Candidly Speaking - 17/03/22

On Illness and the Body

So I’ve been listening to the audio version of Ross Douthat’s book “The Deep Places”. Ross is a conservative columnist employed by the New York Times, and his latest book is a memoir of his ongoing struggle with chronic Lyme disease, an illness that has yet to be recognized by the American official medical establishment. It is a moving and harrowing account of a family man’s double struggle: first with the illness raging in his body, second with the myriad of unorthodox treatment he has to endure. I hope that one day, Hollywood will discover this little book and make a movie out of it. It would be apt, considering that Mr. Douthat has a side gig as National Review’s film critic.

Listening to the audiobook as I go about my daily routine, thoughts enter and exit my mind about illness and the body. Despite the news’s shift in focus from Covid to the war going on in Eastern Europe, the pandemic is still a reality for many. In Hanoi, Vietnam, we still have to wear masks outdoor, and the Omicron variant seems to infect everyone who has not been infected before, vaccinated or otherwise. For two days this week, I seem to exhibit the common symptoms of the virus: sore throat, fatigue, light fever. Being an adult male of a young age, I recovered quickly. I seem to have gotten it from my parents, whom I am sharing a house with for the time being. It is unprecedented in the Nguyen household to have the entire family under some form of illness or another - usually, one family member gets sick, and the rest takes care of him/her.

In Mr. Douthat’s book, he says that good health is a superpower, and I have no choice but to agree. Even though my level of sickness is nowhere near Ross’s, I yearn for the days that my health is good and I take it for granted. Illness often brings people closest to their body, and I am no exception. I remember the week-long pain I had to endure after having my wisdom teeth removed. Despite an opiate prescription, I spent every minute of that week pondering the pain in my mouth area, wishing I had never went through the process, while craving the foods that are not Campbell’s soup or apple sauce.

Illness and pain is the body’s (and perhaps God’s) way of reminding you that you are human. One may go a step further to say that the body itself is God’s way of reminding you of your mortality. We put on clothes to hide your nakedness from everyone else, just as Adam and Eve put on leaves to hide their inappropriate bits from their Creator. Note that this act immediately follows our ancestor’s sudden and illicit attainment of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In an attempt to become God, the first human beings become suddenly aware of who they are: human beings.

I spent the weekend watching Ingmar Bergman’s profound and courageous film “Winter Light”, in which a Swedish priest undergoes a crisis of faith. There’s a moment in the film where Tomas, the priest, chastises the woman who loves him, Marta, for fixating on the rash on her hand. The ordained minister yearns to be God, but he cannot love humanity due to their embodied nature. The body is corruptible, susceptible to vice, deformity, aging, and death. Even people who are healthy complains about their body - I myself struggle to lose weight, a common malady of the developed world. In a Western culture obsessed with youth, many women undergo cosmetic surgery to restore their body’s former glory, or the idealized body as advertised on women’s magazines. In Vietnam, where thinness is the norm, being overweight is seen as a glaring anomaly. In both cultures, almost no one seems happy with how they look.

I am now reminded of the Passion of Christ, which has been marvelously brought to life by Mel Gibson. In the final hours of his earthly life, our Lord made Man suffered the worst harm that the human body can endure. Why didn’t He, with the glory of the Almighty behind him, put an end to His suffering? If the God of Abraham is a disembodied voice from above, then the New Testament God is the prime role model of mercy and understanding. By walking among us in the flesh, God shows mercy on us mere mortals. And by enduring the unendurable, God shows mercy even to his tormentors.

We have now established that having a body means you are mortal, and to deny the body means committing an act of hubris. But can it be enjoyable, having a body? So far, two things come to mind: food and sex. It is no coincidence that the Greek god Dionysus, who is the god of wine, is also the god of fertility. The sexually-repressed Puritans are a laugh in themselves, for they have not read the Song of Solomon, God and man’s celebration of sexual love. And in the last supper, Jesus uses food to remind his disciples of the covenant made among present and future Christians. Perhaps, like the limits placed on bodily pleasure, there must also be limits placed on how much pain the body can withstand. Maybe that is why suicide, self-harm and other forms of bodily abuse are frowned upon - they place an undue burden on the body. There are two kinds of obsession with death: the constant fixation on the end that leaves no room for actual living, and the extreme hedonism that acts like there is no tomorrow. Human life, as properly lived, lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. Dorian Gray has a perfect face and body, until he discovers his portrait hanging in the attic. His is a cautionary tale: by yearning to be trans-human, you eventually become inhuman. Embracing the body, with all its imperfections and corruptibility, is accepting your own humanity, as well as everyone else’s. It is the first step to achieving compassion. After all, stories like Ross Douthat’s would not carry as much emotional resonance if we had all been disembodied ghosts.

In memoriam Professor Paul Cantor of the University of Virginia recently passed away. The first, and last time, I spoke to him, was early February. I wanted to invite him on the podcast to discuss Shakespeare. He mentioned that he’d recently suffered a heart attack. He passed away two weeks after. Here was a man with vast knowledge and keen analysis on Shakespeare and American popular culture. Check out his essay on pro-wrestling to get yourself introduced to his work. Also check out the Youtube channel Shakespeare and Politics, where I know him from. RIP.