Bargaining with reality?

After a night out on the beer, I loved popping into the local kebab shop and indulging an appetite. Same with delicious minty lamb kebabs on the barbecue. Oo, and what's nicer than a couple of blobs of St Augur on the sweet potato bake, or with a fine glass of port? And you could keep that M&S 'not just 'chocolate pudding. My hankering was the specially selected mince pies. Wolfing everything in sight was just something I loved to do. Live for today was the motto.

The story has it that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, the most important thing in his life. What had I to sacrifice? Is the meaning of sacrifice ...the delay of gratification?

I wasn't in a position where I could bargain with reality. 

There's a commonly misused term these days, that one has two choices. I had two options from which to make one choice.

The first was an option of an extended period of toxic chemo misery, which after one session had already robbed my capacity of hearing, came with future effects uncertain, and may have resulted in cure, but more probably in a temporary relief. Some might say that's an easy option. It's all done for you. You don't have to think or do any research. No sacrifice necessary. "Keep taking the tablets." But isn't that a product of our education?

"What do you know anyway? Let the experts look after your body. They've spent many years learning this kind of stuff. They're not sure if it will work, can't guarantee anything, but rest assured that they will do their very best."

The other option is sacrifice. It's a life changer, perhaps no option at all if you live to eat, rather than eat to live. Many can't step up to the challenge.  Maybe it was easier for me because of a childhood where we really did eat to live. Nowadays it would be called living in poverty, without running water or electricity. For me, it was simply my life. But a tough childhood carries with it an air of pragmatism.

Marshalling all our resources against the habits of a lifetime is what we do every New Year with new resolution. But it's rebelling against a bad government, and a sustained reform is important in order to produce the change that the body is crying out for. The sacrifice is of all those little pleasures that I thought I enjoyed, but which were just contributing to its morbidity.

And when you succeed,

you start seeing through the illusion.

The fabric of our synthetic life ...

There is a crack in everything ... that's how the light gets in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wRYjtvIYK0