Scene 31 - Tony's Philsophy

*******Scene 31 — Tony’s Philosophy******** 

Tony has a simple philosophy on life.



Three words:
Born,
Live,

Die.
 

It’s what you do with that middle word that makes you who you are.
*************Commentary****************

These words are an exact quote — I took no artistic liberty in adjusting them — and I love everything about them.

These three words are the summary of everyone’s life. 

Life begins when a person is born — into some situation and amid some set of circumstances that do not matter in the initial moment of life— when this first moment happens is a matter of metaphysical quandary and political skullduggery that does not matter for this philosophy —because the pure truth is that for everyone who is alive, there is some moment when life began.  We are born.

And there is some moment when life, as any living person understands it to be, will end.  A time when the energy that inhabits one’s physical form departs.  As with the question of life — discussed above — the question of whether this energy is terminated or travels to the infinite is inconsequential for Tony’s philosophy.  Simply put, the physical form that other people have come to know and is used to interact with the world, ceases to be animate.  We die.

What we are left with — that elongated moment between birth and death — is life.  Longer than the instant of birth or death — microscopically brief in the timeline of the universe and filled with the complete set of actions that is one’s experience.  Most actions are a result of choices, and it this bundle of decisions that becomes the medium through which we define ourselves — the way you can state who you are.

But is a person merely the sum of his or her actions?  Can we not harbor something inside that is not displayed to the world?  What if there is a secret self that no-one knows about?  Might this “secret self” be a better representation of the true character of a person? 

According to Tony’s philosophy — No.  It is our actions that define who we are.  It is what we do while we live that defines our character.  Secret impulses or an inner character do not matter — if we harbor any such inner motives — good or bad — as long as we do not behave in a way that displays these beliefs, they do not effect the empirical world.

Notice — above — that I used the words “most (added emphasis) actions are a result of choices”.  As a survivor, one of our actions is that we have survived, but we did not choose this action.  Our injury may have occurred because of choices we made, but in the moment when it happened we simply did it — we survived — yet that action has become a part of our definition in the world — I am a survivor — but the definition does not stop there.  Life continues to be filled with infinite possibility after brain injury — granted, it is probably a different set of infinite possibilities than existed before the injury, but the set is still infinite.  Therefore, there is an infinite number of ways to define one’s self.

We make choices, affected by our trauma, but these are still choices.  Questions you can ask yourself — “Do I want to dwell in what I have lost or discover what I have gained?”  “How can I learn from the new challenges that face me?”  “How much do I want to incorporate my trauma into my professional or social life?”  And the list continues — you just need to find the questions that bring the focus to how you want to define yourself.

One  note about the above list — notice, that I do not include the question, “Will I let this trauma affect me?”  This is a ridiculous question.  Yes, the trauma will affect you.  It is an action that you were a part of, and therefore is part of the definition of you, but it is NOT the WHOLE of your definition — you decide how much you want to display this part of yourself.  Accept that actions of the the past will affect you — and decide how your present actions will define you for the future.

As an inspirational storyteller, I have made a decision to incorporate my accident into my professional life — I believe I can help people through my talents in speaking, writing, and leading workshops.  You are welcome to make the same decision, or you may want to be less verbose about your trauma.  The right decision is what feels best to you — just be sure that it is your decision.

We have been given a chance to live — some say that by being a survivor, we have been given a second chance to live.  One day, we will die — but not today.  We cannot pick every action in our life, but we can decide how we define ourselves.

We decide - Who Am I, Again?