A Purpose to Keep Me Going

Last Monday, after reaching to grab my phone and turn off the alarm, I opened Twitter to see what might be happening out there in the world while I was asleep.  

After scrolling through my feed a moment or two I was just about to log off and get up when one last scroll brought up a tweet that stopped me.  

It wasn’t from anyone I followed.  The message said something like, “This will be my last tweet.  After this, I’m going to take the injection that will end my life because MS has won.”  

I clicked on the posting and started scrolling through the thread.  There were hundreds of replies.  Maybe thousands.  A lot of messages of support.  One reply asked her to say hello to their pet dog that had “passed over the rainbow bridge” a few days before.  A lot of them were in German and were unintelligible to me.  It turned out the woman lived in the Netherlands.  

One person asking the woman making the original tweet, “How can you do something like that?”  Her question was one of practical ability.  Where she lived it was illegal.  Several people replying to her tweet said that the Netherlands, where the woman lived, and Switzerland, as another example, had laws that were more “humane” and supportive of people’s decisions to end their lives on their own, which checks to make sure there was no abuse involved.  

I had been asking myself the same question.  “How can you do something like that?”  But my question was based more on a philosophical point of view.  

I will stipulate, here and now, that I have never been in such pain, or such mental anguish, that I’ve seriously considered thoughts of suicide.  But having said that, I can say with certainty that my instinctual reaction is to reject such an option.  I’m definitely in the “Rage against the dying of the light” camp, to use Dylan Thomas’ word on the matter.  Maybe if I go through something that the woman who sent the tweet had gone through I might reconsider.  But my reaction to that is to state that I hope I don’t go through something like that.  Not just because of how horrible it would be to go through something heretofore unthinkably horrible, but because I want to keep wanting to live.  

As I was reading the string of responses to the initial tweet, I began to think of reasons someone might choose to die.  The first example that came to me was a fictional one.  The movie, The Europa Report, about a scientific expedition to the Jovian moon referenced in the title to see if it sustained life in the ocean of liquid water beneath its ice cap. 

SPOILER ALERT - I’m going to give away the ending of the movie in the next three paragraphs.   

In the final scene, as the landing craft is sinking into the depths of Europa’s ocean, the last surviving crew member does something that I didn’t understand at first.  She goes down to the panel that controls the lander’s airlock and opens the airlock doors.  Freezing water begins rushing into the craft as she climbs back up ahead of it. 

As well as an alien creature.  You see it riding the torrent of water flooding the craft.  It turns and rises up toward the camera.  You get a glimpse of tentacles thrashing about, and a circle of what appear to be bioluminescent eyes, right before the feed from the craft cuts off.  

What follows are voiceovers of people back on Earth that had seen that final transmission from the lander.  They are eulogizing the last crew member and her “bravery” in making the decision to open the airlock and provide proof that their expedition did what it had gone there to do, discovery life on that moon.  

Remembering the movie, I then remembered a similar, real-life example.  The Terra Nova expedition lead by Robert Scott, to reach the South Pole.  Those that are familiar with the expedition, and the death of Robert Scott and the other members of his expedition, might not be aware that his expedition had a scientific purpose: To find fossil evidence that the Antarctic Continent existed and was once connected to South America and Africa.  

It was prompted by early criticism of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.  It had been pointed out that there existed fossils of a time of tree, actually more closely related to ferns, called “Glossopteris.”  Fossilized samples of this plant had been found both in Africa and South America.  This was used as evidence that Darwin’s theory, as having identical plants in such distant locations, would indicate that they had not evolved naturally as he proposed, but must have been created as part of some design.  Darwin replied that, for his theory to be true, there must be a continent or land mass south of both Africa and South America that had once been connected to both.  

This was news to the world.  At the time Antarctica was thought to be a giant sheet of ice over water, similar to what’s found at the North Pole.  It was this suggestion that something else was there that started the surge in Antarctic exploration.  

And Robert Scott discovered it.  On his first expedition, called the Discovery Expedition, he found the plateau on which the South Pole is located that showed there was land beneath the ice.  On his next expedition, Terra Nova, returning from the South Pole after the Norwegian explorer, Amundsen had reached it first, Scott diverted the expedition to dig for fossils at what his geologist had decided was a good place to dig.

The geologist was correct.  Amongst the fossils they collected were samples of Glossopteris.  But the decision to dig for them proved to be a fatal one.  The time spent digging allowed a storm to catch up with them.  It slowed, and eventually stopped their progress.  They ended up starving and freezing to death.  The fossil proof they dug up would be found by the expedition come to find them some nine months later.  Scott is regarded as a hero to science.  

Then, after remembering these two examples, I remembered something much more recent.  The soldiers of Ukraine fighting to keep their country free from the tyranny that Vladimir Putin would impose if he gets his way.  Or any soldier that has fought to defend their country.  Or any fireman or rescuer that has risked their life to save someone else.  This situations are not ones where someone is choosing to die, per se, but where someone is putting their lives at risk for some purpose that they have calculated is worth as much or more than actively protecting their lives.  

It was with these examples in my mind that I finally stopped my scrolling and got out of bed.  I headed to my writing desk.  I had scheduled myself to work on the rewrite to my fantasy novel, specifically to write the background story as to why the main character is betrayed by his older brother (hopefully I’ll be able to create a chance for you to read it soon).  

As I sat down to write, though, another thought took hold of me.  That I needed to write a letter to the congressmen that represent in the government, as well as one to the President himself.  

I have been following the war in Ukraine very closely.  I regard it as the front line in the most recent effort to supplant democracy with authoritarianism.  I’ve been meaning to express my opinion formally to someone who could possibly be moved by my opinion, or at least by the weight of numbers of similar opinions that I was adding my voice to.  Every weekend, with each news update, I told myself, “I need to say something.  I need to do something.  I need them to do something.”  And each weekend so far things would conspire to prevent me from doing so.  

But Monday morning was different.  When I sat down I felt that I HAD TO write that letter.  And I did.  It ended up being 391 words.  A little less when I edited it to fit into the text box to email my senators, which was smaller than the others.  I then sent it to my representative, both senators, and the President.  I checked the boxes saying I didn’t need a reply when they were then.  I got an email from the Office of the President, with a scanned copy of Joe Biden’s signature on it, telling me about how concerned he was about the situation.  

Glad to hear that, Joe.  But what I’m writing about now was that impulse to finally do what I was going to do “sometime.  Sometime soon,” that wasn’t getting done.  

I think it had to be that purpose.  The purpose that the fictional scientist in the Europa Report had, which was mirrored in the real purpose Robert Scott had when he made the decision to stop and dig for fossils.  The purpose the soldiers in Ukraine have to ensure their country remains free.  While I’ve been writing this entry, an unknown number of them have died already trying to fulfill that purpose.  

I want to make clear that I am not questioning the decision made by the woman whose tweet I read.  I tried to go back and find that account, that tweet, but none of my searches turn it up.  It’s already lost in the flood of noise washing through the Twitter-funnel online.  She had her own circumstances to contend with.  I have no basis on which I can either praise or condemn her decision.  It was hers to make.  

But, I do hope…  I do want to do all I can for myself, to find a purpose that will be strong enough, deep enough, overwhelming enough, for me to choose to keep carrying on, despite how hard it may be to do so.  I think I will live a better life for myself if I do.  

Pandemic Journal Entry - 4/17/22

Here was my entry for this week for UCONN’s Pandemic Journal Project.  You can find the homepage for the project here: https://pandemic-journaling-project.chip.uconn.edu/

Question: How has the coronavirus pandemic affected your life in the past week? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

Last week I continued to move forward my travel plans for this year.  I am hoping to build on the breakthrough year I had last year, when I finally got to go places for the first time since Covid.  I continue to book rooms and schedule flights for a variety of trips, to go to baseball games with one of my nephews, visit the family over the Fourth of July weekend, attend a science fiction convention that I used to go to every single year, but which I haven’t been to since 2018 (first due to work, then because of Covid).  

But international travel is still on hold, at least to my preferred destinations.  The trip I planned in 2020, which was cancelled due to the virus, included going to see a baseball game in the one remaining baseball stadium in Japan I haven’t visited yet, in Chiba, Japan, next to Tokyo.  It also included going on a side excursion to visit Busan, South Korea.  

I finally got a credit voucher from the airlines for that flight, after rescheduling it again and again, pushing it as far out as I could in the hopes that, “by then,” I’d be able to rebook a flight taking me to either or both of those countries.  

Last week, while I was submitting dates to get PTO days at work, I checked the travel status for Japan and South Korea, something I do just about every other week or so.  Both are still listed as Level 4 - Do Not Travel.  The feeling that I’ll have to push that trip back another year is starting to grow inside me again.  

Last night, I went to see a play at a theater run by a couple that are friends and former colleagues of mine.  It was the first live performance they’ve staged at the theater since the initial quarantine orders in the state.  When I arrived, I was surprised to see everyone was wearing a mask.  Both the state and the county have lifted mask mandates for some time now.  Fortunately, I had one of my mask sets (A cloth outer mask, and a surgical procedure inner mask, with a little plastic from or support to go over my nose) and I put it on to be in compliance with their request.  Because the theater is so small, and the performers were not masked, they felt it was an appropriate action to take.  

While catching up with my friends, I found out that another member of our group is still quarantined in his house.  This is because of a form of blood cancer he has being controlled by medication.  I knew about his condition, he has been under treatment for years before Covid, but I had wondered/hoped he might be there at the showing as well.  I wondered when he’ll be able to go to the theater like I know he wants to. 

The situation made me think that I should always go out with masks with me.  That it would be the right thing to do to be ready if I go someplace where others would feel more comfortable if I had one on.  One of the changes that have taken place.  Because of the virus.  

Ironically, the play, which my friends had commissioned and started working on a year or so before Covid, was about people being isolated during a crisis (set during World War 2, when Children were evacuated to the countryside because of the bombings).  I enjoyed the presentation, but it was a reminder about how the same issues can keep coming back around in different forms. 

Question: Some people have said that the pandemic has changed them, or led to changes in their values or even their personalities.  Do you think you’ve changed as a result of the pandemic?  If so, how?

I think living through the pandemic has changed me (how could it not?), but I’m still wondering in what way and to what degree.  

I find myself to be more introspective in one sense.  I find myself questioning my reasons for how I react to things, such as an angry outburst when I realize I forgot to do something, or forgot to bring something I needed when I leave home during the day.  I have spent more time writing in journal about what I want out of life, and why.  I have spent more time writing out affirmations to try and lead myself in those directions I want to go, or imaging the type of person I want to be.  

Or my reaction when I encounter people on the street.  Why am I feeling leery?  What do I find so fascinating about that person?  Part of that might come from how I don’t take meeting people for granted as much as I did before.  It used to feel like there was a sea of people I was swimming through when I left my home, and I would take note of them in a half-conscious sort of way.  Now I focus in on others more, wondering what they think, why they do what they do, and what situation they came from?  I’ve thought of myself as someone that has had a fascination for people for most of my life.  I don’t think this is a change, though it feels different to me.  A specificity in how I look at them, and how they react to me and my presence.  Wondering if I make them nervous, or afraid, by how I carry myself.  

I’m not sure.  But after Covid, I think I think more about why people do what they do, how they are who they are, both for myself and others.  

What I look for in a Baseball Park

After weeks of a lockout that looked like it could delay or even cancel the season, Opening Day came last Thursday, kicking off a full 162 game schedule.  

That means it’s time to go to a ballpark.  

Every year there are surveys where they rate the parks from best to worst.  From which is the best overall to which has the best food to which one has the vest overall value for going to a game.  I enjoy reading these surveys, especially now that I can compare my experience with whatever is said about a growing number of these parks.  As of the writing of this blog post I have been to 28 professional baseball stadiums.  Fourteen in the MLB.  Eleven in Japan’s NPB.  And three minor league parks.  

I’ve thought of writing my own such survey of the parks I’ve been to.  My own problem would be ranking them.  Calling any baseball park “bad” is difficult for me.  As an example, I visited Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum four years ago (now going by the name RingCentral Coliseum).  The home of the Oakland A’s is routinely near the bottom of most of the surveys I’ve read.  While driving with some friends to get to our game I was bracing myself for what I was going to find.  

I loved it!

Yeah, the park was old.  There was a warehouse sort of feel to the place as I walked the concourse.  But there were lunch trucks lined up at the entrance selling a variety of food you couldn’t normally get at a baseball game, which you could bring inside with you.  Our seats were good.  The fans enthusiastic.  The game was entertaining (unless you were a Rangers fan, who got clobbered that day).  

It made me realize that, for me anyway, no stadium could be that bad as long as baseball was played there.  

In lieu of a survey ranking them, I can write about what I think impacts the impression one gets from a baseball park.  So here I go…

The View of the Game

This is the most important quality of a park.  You want to ensure that the fans have a good view of the action no matter where they seat.  Older parks can have a problem due to the construction methods of when they were built.  At Wrigley Field in Chicago, there large poles supporting the levels above in the middle of the seats.  The one nearest me ran right behind my view of the pitchers’ mound.  A few more seats to the left, and I would have missed seeing the pitchers wind-up and any throw out at first.  Dodger Stadium, has the best sight lines of any stadium I’ve been in so far.  I’ve sat in the “nosebleeds” and along the line, and in the outfield, and at every spot I could see the game clearly without obstruction.

The Neighborhood

This is something I’ve become more aware of as I’ve traveled to see games in other parks, and how the area around and its atmosphere can impact the experience.  

This is the one area where Dodger Stadium gets low marks.  It’s surrounded by a big parking lot.  And by freeways that seemed designed to make you late if you don’t take the day off from work or leave hours early to get to your seats.  Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City is the same.  The fun of having watched a game dissipates as you struggle through traffic to leave.  

Stadiums situated in neighborhoods have it better.  Petco Park in San Diego is right next to San Diego’s Gaslamp District, with lots of place to go to eat and drink.  There wasn’t much of a baseball vibe there, though.  Wrigley Field has a lot of local establishments around that look like they had fans coming to after games since the stadium was built.  Truist Park in Atlanta has a stage in front of a mini baseball field outside the entrance where they gather and have DJs and music before and after a game.  And at Oracle Park, in San Francisco, after a game King Street is awash with fans that are shouting, cheering and making their way to the nearest bar or eatery.  The roof top bar at my hotel was packed by the time I crossed the street to make my way there.

But far and away the best stadium environment was at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.  They close off streets around the park and turn the area into a giant baseball block party.  I could hear the music start up in my hotel room two blocks away two hours before the game.  Definitely a baseball town!

Food and Drink

There are several surveys about which park has the best food, widest variety of things to eat, or the “One Thing” you need to eat if you go there.  My biggest concerns, though, are prices and how long the lines are at the concession stands once the game starts.  I tend to buy what I’m going to eat or drink to last me the first three innings of the game.  After that, if I have time to go get something and get back to my seat before the action starts between innings, I might get something more.  If not, then I might go if one side has a really huge lead, or just wait until the game is over.  

Truist Park in Atlanta had some of the shortest lines I’ve side at a baseball game so far.  I had no problem running up to stand to get something and get back before the next pitch.  At Busch Stadium in St. Louis, they had a system, for at least one stand, where you could place your order with your cell phone and then go pick it up when it was ready.  I thought that was pretty neat.  

Overall, though, the best food and drink experience at a baseball stadium is to be found in Japan.  First, they don’t gouge you with the prices.  Most items are priced about what you’d expect to find at a restaurant or convenience store outside the stadium.  

The food they offer is really good.  You won’t find a lot of traditional western baseball fare.  No peanuts.  No cracker jack.  And the one hot dog I’ve tried at a Japanese baseball stadium, at the Koshien, the oldest baseball park in Japan, was…  Odd.  I’ll leave it at that.  BUT, you can get yakisoba, grilled soba noodles often served with chicken, or karage, Japanese style friend chicken, with french fries.  The best thing I’ve had was kalbi don, at Mazada “Zoom Zoom” Stadium in Hiroshima.  It’s Korean style grilled rib meat on a bed of rice and vegetables.  Really yummy. 

And then there are the drink girls roaming the seats.  At every park you’ll find an army of young woman, running up and down the stairs between the seats, with these kegs on their backs, dispensing a variety of beer and chuhai, a Japanese version of a highball, made with shoju instead of whiskey.  A twelve ounce cup will cost you between about five to seven dollars after you figure the exchange rate.  A lot better than the $12 for a tall can of beer I’ve paid at some stadiums.

Of course, nothing says, “baseball is back” better than a Dodger Dog, in my humble opinion.  

Funky Factor

These are things that are hard to quantify or compare, but which make the parks that have them more interesting.  Something that sets them apart from the rest.  

Oracle Park in San Francisco has a garden behind the center field seats where they grow the vegetables used by some of the food places there.  Also, on the McCovey Cove side of the park along the walkway going around the pier, they have an opening where passerbys can stand and watch the game for up to three innings before they have to make room for someone else.  And, during the seventh inning break, they send someone around to collect any recyclables to make sure they don’t get thrown away.  Very Californian.  This is something they do at several stadiums in Japan as well.

The retractable dome at T-Mobile Park (formerly Safeco Field) is impressive.  I remember feeling a drop of a coming rain hitting my face and wondered when they would close the roof.  I looked up to see the doom was just closing up.  Something that huge moving that quietly was amazing.  

Another doomed stadium worth mentioning is Seibu Dome in Saitama, Japan (the current official name is Belluna Dome, having changed this year from Metlife Dome, after being changed from Seibu Prince Dome, and so on…).  The dome itself was a retrofit, placed over the stadium, which is built into the side of a hill.  The dome sits like a giant umbrella over the stadium, with natural air flowing in from all sides.  As a result of this construction, it is possible, and has happened, for home runs to be hit out of the park.  The only domed stadium (that I know of) where that can happen. 

And Sapporo Dome, in Sapporo, Japan, looks like a giant alien mothership that has landed on Earth.  The impression remains when you go inside, with vaulted concourses and bridges crossing overhead to get to your seats.  

I’m hoping to find more interesting funkiness in the parks I visit this season.  

Pandemic Journal Entry - 4/3/22

Here was my entry for this week for UCONN’s Pandemic Journal Project.  You can find the homepage for the project here: https://pandemic-journaling-project.chip.uconn.edu/

Question: How has the coronavirus pandemic affected your life in the past week?  Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

The pandemic seems to be waning.  Things are becoming more normal.  In my area mask restrictions are gone.  You don’t have to wear a mask as long as your fully vaccinated or boosted (which I am), but even if you aren’t there is no provision in the rule change to ask for proof of vaccination.  It’s on the honor system.  

Even so, I’ve noticed a number of people still wearing masks on the street or in the stores.  They stand out, are more prominent than before.  I sometimes wonder if there is the beginning of another surge being talked about in the news.  But when I check, things seem to be proceeding along the same downward path.  

At the store, I saw that the cashier was wearing a mask.  None of the others were.  Something prompted me to ask him why he was still wearing one.  He looked me in the eyes.  A very direct look.  I added quickly that my understanding was that you didn’t have to wear a mask any more.  That it was by choice.  

He said, “Exactly that.  I’m wearing it by choice.”  

I apologized, said that I didn’t mean to be so intrusive, gathered my stuff and left.  

I think that part of me has seen how mask wearing and other features of the rules to slow the spread of the virus become a political choice as well as a health choice.  I obeyed the rules and wore my mask when needed as much to show I supported the measures as to show I wanted no one to worry around me about catching the virus.  This viewpoint made me wonder if still wearing a mask while the rules were becoming more lax had some similar politically based viewpoint behind it.  I think I made a subconscious assumption that there had to be something more than protecting one’s health behind it.  

A sign of how much the pandemic has pushed me from other people and understanding their feelings?  I don’t know.  

Question: Has the pandemic prevented you from living up to your potential in any way?  If so, give an example or two.  

For me, the most prominent personal issue I’ve had to deal with as a result of the pandemic would be more readily described as an exacerbation of an issue I was previously trying to deal with rather than an prevention of living to my potential.  

I have difficulties when it comes to socializing or meeting new people.  I don’t think of myself as an “introvert” per se, though I think others might label me as such.  I am very comfortable dealing with people in structured circumstances, such as work, or in an activity related to a club or “meet-up” I might have joined.  Situations where there is a primary focus to the gathering or the interaction with other people.  A very high percentage of my social interactions have come out of such situations.  Joining a language group to practice Japanese, a language I study, is the primary example.  From weekly get togethers to practice and study with each other, it becomes relatively easy to have more tangental meetings such as having a “movie night” together as a group, or going together to a new ramen restaurant opening up somewhere, or a Japanese cultural festival being held close by.  From these situations, it’s another step to determine if someone there that I’m interested in seeing outside of the group has similar feelings toward me.  

As I write this, I realize that every romantic partner I’ve had over the last 15 years has been someone I’ve met through such club or meet-up activities.  Without exception.  

The COVID pandemic, by eliminating face to face meetings and activities, eliminated my social life.  This is not hyperbole.  The impact has been very real. 

For the purposes of study, online meetings have replaced some of that interaction, but by no means replaces the opportunities lost to meet and get to know someone to that degree.  Indeed, with the ability to meet someone literally half a world a way, it can times underscore the isolation caused by the pandemic.  When you meet someone that you enjoy talking with, that you might even feel some sort of connection and possibility if you could meet them face to face, their location a dozen time zones away turns these feelings into mere fantasies at best.  

Even worse, there is an impetus to the habits I’ve developed over these last couple of years.  I’ve gotten used to making due with the limited channels the pandemic has left me.  I’ve been asked by members of the group I’m a co-organizer for as to when we can start meeting face to face again.  Rather than being excited about the prospect, knowing the benefit it gave me directly, I find myself feeling unsure about trying to set up such activities.  My schedule has been remade to accommodate the online meetings.  There are people that join now that would be cut off from them if I returned to face to face meetings because they live in another country.  And every time I’ve made myself look into the possibility of hosting in person meetings again, another surge has come along to quash the idea.  

When I’m at my most discouraged times, I have the thought that the pandemic only accelerated the eventual time when I’d have to face the rest of my life alone.  

In previous entries, I’ve talked about how, in other parts of my life, the pandemic has been an unexpected benefit.  My situation at work, and by extension my financial situation, are much better than they wore before the pandemic.  But as they say, money doesn’t buy happiness.  And neither does job security.  They can be a foundation for a life, but any life worth living needs more than that.