Tia is a benign, feminine sounding name, for the central character in a small personal drama of recent days. The current crisis, you may have noticed, is giving rise to all sorts of dramas, stories ... most skipping any forensic examination of the veracity of the meta-drama and, fuelled by fear, seeking confirmation of our core beliefs through versions of familiar tales ...
To get to the point, for a change, following the theoretical assertion of an alternative to the allopathic approach to illness, the universe offered an opportunity for practice. Not to prove anything to anyone ... I am not a scientist, as any attentive reader will have noticed ... but to understand myself better.
If you want some philosophical justification for this apparent solipcism, Krishnamurti, one of my gurus, who warned against following gurus, asserted "You are the world, and the world is you".
Also, "It is no sign of sanity to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society".
As reported a while back, the astonishing reaction to the pandemic by many countries, including the DUK, energised this previously chilled part-time pilgrim into warrior mode ... the brain upped its game, deep conversations ensued with neighbours, friends and strangers ... the organism adjusted to cope with the increased blood flow required for the brain. Maybe even an increased rate of rewiring to keep up.
The jumbled speech reported a couple of days ago was observed and processed as interesting and reminiscent of K's descriptions of brain pain in his Journal ... or maybe Notebook ... his was more serious and intense, though he didn't rush off to a doctor ... please don't infer that I am deluded enough to imagine myself as K ... and there was no pain in the brain.
Two readers got in touch very quickly. .. first my younger sister who pointed out her now deceased brother-in-law had reported a similar event, which turned out to be a stroke. Second was a recently retired nurse who said "TIA". Further research revealed that the acronym, translated into lay language, described "mini-stroke", which, like Tia, sounds harmless enough. Anyway, no fear was observed. The physiology described restricted blood flow through the carotid artery, possibly caused by a leak in the works. On their own, such events are not lethal, in fact maybe quite common as the very complex and plastic brain grows new bits and adapts things ... such activity has been observed in experiments with meditating monks, including Mathieu Ricard, the famous French scientist, friend of HHDL and author. Dr Paul Gilbert describes how parts of the brain associated with compassion are expanded by meditation.
Anyway, after processing the new information, it quickly became clear that this was no time to be bothering doctors. And certainly not visiting the hospitals where greater danger lurks ... how ironic if I died there in the tranquil surroundings of an ICU, with Corona Virus on the certificate!
Likely treatment to deal with symptoms is blood thinning agents, but those drugs have side effects and we are in the system. Thick blood is unlikely to be the problem anyway, since the organism is in fine physical and mental form ... albeit rather old.
Self-diagnosis suggests the overactive brain was the main cause ... the first response is to slow down, stop talking and listening so much ... see how that goes. And, as a change from silence, some Om Mani Padme Hum. ..
Stay tuned for developments. Tia and I will work it out together.
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