressed? For real.

So Imncleuiaseomo doesn't cut it. I'm trying to come off it even as we speak, but it's kind of habit-forming. Death'll make me come clean, though - no worries. Still, in the meantime, what do we do about this besetting Oymbr Syndrome? I can't just live that way, for Pete's sake. So do I have to die that way?

Answer: No. 

There's a cure. It's called Grace, which for once isn't an abbreviation of anything, but its whole glorious, beautiful name. Grace brought home in this instance by steady application of Wit (sorry, one more acronym and I'll quit) - What Is Truth? And how will we find the answers? Read the Book, plead with its Writer, and I think we'll find that, in His time, He gives liberally to those who seek. 

You don't have to know Everything - you just have to know Him.

3 comments:

Luke Lorenz said...

I was actually worried for a bit... Well, I am glad you don't suffer from a life-robbing physical ailment, although this could be worse, if not for the Graceful Cure.

I Googled Oymber Syndrome but was not able to find anything, then I read on...Well, you got me.

The disease of (Hold on while I copy and paste this...)"Imncleuiaseomo" leads me to a thought that has never jumped the neurons in my mind before, but I suspect it will resolve itself as I write this out... (I use a LOT of ellipses, have you noticed?)

Imncleuiaseomo would, if it were even possible, necessarily defeat itself... I mean, lets say you reached 99% of all knowledge, but then you cross over to %100. Immediately you would be back to 99% (Rough estimate) because you would no longer know what it meant to be enraptured by the mysterious. A memory perhaps may persist, but I wonder if that would count as knowing it first hand...

One of the interesting things about our God is that He not only knows all, but He need not recall anything. He doesn't jog His memory. I don't think He even has a memory...

The thought that I alluded to earlier was this: Perhaps in someway, there are things that humans can know, that God cannot.

Well, obviously that is not the case. It may be one of those "Mysterious, but remember that doesn't mean it is contradictory" ideas. I think it may be worth a bit of thinking, just to see what happens, none the less.

So, “what is this that you might prematurely conclude is knowable only to man?”, you ask. The thought of mystery itself! How could God understand mystery, if He has knowledge of all things at all times all at once? Of course, maybe mystery itself is a creation? It must be, for there was a tree of knowledge of good and evil...

Well, I don't see a problem, and I think your the type to figure out why its not on your own without dropping theological bombshells all over this already twisted landscape, but the thought itched my brain in a weird way that few thoughts do, and so I thought I would share it with you.

This is an odd post indeed. But I think yours is on par, if not superior to mine in that category.

I hope that your case of Toad is remedied quickly!

tierney said...

Very interesting thoughts...

Here is my half-baked response - just more thoughts, not necessarily answers.

- First, might not the knowledge of mystery have been experienced, in some way, by Christ during His time on earth? The Incarnation is so totally beyond our understanding - fully God and fully man, for real? - I can't explain how that could be ... but He experienced hunger, pain, weakness, sorrow, temptation ... why not mystery?

^This may be related somehow: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=297612461599

- Then, must experience precede knowledge? (I suppose it all depends on how you define your terms.) That is to say, God was never (and never will be) created, or sinful. He has never been a 40-year-old woman or a cat, but I don't think that precludes His knowledge of these things.

^In vague relation to this thought, perhaps consider this post by a pastor I know. There may be some dots to connect ... particularly with your hypothesis of mystery itself as a creation ... http://wheatchaff.blogspot.com/2011/01/analogy-about-reality.html

- Also, does the end of an experience necessitate the simultaneous end of the knowledge it afforded? Of course, this involves memory, of which, as you already pointed out, God has no need (being outside of time altogether). So perhaps that trail leads nowhere.

- The impossibility of human attainment to an understanding of Everything is daunted, if nothing else, by the parallel impossibility (since Everything would include Everything about God) of the infinite being engulfed and comprehended by the finite. Can you fit outer space in a glass bottle? It reduces itself to absurdity, and just cannot be.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts - I'd not considered them in this light, either. Iron sharpens iron!

Luke Lorenz said...

I agree with your prospect of Christ's potentially limited knowledge. When I think of God on the grand scale like this, I tend to forget about Christ on earth with his physical limitations, and focus on the grandness of God the father so immense and encompassing!

I also wonder if God would know every human emotion, knowing the heart of every man and every thought ever thunk, and so he would in a way fully understand mystery, pain, loneliness and every thing not a part of the Godhead "before" creation.

I think theoretical knowledge is different than experiential knowledge. I can think about what something might be like and maybe even get close to predicting it, but when I experience it, it will add dimensions that I could not have imagined, because it never would have dawned on me to factor in every single experience involved. I think your C.S. Lewis post answers this pretty well. God never waits to experience, but experiences all, simultaneously and equally and fully. So, for him, not an issue. (Obviously!)

That link didn't work the other day when I first read this, but it did now, so I will read it and get back to you perhaps.

I wonder if the human condition necessarily requires us to experience things over and over again. Look at eating, for instance. What a beautiful thing that is! I can taste the same thing over and over again and its like a new taste every time. It has familiarity, but also newness at the same time. Taste bud memory, perhaps. Well, every sense is that way. (Interestingly enough, smell is the most memory inducing sense! Isn't that sort of unintuitive? One would think it a more obvious sense, like sight or hearing...but smell!)

So, re-experience is perhaps part of the glory of it all. I wonder if in heaven we will even have perfect memory... I mean, we obviously will remember what we remember perfectly, but does that mean we will remember all things? I don't think so, but thats only speculation on my part. I don't think I could build a solid case for that scripturally.

There is a saying that a mathematician goes crazy because he tries to build a bridge across the sea of infinite, but the poet prospers because he swims in it.

I think there is wisdom in that. We should certainly seek to know God and to be in awe of who he is, but we must be careful not to try to put him in a box (or a bottle) either.

You seem to be more of a creative individual, and you have mentioned several times that your not scientifically inclined (but I suspect that you might be more than you think), so I am curious, how do you like these sorts of conversations? Do you tolerate them, find them challenging more so than other topics or forms of expression, or something else perhaps?

I am quite the analyst... For better or for worse, often switching depending on the situation. I think in this instance, it is in the better category!