Scene 32 - Any Wish at All

******Scene 32 - Any Wish at All***********

Larry tell me, that if he could have any wish in the world…

Any wish at all…well…I don’t know what I would wish for,
but one thing I wouldn’t wish,
I wouldn’t wish that my accident Didn’t happen.

I’m not saying I’m glad my accident happened,
that I think anyone should Want for it to happen,
I mean, its been hard,
Real hard…
but,
well, I met everyone I know now because of my accident,
my recovery and all that,
and I’ve done a lot of cool things, and…
well, my accident has kinda made me who I am today.
and I’m okay with that.

***********Commentary*******************

If I could have any wish — any wish at all…

It took me some time to get used to this story.

Prior to this interview, I had wished countless times that my accident never happened — that I could return to the way things were before the accident — or at least to see what would have happened if I had continued down that road.  I liked to imagine that life would have been perfect — or at least a lot easier and more rewarding than it was.

So what would have happened?

I’m going to play a game and take a look at possible — even likely — consequences in just one part of my life had my accident not occurred.  After this, I will discuss how my specific example applies to the larger picture of recovery.

Let’s look at school — finishing high school and applying to university would have been a hell of a lot easier — that’s for certain — clearly one benefit of not having the accident.  I would have graduated high school — possibly with honors — and continued to apply to dozens of schools recognized for their program in theatre performance — my desired field of study. 

Or maybe I wouldn’t have had honors when I graduated — I was a bit lazy in high school and did not always (ever) fully apply myself to my academics, so maybe I would have passed with good grades, but not with academic honors.

But as for the application process for university — surely I would have had success in at least one application for New York University, or Carnegie Mellon, or Northwestern…though, I recognize that I did have my sights set on some prestigious universities, and while my theatrical talent was recognized in small town Pennsylvania, on a national stage my artistic flair may have become lost… so I might need to settle for study at a “backup school” — still good, but not the same level of theatrical prestige.  But at least I wouldn’t be studying theatre at a Bloomsburg University with my father as a professor of theatre — I would have felt I had more freedom to explore my art and fully immerse myself in the theatre arts program…

Which means I would never have studied Philosophy, at least not with the same team of professors that I came to know, enjoy, and deeply respect — I would not have discovered my deep appreciation for philosophy of the mind.  Furthermore, I probably would have aimed to follow a somewhat more traditional artistic path for actors — moved to a city and become involved with a performance group — and never discovered storytelling as a professional art form, nor attended East Tennessee State University for a graduate degree in Storytelling.  And if I was living in a city and even moderately successful (able to pay for food and rent most months) as an actor, I may have never thought of teaching English abroad and never traveled outside the United States — at least not with the same sort of cultural immersion — and that means I probably would have never met the woman who I plan to marry…

And that is looking at just one consequence of not having had brain trauma.  Had I not had my accident, my life would have been very different, and many of the events that I was a part of would not have happened — at least not in the same way.

Take a variation on the idea of “The Butterfly Effect” (from chaos theory, not the movie).  This is the idea that any one small change can lead to infinite, unknown variations in the future — if a butterfly flaps in wings in China, it could start a cascade of effects that leads to a tornado in Iowa. 

Apply that to life’s timeline — if any part of your life had been different than it is, you would be living a different life.

The world will pile on pleasures and torments in abundance — and many times, a pleasure will somehow be a result of a torment, or vice versa — it is impossible to know what the complete set of effects will be from any one event.  Similarly, the complete set of causes for your current situation cannot be fully deciphered.  What you can know is that you are Here, Now — with every joy and sorrow that entails.  Surely there are parts of your life that have caused great pain — as you are reading this blog, you likely have some involvement with brain injury — and there may be times you look back on and curse the decisions you made, but everyone of these events — joyful, tragic, chosen or otherwise — has brought you to your current situation and will be part of that which creates what is next.

You are alive, and you can make the decision to enjoy it.

In the scene above, Larry accepts his situation — acknowledges the difficulties, but also appreciates the pleasures.  He acknowledges that he is alive — he has done a lot of interesting things — he has met a lot of good people — and he is glad all those things are a part of his timeline.  He has decided to be grateful for his situation.

What’s your decision?

This is your moment — how you accept it is up to you.