Christopher Aiff, Augustus Waters, and the Great Wide World of Happiness

There's this channel on YouTube called SoulPancake. It's a wonderful channel really, but they have so much content all the time that I don't always watch all of it. However, I decided to go and catch up on some things.

SoulPancake has a lot of different "sub-shows." One of them is My Last Days, which seems to be about people with terminal diseases, mainly different kinds of cancer. And this is when, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present unto you all: Christopher Aiff.

Christopher has Osteosarcoma in his leg, just like Augustus from TFiOS. He doesn't (seem to) have a prosthesis, but he does have a scar. And he is one of the most inspiring people I've ever met.

You should watch the video, but basically, he was going through chemotherapy and just before the final treatment, he decided he didn't want to do it anymore. His family supported his decision, and at the time this video was filmed, he had six months and two days left to live.

What I really love about Christopher is 1. his charisma and 2. his happiness with the situation. Honestly, one of the best quotes from the video is:

"The decision to be positive is not one that disregards or belittles the sadness that exists. It is rather a conscious choice to focus on the good and to cultivate happiness...for happiness is not a limited resource."

Maybe "happiness" isn't quite the right word. He says himself that he would still be grateful for more time if the world were willing to allow it. But he does not moan or mope. In fact, he says -

"...when we devote our energy and time to trivial matters and choose to stress over things that ultimately are insignificant, from that point we perpetuate our own sadness, and we lose sight of the things that really make us happy, and rationalize our way out of doing amazing things."

The dying are often the most content with their situation, simply because they must be. I am quite sure that I don't realize how much I have. I am, when I try to see it, among the more fortunate people on this earth.

Ultimately, Christopher says:

"I want to be remembered as someone who did their best."

And who am I to want for more? I want so much. I focus on how I'm not good enough, and maybe sometimes that's a good thing. I live through my learning, yes. But I don't only live through toil. I live through music and art and writing and so many other things too. It is true that I am not dying, but then again everyone is dying. We are all dying, as Hazel took care to tell us. But that doesn't mean we're not living.

Metaphors

When I read The Fault in Our Stars, I thought at first that Augustus was a bit crazy, doing things for their metaphorical resonances.

But lately I've found that I think of almost everything as a metaphor. Rain. Flowers. Light. Wind. Even a fly that was buzzing relentlessly about the room.

And really, like John Green said, many of the things we do have metaphorical meanings. Sports, for example, or any kind of winning or losing situation that makes someone come out on top. It's a way to justify our views of who's better or worse than anyone else.

Trains and stars are probably my favorite metaphors. Trains are always moving; they never stay in one place, and stars connect us all.

To me, that's beautiful.

Alive

I've been reading Fahrenheit 451, party due to the urging of my friend and partly due to the Nerdfighter Book Club.

I like it and it's rather amazing.

This video is the first in a series in which John and Hank Green, aka the vlogbrothers, discuss the book and its meanings. I would discourage you from watching it if you've not read the book yet but it's not entirely spoilerific.

Anyways...in the video, John asks us what makes us feel alive. Now, I don't have a YouTube account so I can't exactly comment but I figured it would make a worthy enough blog post.

I feel alive when I feel I am doing something meaningful.

Sometimes I'll be doing the same thing at different times but at one time I'll feel like it's meaningful and at the other I'll feel it's pointless.

I feel alive when I spout random facts. I feel alive when I learn those facts. I feel alive when I write things I feel are worthy, or something that I feel will not end up as total crap. I feel alive when I walk outside and watch the world and suddenly I have the amazing feeling of something eagerly writing itself in my head. I feel alive in the hours I spend in libraries, searching, always, for more. I feel alive when I watch things I like on the internet. I feel alive when I see something that someone else is proud to have created  to show to all the other living people. I feel alive when I read, especially in that time at the end of the book when you are feeling emotionally over-capacitated but blissfully aware of the world, moving and changing. I feel alive when I make art. I feel alive when I am aware of everything inside me, pumping blood and handling food and my brain creating spurts of electricity as neurons communicate with each other. I feel alive when suddenly I can see in my mind the infinite wound ball of connections that the world is, when things seem just as they should be and yet could always be better.

I feel alive.

"I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend."

Change

Right, so.

I was reading some of my old blog posts and I can just feel how much I've changed. Yeah, I knew it would happen back then, but it's kind of wonderful to see now.

Six months ago a change like this might have made me sad. But today? Oh, no. I'm at the top of the world and yet it can only go up from here.

Because I'm not depressed and I learned to cartwheel and I had recess and I started liking the theater and people tell me I look like I'm from Tel Aviv and I know how to get around here and I have amazing new friends and they're very very sad I'm leaving and I started liking myself and I let myself branch out and I finished three notebooks and I learned to do a handstand and I can cope with a high school and I am crazy and I'm fine with the messed-up world and I have CHANGED within.

This doesn't mean I might not be crying when I get back, no it doesn't. I can still be sad. But I'm happy I had this opportunity. I am very, very glad.

"I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend."

~ Augustus Waters

I love the world.

Quotes

"It's reminding people what friendship should really feel like, which is inconvenient, and annoying, and a bit of a pain in the arse."

~ Alex Day

"In real life, people are rude! People are shit!"

~ Alex Day

"In our hyper-secular world, worship is still inevitable. But it's vital to remember that our gods don't choose us. We choose them."

~ John Green

"I'm being extremely clever up here and there's no one to stand around looking impressed! What's the point in having you all?"

~ The Doctor

"The universe is big, it's vast and complicated and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles."

~ The Doctor

"Forever is composed of nows."

~ Emily Dickinson

"Some infinities are bigger than other infinities."

~ Hazel Grace Lancaster

"It makes good times even better when you know they are going to end."

~ Violet

"You can love someone so much, he thought. But you can never love someone as much as miss them."

~ Colin Singleton

"We're invisible. I've never been here with someone else. It's different being invisible with someone."

~ Lindsey Lee Wells

"What a treacherous thing it is to believe that a person is more than a person."

~ Q Jacobsen

This is what I do in the times when I don't know who I am: I look for quotes. Because I am the quotes and the quotes are me. "I'm not a complex person, wind me up and watch me go" ~ "Don't Look Back" by Alex Day