Take the worst thing that ever happened to you
and instead of being destroyed by it
make it your cornerstone,
the source of your power.
Find a way to refashion it as a wonderful gift,
the thing that defines you and sets you apart.
Say, if I can survive this and learn from it,
I will wake up every day singing.
“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
"That which does not kill us, scars us for life" (Tall Allen - son of 2 Holocaust survivors)
I think there is common ground between me and Nietzsche - it depends on the trauma. A leg bone that breaks simply may heal stronger, but a crushed leg may never heal and may cause rhabdomyolysis. Also, what may be a minor trauma to one person, may cause PTSD in another.
I also don't believe that being a victim of something or other is "a wonderful gift" or "the thing that defines you" or "the source of your power." Just as the joys of life happen, the miseries happen too. All we can do is just accept that it is all part of our lived human experience, which is larger than any single joy or misery. To define ourselves by any one, limits us. Life is bigger than a single trauma.
I'm not really sure it is true, either. But when I say it to myself, it encourages me.
Beware of pithy apothegms, such as "Making America Great Again," that sound right but seduce one into counter-productive action.
Yes, delusionary certainty ... flip it over and it's faith.
It doesn't have to be either. Just take a step back and examine it rationally, instead of being seduced by the power of speech. Look at your poems- do they really reflect your cherished beliefs, or do they just sound good at the moment? Leonard Cohen spent years revising his songs - aren't your poems worth the same care?
You can't expect every writer to have Leonard Cohen's work habits. Everybody, even the good ones, are different.
If Cohen published songs from his first four (quite depressing) albums, he would have been kicked off HealthUnlocked. Had that existed then.
And how do you know my work habits? That's kinda presumptuous. I too revise over and over for decades. But it's true I am more prolific than Cohen. But I write things on paper -- he wrote and produced record albums, which were all big deals allowing only ten or eleven tracks. Every note and word must be perfect. What I do is more forgiving.
My attitude is, every story I write tells its own story. I am not expressing my lifelong beliefs in every thing I write. I'm sure there are scores of flat-out contradictions.
I think I'm good but not great. I don't have the gifts the truly wonderful writers have. And I do veer toward the morose. My life has been quite sad at times, raising two mentally ill kids.
Btw I love Leonard Cohen. I led a tribute to him the day after he passed. I have always gotten a lot out of "sad" music -- Lou Reed, Townes Van Zandt, Nick Drake, Gillian Welch.
Thanks, Tall_Allen.
I'm just reacting to what you wrote: "I'm not really sure it is true, either." I am a writer, and live with my novels, rewriting until I know it's true. Ambiguity is fine, untruth isn't. I wouldn't let anyone else see it before then. Maybe you are publishing your poems here to get feedback for works in progress? I take my pieces into workshops of fellow writers. It's always useful to me to see if I communicated what I intended to. I only mentioned Leonard Cohen because I just watched a documentary talking about his work habits.
Maybe "every story you write tells its own story," but that wasn't a story (in fact, you called it a "life lesson") - you were authoritatively prescribing how to act in a series of second person imperatives ("take the worst..." "make it your.." "find a way..." "Say,..."). If that is not what you meant to do, perhaps some editing is in order.
These short bits I write are not much like novels. Each has its own little world. I wrote that in a burst of insight that my daughter's suicide might make me a better man -- a better writer, even.
There are days I believe that has happened, and days when I think it destroyed me. I started having symptoms of my disease two years after her death. My wife is a big mind/body thinker. She spent 10 years writing her memoir, and just finished, and one of her theses is that Daniele "killed" me -- that I let down my immune system in despair. She also suspects that my mother allowed herself to get adult onset juvenile diabetes when her daughter, my big sister, died at 15 from a dental office visit.
You might be a believer in absolute truth. There are many in my part of the country. I am more of a shades of gray guy. Vive the difference.
I found strength in that bit when it came to me, standing at the spot where we cast Daniele's ashes in the Mississippi a month before. And when I read it out loud, in bookstores and such, I sense that its truth has power with people.
It is also my autobiography, that something terrible happened to me, -- death and accompanying disease -- but here i am still kicking, still assertive that I am alive.
Of course you think I need editing; you're a writer. We always think other writers could be improved, with our keen insights. It helps us think well of ourselves in this lonely world of failure.
I've written and published 164 books, on a variety of topics, published in fourteen languages. With those numbers, I write for speed. When I'm "there" with a bit, I stop, cuz I need to get paid. Also, I do keep editing the bits that seem to go a-gley, trying to make them work. I have never felt that way about this bit.
Bear in mind I am pretty crazy, as is my wife, in different ways -- we are both writers, burning to get the word out there.
I wrote three novels when i was a young man. They sucked.
Happy new year -- auld lange syne!
I am sorry for your loss. I remember my mom, when my brother suffered all of his life and then died, said “a loss of a child is the hardest thing; it’s not not in the natural order of things”, as we returned from his burial.
Such a deep trauma has to have ripple effects.
I guess your wife agrees in my counter to Nietzsche that what does not kill you, scars you for life. You have sufferred the kind of loss that one does not recover from.
Once again, I was only reacting to what you wrote, that you did not know if it were true. I believe the world is full of grays, but it was you who offered a set of black & white prescriptive commands, like baking a cake: Do this, this, and this, and you will feel better. I find that life is messier than baking a cake. If it worked for you, perhaps you may want to re-write it in the first person instead of the second person imperative.
If you don't want commentary, why publish on a forum? The raison d'etre of a forum is to get commentary.
I think it was my wife's example underlying the bit I wrote. After Daniele's death she undertook to organize a healthcare mission in the Tsum Valley of the Himalayas. The people up there live hand to mouth, and receive no health services from the Nepali government, because they are of Tibetan origin. She decided that the couple thousand people in those valley villages were her new "Daniele," for her to care for. I was amazed and inspired by her transference of energy from A to B. And now she's writing a breakthrough book on the spiritual death underlying our endemic of suicide and overdose. I am not the amazing example; she is.
Also forum, yes; workshop no. I love to talk about things we share. Not so much when folks bicker and suggest rewrites. This is about our lives' meaning, not a writers' snit.
Unfortunately for you, you don't get to decide for other people on a forum what they write about. You can only control what you do and your attitude towards what others do. It sounds like you only want comments from folks that agree with you - forums don't work that way. To be clear, my comment was about content, not style.
"Unfortunately" ... what do they call that, when you seem to regret something ... false ... something ... a form of passive aggressiveness .... ah, "concern trolling" ...
I don't seem to have any problems with people on the site any more, but you keep dogging my ass about Leonard Cohen's rewrites, my wife and Nietzsche ...
I got indignant when that one fellow said I sounded like a woman, and called me a snowflake. Them's fighting words, where I come from, more than a whiff of white supremacy. He and I have made peace. I have not posted any more of my bits. I'm all out of them, shot my wad.
It is probably true that I am oversensitive, and I guess I suffer from what people call ADT syndrome -- being a little off kilter mentally. I joined a new group, where everyone was a stranger, and when I posted some fun bits I had written, and also some sad bits -- to introduce the new guy -- a very few people were unwelcoming. Mostly people were nice.
I don't know if I made "friends," but I communicated with "likes" and commiseration with people who were in real pain. I think that's what we're supposed to do here. I've adapted. I'm being a mensch. I have PCa. I fit the description what this board wants to be about.
I have always written in part so that death wouldn't be SUCH a drag. I'm guessing you are that way, too. It's stupid -- ya still die -- but sharing your thoughts, gags, impressions and daily observations is some kind of legacy, a comfort.
"Unfortunately," as you say, people are not puppets. They have opinions, and that is their right. I always look for grace when people disagree. When it's ugly, tryinna hurt my feelings, it's just trollery. And I call people on that kind of social media bullying.
And you didn't make up that Nietzsche line, I did! Back in the mid-70s. "Whatever doesn't kill us traumatizes the shit out of us." Probably one of those simultaneous inventions.
I won't post it.
There is a long history of folks "changing the words" to the same "music".
See also: Contrafactum
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contr...
In my experience with advanced prostate cancer, I've found myself having all kinds of words and thoughts running through my head and heart at various times, while the underlying "music" of my biological disease & treatments has been what it has been, regardless of some of my roller coaster emotions. This was especially so during the first couple of years, and every time I've been at an unfamiliar crossroad of a major treatment change.
There are several good books out there that address common responses to the subjects of death and dying, and suddenly living with ill health or disease. Many of us here have first hand knowledge of some of the variously described stages of a serious diagnosis, grief, dying, etc.
Brooding or ruminating about the Past or being overly anxious about the Future often bring me more internal suffering than doing what I can just to be better grounded in the current moment. I've also grown to be a bit wary when I catch myself feeling excessive denial/exuberance/optimism and the opposite mood swings of serious negative mood swings involving fears, anxieties, and unfounded pessimism. After taking a step back, or getting a good night's sleep,... I often find a reality somewhere in between. I like to think that we all might hope to live somewhere in a more peaceful "in between", in harmony with our authentic selves and all the interconnected other people and this wonderful natural world around us. Not too much shoulda/woulda/coulda about the Past. (After all, you don't want to "should all over yourself".) Not too much fretting about a Future that is in many ways still unknowable, and, in any event, is not here yet.
Still, easier said than done, of course.
Good thoughts coming your way, Cisco99.
Charles
I enjoy your 'life lessons' and optimism in spite of...hardship. The ability to not just accept (which is enough in itself), but to build on, adversity is a testimony to your courage with the now and faith with the future. =R
Everyone is different. Some are charged up by facing up to trials and tribulations while others are not. Some of one's mindset is not at all easy to change. It is easier to recommend to others to change. We have to live with our hardships and work our way through them. Whether they make us stronger is another story altogether. As someone wrote in a comment it is easy to advise people not to take any any hardship to heart but taking that advise is another matter. I know from my experience that my nature is such, from my earliest days, that I do not look back. When I learnt about my PCa it was a problem to be dealt with and so it was for me dealing with the present. Not worrying about the past or about the future - I can't influence it beyond a point anyway. Maybe the fact that I do not believe in God makes it easier to face upto the reality.
On the dot, binati.
Its definitely easier without the "god charade" 
Enjoy life !!!
Cisco99
I wish I were better with words so I apologize if this comes across the wrong way.
We have over 9,000 members on this voluntary forum. Until recently I enjoyed seeing posts from many of them. Now it seems that I mostly only see yours crowding out the others.
Could you possibly consider having the courtesy to tone it down just a bit in terms of volume? Many I'm sure love every post you render but perhaps not all. I can only speak for myself and wish that our posts can reflect a broader spectrum from a greater number of members. I have no interest in abusing our great forum nor entering into ANY kind of personal debate. I only want to share experiences and knowledge through this forum that may help any of us successfully fight this dreaded disease.
Thank you for understanding,
2Dee
Thanks. This is only the 3rd time I think I've written in this forum! Good I'm not crowding out anyone!!
Well said, 2dee. Today there are 5 posts from Cisco99, and I've seen this many posts from him all on one day numerous times. It almost feels like it's no longer Health Unlocked, but rather it's now Cisco Unlocked, and that's not what I come here to read. I hope he will take your message to heart.
This is great. Thanks, will show it to my husband!
I am content if I make it through the day without stepping on a cat. J-o-h-n's Wierd Al Yankovic's video showing a cat with a sniper's rifle distressed me for a moment. I wouldn't mind a grenade tossed in my direction every once in a while. But I dread the day they may start laying land mines. Enjoy.
Geez.... you guys are making me hungry I guess I'll have:
Chocolate chip ice cream (two scoops)...
Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.
j-o-h-n Monday 12/30/2019 6:27 PM EST
Hallelujah Cisco! I M happy to read your post . If the adt and Prostate treatments don’t kill is, then they definitely do not make us stronger .. maybe by surviving the misery we do overcome much . ? But we’re greatly diminished in every way . I Like you attitude now. Sing on amigo. I pray before my feet hit the floor each morning . Give thanks . Then I too put on “Good day” by the happy roots or its wonderful world by sacthmo and sing my heart out . Everything is said better in song . Be well compadre .. Good to hear from you 😎👏🕺
Great John this is especially for You
Upon losing my father , some retrospect. Take what you need and leave the rest. 
LIVE
Deuterium Depletion with Water and/or Food.
