Falling Apart

Introduction

I often write things about mortality and my eventual demise, although this is not a downer piece. I have a fear of repeating myself and found this previous piece on Vocal, which was rejigged from a Seven Days In post from 2017:

Thi sis inspired by my confirmation certificate from May 1964 that my sister gave me on Thursday, 20th August 2026, when we were celebrating her birthday (which is today).

We had to choose our own confirmation names, and there were four of us, and we had to choose saints' names, but we went for the Beatles' names. I chose George, as he was a proper guitarist, but not sure who chose Ringo, though he may have gone with Richard.

You are probably aware that despite a Catholic primary school education and being taught at a Jesuit Grammar school, I am an atheist, although many of the priests were great to get on with and sensible in their attitude, as well as being excellent teachers.

So Falling Apart?

The fact that I was six years old when I got that certificate means that sixty-one years have elapsed since I got it. I know lots of people complain about getting older, but I am not too enamoured with the alternative.

There were some pieces on that situation; in my mind I am still fifteen:

The falling apart comes from a piece in the Bill Bryson book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" where he explains how cancer functions.

Cancer is an internal malady, caused by cells in the body turning on us. Cancer cells have six attributes that Bryson lists: dividing without limit, growing without direction or outside influence, tricking the body into giving them a blood supply, disregarding any signals to stop growing, not succumbing to programmed cell death, and metastasising and spreading to other parts of the body. The body often fails to detect cancer cells because they appear normal. Because of this, they can multiply for decades before a doctor or other medical professional notices.

Bill Bryson - ish

Essentially, our cells should die and then be replaced, but in the case of cancer, they don't die; instead, they grow and use our body to nourish them, effectively killing the host, and then the cancer dies.

When I was diagnosed with liver cancer, I was lucky enough to be in the best place in the world for cancer treatment, which I documented on Vocal here:

So Not Falling Apart

I always wanted to write a book, and that was the point of the blog I started twenty years back, which is still sort of going now, mainly sharing where I am up to in my books:

A few years later, I started my YouTube channel, and I include a piece from that as the introductory soundscape for this piece: just a five-minute guitar improvisation and one of the two hundred and fifty videos and slideshows on there.

In 2021, I joined Vocal and, as a result of that, have self-published fifteen books on Amazon:

So that means that I will always be here as long as there is an internet or similar construct that allows us to communicate and research online. I also have hard copies of my books, so that makes me even more permanent.

Conclusion

At the moment, my body is falling apart perfectly and is replenishing itself correctly. I walk at least seven thousand steps a day and eat reasonably well, so my body is in good shape, though I won't be running any marathons.

Thank you so much for reading, and now you know a little more about me, hopefully.