Communique 12-24-2020 "Happy Holidays From The Chemo Lounge"
- Philip Drucker
- Dec 24, 2020
- 4 min read
By Philip Drucker

I want to talk to you today about miracles. Not the big flashy part the sea, darken the sky with locust variety, but what I refer to as the 10,000 unnoticed miracles we witness every single day. A little background might be necessary before we continue.
I am a believer that duality is an illusion. It is a temporal experience that helps us with all our sentient glory to sort through the seeming differences we perceive in each other and our surroundings, but in fact, when push comes to shove, there is but one. One beginning, one ending, we all come from the same place and it is that place to which we will all return.
We are bound by what our senses can perceive. And yet, that is not entirely true, is it? We all sense there is far more that what we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. There are plenty of things we cannot see, yet it does not mean it isn’t there. Electricity comes to mind. Science for its part is always willing to go smaller and smaller still. The elements started as earth, wind, fire and water. Today we are discussing quantum physics on our way to the inevitable singularity, and then what?
It is this “then what?” Of which I speak. Today, we would refer to the other side as ethereal, or nothing. But what happens when we realize, it is not? Not nothing, but something, perhaps different, possibly revolutionary, but not, nothing. What happens to our limited perceptions then? When we realize that the totality of life, all life is based upon co-dependence? With each and every grain of sand on the beach, every star in the sky reliant upon the other to complete the “whole” that is I argue existence itself.
Nothing is not merely the absence of something, but an equal state of existence, perhaps without mass as we know it, but surely with all of the mystery, magic wonder and deep meaning hidden within that which cannot be seen, but must be experienced.
This is what it means to be human. We perceive separation all around us when in fact there is none. Think of the half-filled glass. If we perceive the water as filling the glass half way, there must be another half of the glass that is without mass, or, empty. One perception, in this case full, or half-full, cannot exist without the realization of the existence of an equal amount of unfilled space.
Therefore, whether the glass is half filled or half empty, is a matter of opinion and never of fact. It might be helpful if we consider an empty glass as filled to the brim with nothing. It may sound like semantics, but I assure you it is not.
Consider the following. I consider everything that has ever happened, is happening or will happen as existing all at once and all at the same time. As a practical matter, all human knowledge exists right here and right now. The reason we can’t perceive this phenomenon is the illusion of time and space, and to some degree just for fun, width.
Now don’t get me wrong, for I am also of the opinion physics as we know it are a gift as I do not believe we as mortals of flesh and blood, limited knowledge and capacity could not comprehend the reality and effect of everything all at once. Can you imagine? And as if right on time, here’s my nurse. Time to see the Doctor.

Good news everybody! Got my marker back and yes, I’m in the till today threes! 3.9 to be exact, but with the goal being 3.0, a normal reading for persons with our cancer, there is no reason to believe sometime next year (there’s that time thing again, see how dependent we are on it?) I will be ready for a final surgery to cut that last little bit of yuck out, and voila! I will live to see the oh so wonderful fiction we call another day.
The bad news, more chemo for at least three months. Twelve more doses in total. Line ‘em up bartender! Straight no chaser! Or, maybe a shot of Avastin on the side. I’m ready and do you know why? I’m not ready to see the other side, what I presume to be the greatest singularity of all time.
The return to everything and nothing becoming one, a singularity of which someday, I will be most pleased, if not ecstatic, to be a part of. But not today. For today, I’m going to enjoy the comfort of God’s everlasting mercy, safe in the belief that we are all exactly where we need to be, right here and right now.
Our lives filled with the 10,000 things, each a small miracle in and of itself, to remind us of the glory all around us, until finally, one day, we realize there were always 10,001 miracles, and for most of us during most of our lives, we just plain forgot to remember. Happy Holidays from the Chemo Lounge, Y’all!
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