Monday, July 5, 2010

Dichotomy

I was reading a book awhile back (granted MANY people have read this book as of late, as I do believe it's being made into a movie currently. still...this was bout 3 years ago). A part of the book the characters were discussing that everything: every being, every entity, every object, every city, every genre, culture, and individual has A Word. One word that in an overall average or medium...most accurately embodies that thing.

I'd say, for instance, Chicago, as a city...it's word could be "VARIETY" OR "PLENTITUDE". If you want something, chances are good you'll have ALOT of options for that thing in Chicago. I think it must almost be a subliminal bit of pride in some of us born Chicagoans knowing that we have so many choices.

But my word?? I'm sure at any given point in my life, my "word" could and has changed. We're transient beings, after all, right? And who more to be transient than my airy gemini as I am? (not that I could claim to really know so much about astrology. But i digress...)

So. My word? I think, at this very moment in my life, I am going with "DICHOTOMY"
A Dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts.
I have such a capacity for love, peace and serenity in me. A massive capacity for it, actually. It's difficult to reach that place, but it exists within me.

And at the very same rate, I have an immense capacity for spite, rage and seething anger. It's easier to reach, of course, as it always goes.

The path towards both of these places, within me, are vastly different. Obviously. But each require much the same amount of effort, regardless of how different the path is.
I can't say it's more fun to pursue peace, love and all that fuzzy warmness, anymore than it is to drift chaotically into hate, rage and blazing iciness.

Each path leads me to places that have different names. Different physical locations within myself, and different atmospheres surrounding them. Except with the common theme of ultimately just being a place in which I am alone. Utterly alone with myself.


Ssssoooo...your word is?

30 comments:

  1. Hi Becca - so glad you are back! I have missed your blogging.

    I think the word that describes me at the moment is tattered - but I am doing my best to make it mended

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  2. I have been reading said book also lately and now not in that part but I woke up this morning with a word stuck on my brain. Granted it's not a real word...one I had to go to an pseudodictionary to find. Yet Google is my bud once again.

    The word was : perpetulant - chronically pissed-off; permanently peevish.

    Yeah...bout sums it up. I'll find peace and fluffy thoughts later but right now that works.

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  3. I've been thinking a lot lately about seeking the approval of other people. I want to stop but it's an old, hard habit to break. This gem is working for me: It's not my business what other people think of me. Somehow I've been able - each time I worry about what someone else is thinking - to say "it's none of my business". So that's my word: Itsnoneofmybusiness!

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  4. The German philosopher GFW Hegel spoke of a term that's overused and misused a lot, but it might be more apt in your case: "dialectic." It suggests that things are fraught with internal contradictions ("theses" and "antitheses") from which emerge a new and different synthesis. Maybe the Becca we know is a transcendence ("aufhebung") of conflicting serenity and rage.

    Or maybe you're a walking paradox. ;)

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  5. For some reason today of all days I've felt like I've been living someone else's life. Kind of hard to explain, but when I talk to my new coworkers, I tell them about me and what my life has been like, and it all seems like a non-fiction storyline. Not too sure why, considering everything that I've been telling people is all true. But for some reason it just doesn't seem real. Like, am I really supposed to be working my dream job? Do I really have an awesome boyfriend? Is my family really starting to understand and appreciate who I am? So, I'm going to say my word for right now is:

    Allegory: a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of of another.

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  6. For some reason today of all days I've felt like I've been living someone else's life. Kind of hard to explain, but when I talk to my new coworkers, I tell them about me and what my life has been like, and it all seems like a non-fiction storyline. Not too sure why, considering everything that I've been telling people is all true. But for some reason it just doesn't seem real. Like, am I really supposed to be working my dream job? Do I really have an awesome boyfriend? Is my family really starting to understand and appreciate who I am? So, I'm going to say my word for right now is:

    Allegory: a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of of another.

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  7. Read your blog a while ago and thought I'd check in again and see if you'd carked it yet! Really can't believe you're still dragging everything out with chemo. Seriously - is it worth it???

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  8. oh yessir, you know why its worth it? So I can keep stealing precious amounts of your time just spent on my blog that you'll never get back, sucker.

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  9. word? "anonymousisapusfilledboil"

    okay - that made me feel much mo' better!

    becca - you're a gemini, right? dichotomy is very appropriate.

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  10. heheh, Kathy, Yep you called it. Gemini.

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  11. Just checked the blog to see how you are doing. I hope you are winning the chemo battle! Take care...

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  12. to becca and others with cancer-i'll bet none of your doctors ever told you how to fight cancer with food. no chemo, rad, or other drugs are needed. please consider contacting me. i teach my patients how to prevent/reverse cancer and other chronic diseases and think i can be of benefit to you and your family. 775 223 8260 dr.gbh

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  13. Beccalicious.
    Just checkin' in again to make sure you're still sassy. I can't believe you're still sassy.
    I'm also sassy, lets have a sassy party!

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  14. Compassionate. Passion with committment!

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  15. Colon cancer is treated with painkillers such as hydrocodone, vicodin, and that doctors prescribe to control the pain of the disease and even dangerous because of side effects are best react to the pain that causes the disease.

    Kim Kardashian
    Findrxonline

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  16. it has been 4 months. update please!

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  17. Hope you are well, miss your blog

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  18. You posted this on my birthday, ways way back.. Recently when I was sick, I was reminded how connected my mind is with me coughing. If I have a certain thought or am untruthful in anyway or too absolute about things, when I'm sick, many times I noticed this directly connected to me starting to cough. I've done a study many times with myself, that when I sit with myself, alone, and watch my breathing, isolate it, while drinking green tea, my coughing stops. It starts up again when I stop meditating. Its super easy habitually to be negative while I'm sick and it takes a lot of effort to get on a cushion to meditate, but it helps me get better if I make the effort. So in all honesty, I question this logic of it taking equal effort to go down the path of love/hate on the basis that we do not live in a meditative society and most people habitually have learned (including myself) to not live in a meditative state. Constant meditation in a community which constantly inspires you to meditate, all day, every day is what i prescribe for you from the brief evidence I discovered within myself. Maybe it can help you get better, its worth a try.

    -V

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  19. Dichotomy is now a serious word for discussion..

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  20. Has anyone heard from Becca? Is she ok?

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  21. Weird paulaboub - I was just thinking the very same thing. Anyone have any information?

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  22. Yo guys...i'm here. I suppose i could be described as being "ok". heh.
    i haven't posted anything cuz...well...for as much as i have to say (which is still a SHITload...pun intended) i just am way too bitter/angry at the time to really do much but bitch and whine. and i kinda don't want to just be bitching and whining all the time.
    i debated for a bit whether i even care to keep this blog up at all really. still haven't decided the outcome of that internal debate.
    but, for the record, i'm still here, as of april 2011. heh.
    i'm still fighting the same damn reoccurance from 2008. in fact, in a couple days i'm going for a consult at Mayo clinic to see if they have any miracles up their sleeves.
    its rough though. lots of weird bizarre complications have hit me that doctors just dont know what to do with. and frankly, i'm tired...no, exhausted with it all. constant fight. and i'm just at my wits end with it all.
    but, again, who knows.
    thanks for checkin' in on me guys...just may motivate me to post more entries now. again, lord knows i have enough to say. heh.

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  23. Thank you for the blurb at least. Was thinking about you and your battle.

    Keep fighting- and bitching- and whining.
    It's REAL. Cancer is no fucking joyride.

    Best wishes to you

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  24. I am SO glad you checked in!!! I have been thinking about you since.... last summer!!! You are such an inspiration to me. And you know what, if we didn't want to read your bitchen we wouldn't check your blog! :)
    Sarah

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  25. Yeah - what Rachel and sarah said. You do bitching and whining better than anyone. It's always entertaining given what you're going through. I KNOW it's not entertaining for you. But I'm so glad you're still hanging around and fighting.

    Biggest hugs and kisses to you - kathy

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  26. Becca - just letting you know that I check here every once in a while to see how you are doing. You are inspiring. I'm sending you lots of positive, healing thoughts and energy. I hope that you are well or as well as can be.

    - Alena

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  27. Becca,

    So glad to find your April 2011 comment. Hopefully, you will come back writing someday because your words are very valuable to many of us.

    Megan
    jpouch.net

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  28. Hi Becca,
    My name is Liz and I have been checking your blog from time to time. I have not seen any new posts from you in a while, I hope that you are doing well.
    That said, since your blog is a great resource for someone going through cancer I wanted to reach out to you to see if you were interested in a new online social support network (that I am the community manager of!) called I Had Cancer. It is a new and free social support network focused on connecting people based on experiences with cancer so that they can easily communicate with one another and share information. I would love to tell you more if you are interested, so please let me know! Because I was so struck by your writing I would love to send you an early-access pass with extra invites for others you may know going through this journey.

    Either way, thank you so much for your writing. Take care and best regards.
    -Liz@ihadcancer.com - IF anyone would like information on I Had Cancer please email me.

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  29. Hey Rebecca, This is Luz, from Gilda's Club in Chicago. You may not remember me and, if you do, I was a stage III B Breast Cancer case with a really shitty prognosis, so not anybody's favorite ; ) At any rate, I was forever impressed by all of you, very young cancer patients, and in particular by you and what were at the time daily fights with the temperature of liquids and the consistency and ingredients of sandwiches. I have kept tabs on you across country - I'm in CA now. Please, write if you can. I miss you, I care about you, and so do many others. We don't seek to be entertained, we would like to know how you're doing.
    xoxo
    Luz

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    ReplyDelete