Being Emotional

Last December, the 30th to be precise, I had my chest cut open and a surgeon, a very good surgeon, performed a quadruple bypass on my heart. It was, in the current lingo, quite an "experience." But, apparently, meaning up to now, I am fine. Not "fine and dandy," but fine nonetheless.

"They" - the authorities - told me I would be weird after the surgery. Which, I thought, is new how? Well, "they" said, I would be emotional. And I thought "OMG. What could that mean?"

Anyway, "they" were right. I was more emotional which left me wondering if that was the result of someone actually touching my heart. Who knows? Maybe it is just the upside of confronting my mortality.

But in my emotional state, I began to wonder about stuff. For example, I wondered about a college that deems it necessary - and even desirable and attractive - to put on its home page musings from students calculated to convey the impression that that college is a wonderful place where students look forward to exams, that they "survive the first day of classes" [was someone shooting at them?], that they can't wait to get back into the dorms [with no mention of drinking or.....], that they love their classes and their professors who all, apparently, care about them as human beings looking to fulfill their potential and nothing more, etc., etc., etc. But I wondered: Is there anything more "dysfunctional", to use the lingo of the day, than such unabashed and publicly proclaimed "happiness?" Is there anything more phony than such musings? Of course, remember, I am now emotional so you need not take seriously any of the above. I certainly don't.

I also wondered about a college that thought it necessary - "age appropriate", I would imagine - to "train" those elected to student government offices. What was this "training" about, I wondered, before being informed that it involved a "retreat" some place else [than campus], a reflection of the thought, thoroughly modern, that we can not "find ourselves" where we are but have to go some other place. But how did we get "there;" that is, how did we know that "there" is where our "selves" were? And our "selves" must be there because no one had a choice to go or not. It was mandatory. Ah, then I saw it: If "it" was mandatory, then the message was clear: In governing yourselves, young people, some things are mandatory. How will you, student officers, know which are mandatory? "They" - the authorities - will tell you! This is what the "training" is all about. To make clear who is and who is not in charge. Can you guess who is in charge?

Now, of course, my rationality has been compromised by my emotional state as a result of my quadruple bypass so, please, disregard the above. Who knows what I might think of next. I just might think that it is not gays and lesbians who need a "support group" but, rather, those who are made "uncomfortable" by the gays and lesbians. Obviously, such thinking is entirely and irredeemably emotional. Oh, those damn doctors. What have they done?