Unraveling Chaos

unraveling the chaos that are my thoughts

Paul Kalanithi’s “When Breath Becomes Air”

“I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything” (189).

Paul Kalanithi

“Death may be a one-time event, but living with terminal illness is a process” (228).

Paul Kalanithi

Paul Kalanithi wrote When Breath Becomes Air towards the end of his life. He tried to finish as much as he could but he died before it was even published. Death is a part of life. Yet it can come at any point because it is uncertain how and when it would happen. The only certain part of it is that it will happen. 

There is a thin line between life and death. When a person is born, one thing is certain, one day they will die. It is the cycle of life; with life comes death. 

Life is full of uncertainties. But when one knows that they are going to die soon, it is as if life stands still. “And with that, the future I had imagined, the one just about to be realized, the culmination of decades of striving evaporated” (39). Time stops and everything that was planned changes. Life is unpredictable and not always goes according to plan. Someone can have everything planned out, and then all of a sudden, something happens, and everything changes.

Growing up, Paul never wanted to be a doctor. He had first-hand experience of what life would be like. Yet that goes to show that people change. Nothing is set in stone. People grow and change. 

Paul’s loved literature growing up. He looked to literature when he needed answers.

T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land resonated profoundly, relating meaninglessness and isolation, and the desperate quest for human connection….Nabokov, for his awareness of how our suffering can make us callous to the obvious suffering of another….Conrad, for his hypertuned sense of how miscommunication between people can so profoundly impact their lives. (57)

Literature holds knowledge. The more a person reads, the more they know. It helps provide different perspectives. “Literature not only illuminated another’s experience, it provided, I believed, the richest material for moral reflection” (57-58). Not everyone has the same outlook. But knowing how a person thinks helps you understand them more.

When Paul thought that he could no longer go anywhere with literature, he turned to science. “Medical school sharpened my understanding of the relationship between meaning, life, and death” (84). He always looked for the meaning of life. Medical school was no exception. He was able to find some of his answers there. “I had started in this career, in part, to pursue death: to grasp it, uncloak it, and see it eye-to-eye, unblinking” (124). “Neurosurgery attracted me as much for its intertwining of brain and consciousness as for its intertwining of life and death” (124). 

Life is not just about learning but also practicing. “It was becoming clear that learning to be a doctor in practice was going to be a very different education from being a medical student in the classroom” (100-101). Experiencing and learning are two different things. One can learn all they want, but they would not know everything until they put it all into practice.

Paul was a neurosurgeon resident until he was a cancer patient. “It occurred to me that my relationship with statistics changed as soon as I became one” (192). “Once I had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, I began to view the world through two perspectives; I was starting to see death as both doctor and patient” (198). Once the line between doctor and patient is crossed, everything changes. “How little do doctors understand the hells through which we put patients” (152). “As a doctor, you have a sense of what it’s like to be sick, but until you’ve gone through it yourself, you don’t really know” (200). Having the knowledge and actually experiencing it are two completely different things.

Severe illness wasn’t life-altering, it was life-shattering. It felt less like an epiphany—a piercing burst of light, illuminating What Really Matters—and more like someone had just firebombed the path forward. (173)

Paul Kalanithi

When Paul knew that his time was running out, he turned back to literature. He always knew that he wanted to write a book. Although he never was able to see the final product, he finished what he could.

Torn between being a doctor and being a patient, delving into medical science and turning back to literature for answers, I struggled, while facing my own death, to rebuild my old life—or perhaps find a new one. (199)

Knowing that he was running out of time, he did not complete all that he wanted. But he was able to complete as much of his plans as he could.

And so it was literature that brought me back to life during this time. The monolithic uncertainty of my future was deadening; everywhere I turned, the shadow of death obscured the meaning of any action. (212)

Literature was always there for him. When he couldn’t find the answers, he could in literature. Even at the end of his life, he was able to turn to literature. 

Time is never certain. Nobody knows how much time they have. “Part of the cruelty of cancer, though, is not only that it limits your time; it also limits your energy, vastly reducing the amount you can squeeze into a day” (276). Paul was never able to finish writing. He did the best he could to finish as much as he could. His wife, Lucy, wrote in the epilogue that “this book carried the urgency of racing against time, of having important things to say” (299). “He wanted to help people understand death and face their morality” (299).

Elaine Welteroth’s “More Than Enough”

“You have done enough. You are enough. You were born enough.”

Elaine Welteroth

There are no such things as coincidences. But rather signs and what is meant to be, will be. Or that is what I believe at the very least.

Elaine Welteroth’s More Than Enough was a case of right timing for me. We are now living in uncertain times with everything going with the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only that, but the uncertainty of the future when one is about to finish their last semester of school. After being in school for so long, it is no longer there as a crutch. It is time to face the “real” world. 

Before or after every chapter, however you would look at it, there is a quote from the chapter. Coming from a person who loves quotes, it appealed to me. If I could fill a place with quotes I love, I would. Not only that, but the book itself is full of wisdom that anyone can take from. Anyone could read it and get something they never knew they even needed from it. 

Ava Duvernay had written the foreword. Introducing the More Than Enough, she has some advice of her own that is in line with that of Elaine’s. “Nothing bad ever happens to me. It’s all to learn and grow” (ix). Life is full of lessons. The point is to take those lessons, learn from them and grow as a person. “We allow the expectations of others to shape our own expectations” (x). Expectations are tricky things. The hardest critic is oneself. But the foundation of those expectations comes from the expectations of others. One would just take what others expect of them and amplify it and take it on as their own. 

People thrive for perfection. But the truth is, there is no such thing as perfection. There is just being the best version of oneself. As long as we try to be the best we can be, that is enough. “We spend too much time hearing and telling ourselves we are not enough” (xvi). Because the idea of perfection, there is the mindset that we are not enough. 

Before the doubt, each person was a black canvas.
We are all born with a sense of possibility and limitlessness. This is before the labels are placed upon us, those social stratifications of race, gender, sexuality, and status that start to shape our idea of who we are and that often erode their dreams of what we can become. (3)
There were possibilities before society took that away with the notion of perfectionism. The sky was the limit. Maybe the idea of ‘ignorance is bliss’ is a blessing in disguise. Children are naive until they aren’t. As one grows up, innocence is shed away. The reality and harsh world would interfere and people have to face the world without the rose-tinted glasses.  

Each person’s story is not their own, but intertwined with another’s. “We went through what we went through so that you could live” (4). Each person is living because of the sacrifices of someone else. A parent always wants what is best for their children. This is a universal thing. They would do whatever they can, no matter the consequences. The hope is for a better life, better than theirs ever was. 

Pain can change a person. When something bad happens, it impacts a person a certain way. “Sometimes the things that hurt the most propel you the farthest” (34). Take the bad and turn it into something good. The pain helps shape a person into someone better than they were before, if they learn and grow from it. 

A person’s identity is important. It defines who they are. Not only that, it could be how someone sees you or even how you want someone to see you. “To be mixed race in America is to exist in a constant state of in-between. You have access to two worlds and are expected to be fluent in both, yet you never fully belong to either one” (64). Uncertainty/limbo, is always a difficult place. Not knowing who you yourself leads to an identity crisis. You would always be wondering ‘who am I?’ Being in-between, and never being able to fit in one place or another. A person can never just be one thing. It is more complex than that. They are many things combined.

Fear is more powerful than anyone ever realizes.
I realized that if we aren’t vigilant, we can move through our entire lives feeling smaller than we actually are—by playing it safe, by unconsciously giving away our power, by dimming our radiance, by not recognizing there is always so much more waiting for us on the other side of fear. (117)
Fear is what stops a lot of people from doing anything. But what some people do not realize is that once they conquer their fears, there are better things on the other side. Nothing of worth is always easy. One must take risks. Whether the risks are good or bad, they tend to be worth it. If not in the short-term, then they are at least in the long-term.

Relationships are important. Not only relationships with others, but the relationship with oneself as well.
What I know now is that when we derive our worth from the relationships in our lives—the intimate ones, the social circles we belong to, the companies we work for—we give away our power and become dependent upon external validation. When that is taken away, our sense of value, and identity, goes with it. (168)
Take value in relationships, but do not let that be the only thing that defines you. You yourself is what is important. Things hold power only if you let it.

In the end, you are worth more than you even realize.  

My Architect

Going into watching My Architect, I didn’t know anything about the documentary. I went into it blindly. I saw some things from the summary, but I tried not to let that influence my experience of watching it for the first time. Normally, I would watch something with captions, just in case I would miss something. Watching this documentary without captions was difficult for me. It took longer than it should since I rewatched some parts multiple times.

There were moments throughout this film that spoke to me. And reading Rocio G. Davis’s article, “Documentary Constructions of Filial Memory in Nathaniel’s Kahn’s My Architect and Nicolas Entel’s My Father, Pablo Escobar” finding some of those quotes there meant that it spoke to other people as well.

Louis I. Kahn had believed that “how accidentally our existences are really and how full of influences by circumstances” (12:42-12:54). It was so important that it was mentioned twice. People are products of circumstances. We may be able to work for what we want, but certain things impact it, in order for it to happen. Everything is a chain reaction and a domino effect. One thing happen and it leads to something else and it continues.

One person’s life could impact so many people. Lou was a complex person. There was Lou as an architect and Lou as a person. It’s a battle between private versus public life. Even people that claimed that they were friends with Lou and were close with him, didn’t know everything about him. People only knew what he wanted them to know about him.

One of his colleagues had said that, “he was an incredible man that we all supported and forgave for a lot of things because of what he was doing” (25:41-25:48). Genius and madness tends to go hand-in-hand. With one, the other would follow in some form or another. Lou was an artist with architecture. He had the ideas, but getting there may not always be smooth sailing.

Secrets have a way of coming out. Especially when someone is dead. People know more about a person when they are dead than when they are alive. Yet the person is unable to defend themselves since they aren’t there. His work was his life.

He always said that work was the most important thing. That you cannot depend on human relations. That really work was the only thing that you can count on. 

(36:41-36:51)

Lou’s main priority in his life was his work. It did not mean that his relationships did not matter. But that his work was above everything else. Which is probably why his two mistresses were someone that he worked with on projects. They both were single mothers in a time when being a single mother was taboo. Yet with their love for him, they never married and raised his children. They both did not resent him, and have such love for him and understood why he couldn’t be with them, no matter how warped it was.

Kahn had a life with his wife and daughter Sue Ann that people know about and his two other mistresses; Ann and his daughter, Alex, and Harriet and his son Nathaniel, that no one really knew about. People didn’t either know that he was married or that he had three families. Lou was such a mystery, but that was the allure about him.

When Nathaniel had interviewed Ann, this is what she believed, that “in spite of everything, Ann has always felt that we’re all connected. And that we are in some strange way, a family” (42:06-42:13). No matter what happens, they were still a family despite everything because of their circumstances. They all lived near one another and had crossed paths one time or another.
It makes Nathaniel “wonder if Lou thought of it that way. Or was each relationship an entirely new beginning?” (42:14-42:20). People really don’t know what Lou thinks since he never shared.

Lou was a nomad through and through. “There was this sense of a nomad in him. As tragic as his death was in a railway station. It was so consistent with his life, you know” (1:19:17-1:19:28). Even his death match with his life. It showed that he was always wandering without a set destination. He crossed out his address on his passport, as if he really never had a home. “Maybe he never felt settled anywhere. He was a wanderer from the beginning” (1:20:28-1:20:33). This was not something new. This was Lou from the very beginning. When his family moved to America, they had moved around 17 times. He was constantly moving around.

The only constant in Lou’s life was his wife Esther. They were together from when he was 28 until he died. I don’t know if he thought of her house as home. But it was certainly his base.

(1:20:52-1:21:05)

Esther was always there for him despite everything. Even when he cheated on her, not once but twice. At some point, she was probably aware of it. It wasn’t as if she was clueless throughout. Lou always comes back to her. She was probably his normal, even when he strayed from her. Considering she tried to convince his mistresses and their children not to come to Lou’s funeral because she didn’t want them there. They went anyway regardless of her wishes, because even though Lou belonged her, he belonged to them too.

We’re a family through choice. If we care about each other, it’s because we decide to. Not because we happen to be related through some fluke of a father that had these children.

(1:26:29-1:26:44)

In the end, everyone found out about one another. They chose to consider each other as family despite everything. They weren’t at fault. It was Lou and he was no longer there to own up to his actions. Esther was the only one in the “family” that was opposed, but she was no longer alive to have a say. Family is not only those by blood, but it could also be those that we choose.

Lou was a myth to Nathaniel. He was there in Nathaniel’s life, yet he also wasn’t at the same time. Since Lou passed when Nathaniel was so young, it is difficult especially since he was in and out of his life. Nathaniel “always believed that in the end, you chosen my mother and me. That was the myth I lived on. But you didn’t really choose any of us, did you?” (1:27:27-1:27:37).

No one really know where Lou was headed when he died. And no one will know. The only person that knows, is gone. So everything is up to interpretation.

Lou had good intentions, but it may not always seem that way.

He had enormous amount of love. He loved everybody. To love everybody, sometimes do not see the very closest ones. And that is inevitable for men of his stature. 

(1:48:40-1:48:56)

Since his focus was on his work, his relationships were not the best. His children, wife, and mistresses did not get what they want from him since he had given that part of himself elsewhere. He gives them whatever he could, but that is not enough. When a person gives so much, there are times when there is not enough left to give.

Nathaniel closed out the documentary by saying:

On this journey, my father became real to me. A man, not a myth. Now that I know him a little better, I miss him more than ever. And I really wished things had been different. But he chose the life that he wanted. It’s hard to let go. But after all these years, I think I have found the right time and place to say goodbye. 

(1:50:08-1:50:34)

He was able to get some sort of closure about his father. It may not be the one he had intended, but there was still some sort of closure at the end of it. Nathaniel was able to find himself by finding out more about Lou. Since Lou died when Nathaniel was only 11 years old, he couldn’t do anything then, but he was able to do something now, or at least the now of when he had made the documentary.

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