‘Tao Te Ching’ informs the art of coping with cancer

Several months into brain cancer, I’m running into new limits. But they aren’t exactly what I expected. So I’m looking for some meta-advice about how I should react.

Glioblastoma, aka GBM, is a disease with a median survival of about 15 months. My current odds push my prognosis up to as much as 20 months. Maybe more, maybe less. Thinking about my path to the Egress became a psychological “new normal” pretty much the day after my brain surgery in December.

But physical challenges surely could have been worse for me at that point. The list of relatively common symptoms to this relatively uncommon cancer includes a variety of losses of basic mental skills and power. Seizures. Paralysis. Loss of the ability to speak. Or see. Or walk.

I’d had almost none of that then. Still haven’t since my 62nd birthday in January.

However, I’ve run into some physical walls in the past few weeks. Boy, howdy, I’ve been tired. I’ve always liked naps. But I’ve had days where naps lasted a lot longer than awake time. And lack of appetite is making it hard for me to maintain weight and strength, as well.

My doctor tells me that a high fatigue can be my new normal. Which means I’m looking for the medical equivalent of crutches: drugs that will boost my energy.

And I’m also trying to figure out what level of ambition makes any sense at all. What should I be aiming for?

The last time I can recall running into such an unexpected personal wall was mostly psychological. And more than 40 long years ago. I was a college kid whose first-ever irredeemable romance had been squashed like a messy bug.

My brain was damned near on hold. And one acquaintance gave me a copy of a spiritual book I’d never heard of: The Penguin Classic edition of “Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tzu.

Taoism (pronounced Dow-ism) has nothing much to do with romance but is a metaphilosophy about how to deal with all human problems. And I disagreed with plenty of it. But I liked what I took away as the broad structure:

The word “Tao” is generally translated as “the way.” Reality is tied universally and maybe even supernaturally to a moral and ethical flow. If I tried to figure out how to ride generally with the flow — even like a surfboard on a tsunami — maybe I’d be able to get to places I wanted to go better than if I fought against the flow. Worth a try.

I won’t say Lao Tzu led me to a quick success, but he got me moving better than I had been for a while. And I’ve never lost my affection for the work. I’ve collected a series of translations and analyses over the years. But the first version I read remains my favorite.

What guidance might it offer to me now? I went looking for some quotes. Here’s the very start that hooked me forever:

“It is because he does not contend that no one in the empire is in a position to contend with him.”

I truly remember that! Only competition leads to a loss. And each of us can choose whether or not to compete. I won’t lose simply because someone else thinks I’m losing. That’s worth grabbing back onto.

“Now, to forsake compassion for courage, to forsake frugality for expansion, to forsake the rear for the lead, is sure to end in death.”

Yes. I’m mortal for sure. But a focus on what kind of ambition makes sense might get me a legacy that doesn’t simply end when I will.

And finally: “In the pursuit of learning one knows more every day; in the pursuit of the way one does less every day. One does less and less until one does nothing at all, and when one does nothing at all there is nothing that is undone.”

So a deep breath. And a quiet thought. And even a nap. Or two. I will do some things as I can. Until there is nothing that is undone.

Longtime reporter Jeffrey Weiss was diagnosed with a brain cancer in December. He's exploring how a likely end of life should affect his thinking about beliefs and behavior in a series of columns for Religion News Service, where this piece first appeared. Follow him on Twitter @Jeffreyweissdmn.