The next 50 years

I'm watching a video by a woman very much like me who came down with the same disease as me around the same time, and had the same initial treatments.  I sit here scarred and weaker but healthy and building back to fitness.  She is in palliative care and going down with little hope of future.  She's fifteen years my junior but looks older by that.  She won't see my age.  I am so astonished I can still dream of camping and travelling and biking and kayaking and so on.  I still can dream of working for income and living.  I am feeling so deeply moved by this.  And so much love and sorrow for those who aren't so blessed. I wonder, how much of this was my agency and could I teach the world?  I mean, there was some amazing nutrition involved and I know the medical system completely disregards nutrition these days.  They pay lip service to it using the same stupid home ec rules we learned from corporations in the fifties. But they don't actua...

It should not be necessary to like someone for you to get along with them well enough to be in community. For you to help them or be helped by them.  There are some very simple courtesies that allow you to interact with the least amount of irritation in spite of vastly differing opinions and view points. Firstly, you both agree on two solid points:  You will teach each other where your lines are drawn with calm and control. You will not step over a line you have learned exists and you will not feign ignorance of a line you've been taught.  To step over these lines utterly compromises the trust of a relationship that has nothing else on which to build.  We need each other.  Sometimes things go wrong in our lives and we need a community.   If we can't establish even basic trust with each other, how alone are we? I have a neighbor who has steadfastly rejected me in every possible way, not even deigning to a passing nod or acknowlege my existence.  ...