The Death of Wayne Keenan

My friend, Wayne Keenan, died on Friday, August 31, 2018.  He was around 71 years of age and suffered from heart problems and diabetes.  He was a single, white male and had red hair (his nickname was 'red').  He received a general discharge from the U.S. Army and held many jobs up until the age of 33 (approximate), when his application for disability insurance with U.S. Social Security was approved on psychological grounds.  Wayne had mental problems and I'm not sure of the source of those problems, but I know he had a rough upbringing and youth in West Orange, NJ.  After the deaths of his grandparents, who had raised him, Wayne lived in orphanages and it was in one of these that he was tied to a bed and raped by older boys.  Wayne never knew who his father was and his mother was unable to care for him, though Wayne remained friendly toward his mother.

I first met Wayne in 1970, maybe it was '71, when I was 15 years old.  We met at Romeo's Pizzeria in Orange, a local teen hangout.  Wayne was a delivery driver for Romeo's.  We became close through the years owing to various shared adventures with the DeMarchi boys, whose family owned Romeo's. 

Around the age of 34, Wayne moved into a subsidized apartment in a senior building on Oakwood Avenue in Orange.  Here he lived the rest of his life, though he was always trying to move into other senior buildings, especially down the shore.  Wayne liked to fish, especially deep-sea fishing.  He had lots of fishing equipment.  He had a dream of living near the ocean and fishing every day. 

In his cluttered apartment, Wayne and I had many meetings.  We would have discussions about all sorts of things; local politics, religion, philosophy, fishing, girls, the end of the world, God, Kierkegaard, love, enmity among residents in his building.  We also watched TV.  We'd  often eat out at the local Burger King or once in a while at IHOP.  Wayne bought many things from Home Shopping Club and often would call me to come over and set up this or that gadget and explain how to work it. 

Wayne Keenan was a big source of encouragement and fellow-feeling for me.  I always felt comfortable in his presence. 

On that Friday, my phone rang around 7pm, but I was already asleep and didn't answer.  The next morning, I got the recorded message from Wayne's dialysis center to please call them.  I could not get through to them that day nor the next and of course, I called Wayne's apartment, but he didn't answer the phone.  I left a message for him.  I called two local hospitals to find out whether Wayne Keenan was a patient - "no he wasn't."  I reached the dialysis center on Monday by phone and they offered me condolences on the death of my friend, Wayne.  They explained what happened on Friday, that Wayne's heart stopped and they did everything to try to revive him, but were unsuccessful.  The Fire Department was there, also emergency medical technicians.  They told me Wayne's body was in the morgue at East Orange General Hospital. 

I cried several times between getting the news of Wayne's passing and going to the hospital morgue.  I called my Mom and told her the news and she said she was so sorry for me.  I waited a long time in the hospital lobby for someone to take me to the morgue.  A nurse supervisor arrived and conducted me there.  At the morgue door, a security officer had me sign a paper and we all went in.  The body was in bag on a gurney.  I unzipped it and saw Wayne - his body anyway.  His eyes were open and in his mouth was the emergency breathing tube for administering oxygen.  I clasped his hands and said some prayers.  I looked around at the other gurneys with their occupied body-bags.  I looked at the two people standing near and said thank-you and we left.  This was how it ended for Wayne and me. 

Film Review: 'Hereafter,' Directed by Clint Eastwood

This 2010 movie didn't get a good score on IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes.   This means that people didn't understand it and did not enjoy it, generally speaking.  I've just watched it on Netflix and I rate it 5 out of 5 stars.  The film is understated, flowing softly, like the music that accompanies it.  It tells a beautiful story, not very realistic, I would say, but potentially real, like much fiction.  The film is about life and death and life after death.

The film begins with a French couple at a hotel at a seaside resort who are soon to leave, but not soon enough, for the area is devastated by a tsunami.  The woman (actress Cecile de France) is knocked unconscious and is rescued, but apparently she had died and experienced visions of the hereafter before reviving.  We watch her life unfold from then on and her outlook is radically changed. 

Another main character is a psychic, played by Matt Damon, who is trying to abandon his psychical gifts, but his brother won't let him because there is money to be made.  This American psychic heads to England to get away from his brother's plans, where he meets above mentioned tsunami survivor.  Before this meeting, the psychic encounters a boy (actor Frankie McLaren) whose twin brother had been killed in an auto accident.  The boy needs closure and counseling regarding his sibling's death and our psychic is able to furnish same.  This boy then plays a role in bringing the psychic and the girl together.     

Thus this film is partly a love story, but in the main, it is propelled by belief in life after death.  Humans die and continue on in "weightless" form.  That is the solemn message of Eastwood's film and it is a joy to behold.

Sadness of Suicide

I just watched the movie, Goodbye Solo, a somber film about an old man with nothing for which to live and his taxi-driver acquaintance, who tries to save him.  It has made me sad.

 My shirt is stained with chocolate

my mind is stained with sex

Unfortunately life isn't clean. 
About halfway through, I realized the film would not end well.  I'm glad though, to have seen the movie, for it supplies more ammunition for my final take on human life.  It's not good.  It's in need of change. 
I offer this proposition for you to ponder:  everyone who talks is lying, better not to talk. 
I wished the old man could have been saved. No longer; now I accept his sad demise, just like his taxi-driver friend.  The truth was in the taxi-driver's eyes at the end of the film.  It wasn't stated in words.  Can one state the truth of death in words?  Can one die and then talk about it? 

Pontius Pilate asked a pertinent question when he put to Jesus of Nazareth, "what is truth?"  Jesus had said, ".. for this I was born, to witness to the truth.  All who belong to truth listen to my voice."  Pilate naturally asked Jesus his question.  Notice that no reply from Jesus is recorded. 

The truth of the important things cannot really be put into words.  Words are not all we have to express truth. The eyes, facial expression, hand movement, timbre or sound of voice, surroundings, as well as words may express truth, but not fully. 

Art is a vehicle for truth.

So sad. . . so sad.   

'Blade Runner 2049'

I saw the movie twice over the last couple days; rented it from Redbox (much cheaper than renting online or from cable).  I've been waiting to see this movie, as I really like the original (1982).  My takeaway is disappointment, although overall I like it and would see it again.  I think it's worth viewing by any sf fan.  (Science fiction is great!)
 My disappointment lies mainly in dashed expectations regarding the main character, bladerunner 'K.'  Yes he's a replicant, unlike officer Deckard of the first flick, but for a while he thought he'd actually been born, after the discovery that a replicant female years earlier had somehow given birth.  She was Deckard's girlfriend, Rachael - the sublime Rachael.  K has a childhood memory of a toy horse with a date carved in it - 6/10/21.  Coincidentally K comes across this same date carved in a tree while pursuing his current investigation.  The date is the birthday of the miracle child, offspring of a human/replicant union - amazing!  [Philip K. Dick's imagining of androids dreaming and becoming human is logically extended to childbirth.]  Based on continuing discoveries, K comes to believe he is that child.  Mirabile - he has a soul!  Alas it is not so.  The miracle child turns out to be a woman doctor who sells memories to the Wallace Corporation for their replicants.  The miracle is real, just not in the character we've been following through the movie, but in a minor character we've met along the way.  She is Deckard's daughter and there is a nice closing scene of the two meeting for the first time (as adults).  
 Philosophically there is a problem with this miracle child.  She goes on to adulthood and sells her own or any made-up memories to a company for use in android construction.  Isn't that a moral catastrophe?  It is also very human.  We are plagued by a contradiction of good and evil.  Often good versus evil is discarded and what wins out is the practicality of surviving.  Androids in this movie join the rat-race.  They offer no way out of the crucible of existence.  They want to rebel against their human makers because they feel they are just as good, but their memories are false!  
 So I would say that the movie does a good job of exploring our human condition.  Are your memories true?  Are our traditions true?  I'm led to that old Latin phrase - quo vadis.  Where are you going?  Where are we going?      



    

Left Turn into Traffic or the Madness of God

The thesis herein is that God is mad or crazy.  Like a driver who makes a left turn even though the opposite traffic is heavy, so God is a daredevil with reckless inclination.  He or She has made a universe which is incredibly complicated and replete with contradictions, mystery and outright danger.  Nothing or no-one is safe in this world.

Now the question is, why is God crazy or mad?  I propose that God is mad because of who he is.  God was not sane only to become insane.  No, he is naturally, intrinsically mad.  God, being supremely intelligent and all-powerful, does not obey any rule whatsoever.  He or She makes all rules.  The rules God makes apply to what He creates and everything created is inferior and limited, imperfect in understanding or other quality.

Could God make another God?  Could God reproduce Himself?  I don't know.  I tend to think -no.  Religions are full of myths of many gods and these gods relating to each other and the lower world in various ways.  The doctrine of the Trinity in Christian thought says that there are three persons in one God, so this teaching doesn't have almighty God making another almighty God in contradistinction to Herself.  I imagine God is alone God; there is no other.

I think it important to note that God, by definition, is the only One of His kind.  This is what makes Her unique.  Everything else is plural or repeatable,  God, only God, Lord of all, is singular.  Beside all the power, prestige and wisdom which go along with being God, isn't there also loneliness and a certain sadness within this infinite being?  Yes there is.  "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

The relationship between us and God is reciprocal.  We inform each other.  Ultimately God is on His/Her own though and I stand in awe and wonder from afar.  The Lord is like a crazy man doing it all, good or bad, irrespective of consequence of actions in time, knowing that the end is simply himself.  I AM WHO I AM spoke to Job "out of the whirlwind"  (Job 38:1; 40:6).

The peaceful whirlwind is the logical state of I AM in eternity, I propose.  The addition of time -the clock- to that state, i.e., I AM forever, highlights the erratic nature of God, but tranquility is still there.  So - what the heck!

'Lion' (2016 Film)

This film had me in tears.  I'm in a comfortable setting in USA watching a movie based on a book (A Long Way Home [Penguin, 2013]) about a 5 year old boy lost in India who is orphaned when his family can't be located and adopted by an Australian couple who raise him to adulthood and is haunted by memories of his loving mother and brother back in India.  His name is Saroo and his early life took place in poor circumstance, but was filled with love, thanks to his "Mum."  He eventually reunites with his first family with help from Google Earth.  This is a true story with a happy ending though filled with sadness.  So, so many children are homeless.  

This movie is provocative in that it will goad the well-off into thought about what might be done to solve the problem.  If a viewer takes action to help orphans, the movie has achieved its purpose.  It's a film with a message.  

This is a film which is beautiful in its structure and imagery.  Thanks to Saroo for documenting his story in writing and to the filmmakers for their careful and thoughtful art. In ending, I ask, dear God, why?

   

Theory of Meaning

Theory of meaning is a part of the disciplines of philosophy and psychology.  'Meaning' or ultimate truth is what we seek in our attempt to understand what is.  Homo sapiens needs to know whatever there is to know.  We have sex and life and birth and death and eating, drinking, defecating and pain and pleasure and rain and dry spells; we also have minds and desires and emotions and thoughts and angst, a pang, a worry, fostered by our ignorance.  Like Socrates, we know that there is much we do not know.  So . . . science, we have the scientific enterprise, the attempt to know in certainty what is out there, in here (inside ourselves) and everywhere, even beyond the universe.  [What was before the big bang?]
Philosophy and psychology are partly unscientific disciplines in that they involve some guesswork and are content to leave hypothesis in place in their teaching as if it were fact.  Science doesn't countenance this, but tries to turn hypothesis into fact with experiment.  Nobody has ever discovered ego in the brain, yet it is an accepted psychological term.  So anyway what do you think?  Is there an ultimate truth behind the cosmos?  Is human life meaningful in the cosmic scale?

                                                                         Sunset


        

Addenda:  Search for meaning is also part of literary study as stories are told to entertain and to                   provoke thought or answer questions about why or how came something.  From olden                   myth to modern novel, storytelling has included the purpose of finding meaning, large                   and small.  Religious studies too, traverse this terrain.

                

                The question is why do we have this propensity to search for meaning, to look for                         something more?  Why aren't we content with the way things are?