Perspectives
I was on my to Ecuador to visit the love of my life Alexandra. I was still using crutches after my foot operation and it was painful to be on my foot for any length of time. I had recently learned while traveling with my elderly mother that it’s well worth the tip to the people that take you on the wheelchair because they not only expedite the hell of going through security, but also get you on the plane ahead of everyone else. Consequently, I decided not to play the role of the macho guy and requested a wheelchair.
They directed me to an area where others who required wheelchairs were sitting. There were some elderly people and one other relatively young person who had an amputation at the level of his upper thigh. I was one of the last ones taken in a wheelchair and the man who took me noted my crutches and mentioned that while taking the man with the amputation, they lost the rubber piece that goes on the upper part of his crutches in order to protect the rib cage/armpit. While wheeling me, he stopped at every garbage can and under all the seats along the way to see if someone found it and either pushed it aside or through it away without any luck. We bypassed the hoards of people waiting to get through airport security and at boarding time, along with all the rest in wheelchairs, wheeled me into the plane before everyone else. I definitely could have roughed it on the crutches, but in that circumstance wheelchair assistance was a gift.
The flight was uneventful, especially in light of the fact that I had not slept at all the night before because my body clock was still in night shift mode, so I slept like a baby during the entire 6.5 hour flight. When we arrived in Ecuador, I took down my overhead luggage and crutches and noted that one of the rubber pieces were missing. I searched the overhead compartment without success and then started to look under the seats. One of the passengers sitting across from me noticed what I was doing, reached into the pouch in front of his seat and pulled out the rubber piece, stating: “Is this what you’re looking for?” It had fallen off and he didn’t see me when I had entered with the crutches. While thanking him, I noticed that the man with the amputation was standing on the other side of the plane a few rows ahead of me waiting for the doors to open. His crutches were exactly the same as mine. Typically, at least from what I had noticed, people with amputations have special crutches that provide support at the forearms so that there is less pressure on the hands and wrists. Without any thought at all, I called out to him but he couldn’t hear me. I then asked those closer to me to get his attention and when he turned around, I waved the rubber attachment and asked him if he wanted it. He looked at my crutches and asked if I needed them. It was a reasonable question, but in perspective, I would only need to use crutches for another two weeks and he obviously needed to use them for the remainder of his life, so I replied no and passed it to the person next to me and it was passed up through the crowd until it reached him.
When he received it, he simply waved it at me and nonchalantly said “Gracias.” However, perhaps because so many people were involved in order to get his attention and then pass the rubber piece up to him, everyone around us was engaged in this brief interaction, and started to smile at me and nod in approval. Although I was pleased with the attention and gratitude that was expressed because of my apparently kind gesture, I was caught off guard because I really didn’t think anything of it and from my perspective, it was a selfless and simply a no-brainer. Immediately after I was in the car with Alexandra, I felt terrible that I hadn’t given him both of my rubber pieces.
There are certainly many challenges about having a long distance relationship. I had never been in one before and based on what I had heard, didn’t believe that they could possibly work. Alexandra and I met in December of 2016 and since March 2017 have met for 7–10 days every month in Indonesia, Ecuador, Brazil, New York, and have upcoming trips planned to Uruguay, where she will compete in her fourth half-Iron Man competition, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Although it’s incredibly sad and disheartening to say goodbye, it’s really like being on a perpetual honeymoon. That first moment of seeing each other after being separated is magical, and melting in our long embrace erased any thought or consideration of the man with the amputated leg and his crutches.
Alexandra lives in Ambato, Ecuador, which is about 1.5 hours south of Quito. Almost every time I’ve visited, she’s taken me other areas such as Manta, Salinas, Cuenca, Quito, Guayaquil, which has allowed me to truly appreciate the beauty of Ecuador. This time, she took me to Puerto Lago, which is on a lake called Lago San Pablo 1.5 hours north of Quito. It was spectacularly gorgeous. The view from our bedroom window was this beautiful lake with a back drop of glorious mountains. At one point we were about to go out to the artisan market of the indigenous people in Otavalo and while preparing to leave, I had placed my crutches on the porch banister in front of the window. I went back inside and sat on the bed to adjust my walking boot, and when I sat up looked out the window. My field of vision was the frame of the large window, the crutches against the banister, the lake, and the mountains (the picture posted above). It was breathtaking. The crutches occurred to me as completely incongruous in that frame, but led me to think about the man with the amputation, his own deficient crutches that he would require for the rest of his days on this earth, my own crutches that were a temporary aid against the beautiful backdrop of this magnificent lake and mountains, and ultimately to the concept of perspectives.
After all, isn’t everything we think, believe, and to a certain extent, even what we see, determined by one’s own perspective? It appears that the mind has an encounter with something and processes it according to it’s relation to other inputs around that object or experience, as well as other past experiences and collected memories. One could go further and provocatively state that it is the mind itself that creates our perceived reality and hence our perspectives, but that is a subject for another day.
My thoughts went back to the man with the amputation and our crutches. Mine were a temporary support to weather my recovery period after surgery and a portal into thoughts about my own mortality. They provided an insight. As silly as it may appear to the reader, but for me, from my perspective, a very real insight indeed to the reality that I am not invincible, that my body will in fact deteriorate. Then realizing that in perspective, in comparison to having an amputated extremity where those very same crutches became a reality, another appendage without which one was marooned, a life line, a gift. I wondered what portals his crutches opened for him. That’s perspective.
For some reason I thought of the many elderly patients who presented to the emergency department in my 29 years of experience who were obsessed with having a bowel movement, something most of us take for granted. Their entire existence seemed to be focused on their next bowel movement. That’s perspective. Another example was that feeling of intense nausea that so often overwhelms you in an ayahuasca ceremony to the point that all one can think about is purging. You’re dry heaving and that feeling of nausea becomes so powerful that you even try to make yourself purge. You are on your hands and knees and your entire existence boils down to you and your bucket. After dry heaving again and again, you finally bring up a measly tablespoon of bile that relieves, at least momentarily, that horrible nausea, and is like finding a lost treasure. Such pleasure in one tablespoon of bile! You bow and express such gratitude to that tablespoon of bile as though it were godsend. That’s perspective.
I had once asked a question to the gifted shaman Don Diego at Satsang about a recurring theme that occurred to me during ceremonies: A battle that was taking place for my consciousness and that of humankind. At the time, it seemed so important in my life and I believed that it was a key to my liberation. He immediately addressed the others present and asked if anyone had a similar struggle going on. When everyone nodded no, he leaned over and said to me that it was all in my mind. I didn’t realize it at the moment, but that was when I decided that I would never participate in another ceremony because the realization hit me like a ton of bricks: It was all in my mind! Now that’s a perspective! All the work, the struggles, the healing, insights, and perceived evolution that was taking place during and after the ceremonies were indeed taking place in my mind. That slight change in perspective offered the possibility of exploring what else was taking place in my mind that was causing mischief, only to learn that it was in fact the source of all mischief. Perspective!
Isn’t that the teaching that every sage who ever walked the earth has offered? They’ve all pointed out that it was as simple as changing one’s focus from here to there, from the individual “I” with all it’s drama, problems, highs and lows, to the grandeur of Consciousness that is wearing a costume that is called “you.” It’s so simple that we are blind to it, like a fish looking for water. Perspective!
I am an emergency physician, writer and a lover of life. The purpose of this blog is to share my ideas, experiences and perspectives as they relate to Consciousness, and as they evolve. Consciousness encompasses everything in my life, your life, the world, the Universe — in other words — EVERYTHING! As the great Shaman Don Diego used to say: “It’s not the most important thing, and it’s not the least important thing…It’s the ONLY thing!”
Check out my novel: “The Twin Flames, the Master, and the Game”! It’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Balboa Press.
