I hate naming because I never have a theme for any of my days lately. There are no overarching ‘things I’ve learnt that the world should know’ concepts—just stuff.

Still, I’m a little more with it today, after several days of limited and erratic sleep. I’ve learnt to measure my mental state using several mechanisms.

First, whether the sudoku fights and kicks, even at the moderate level I run at.

Secondly, whether a driving podcast has any stickability. Will I remember anything by the drive end?

Third, do I have any short-term memory operating? If I’m doing well, I can take in about 8 seconds of buffer (perhaps while I’m doing a tricky lane change) and then reintegrate it back into my line of thought. I first learnt of this buffer length when my kids decided I should try an edible at my advanced age, and it was intriguing to watch that short-term memory dwindle to nothing. Try watching a movie when you forget that the star just went into a door 7 seconds ago and why.

I’m trying to find a mechanism for using Madame Google in the car to create a seamless spoken idea into Obsidian conveyer belt. She’ll do Google Keep entries, but only for a few seconds, which is frustrating. Even then, I don’t want manual Keep to Obsidian updates daily. This is a serious first-world problem.

Today’s car trip mainly was finishing yesterday’s podcast, another OnBeing cracker:

This guy seems to be an amazing physician and surgeon, with a long resume of practice, teaching, and writing. Yet, he’s humble and gentle.

Here he faces the issues of aging and beyond. Early on he wrestled with this idea on what a good death looks like. Moving from ‘Do we fight, or give up’ to ‘what are we fighting for? Because whatever you’re living for, along the way, we’ve got to make sure we don’t sacrifice it; and in fact, can we, along the way, whatever’s happening, can we enable it? We’ve been wrong that our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really, it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. And it’s not just about prolonging life”.

“You have these five questions to ask towards the end of life, and some of them are about the understanding of your illness, your fears and worries for the future, your goals and priorities, what outcomes are acceptable. But the fifth one, which seems to come through again and again, is: What does a good day look like? And I think about Annie Dillard saying: How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. And you tell so many stories about how just allowing those days to have the simple things that give people a sense of well-being: it is everything.”

He talks of promoting quantity of life at the expense of quality, despite studies that make this moot. One large study had terminal lung cancer patients split into two groups. One got the usual oncology care; the other also got a palliative care clinician to explore the quality of life, and to pursue those ‘good days’. Many of the latter group stopped chemo. They had less surgery, more time out of hospital, and lower suffering. And……..lived 25% longer. Wow.

There’s a lot more depth in there about how the doctor’s role is changing rapidly away from the paternal and towards a partnership to maximise those good days.

All well and good, but does this apply to everyday life for the rest of us???

What is a Good Day? The quote here: Intricately inhabiting why we want to be alive. Dillard again: What gives us a sense of well-being.

Family? For many, yes, but not everyone. A good book? Maybe.

For me, I think it’s using our gifts entirely to give to others and enlarge their lives.

This is worthy of more thought. Back tomorrow to unpack this a bit:

The main secret of having a productive day (and the tips to get you there) | Spica