1/16/08

Some of the sum of parts

Tri-O's
Oddities, observations, and opinions
By Herb Kandel

Some say it was Aristotle who originated the phrase “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” while others attribute it to the Gestalt School of Psychology. Regardless of where it came from, the epitome of this virtual cliché is my longtime friend Dan (all names changed).

He got me thinking about it when he asked for my opinion, which in itself is unusual for he has so many strong ones of his own. Last week I found him sitting with a far away look in his eyes, you know the kind where someone seems to be drifting to a place other than the here and now.
“Dan, is something wrong?”
“Do I look different to you?” he asked back.
“Other than your shirt with the buttons in a button hole one above where they should be, no. Why do you ask?”
As he re-aligned his shirt buttons he said, “This morning Stella (his wife) said I didn’t look like myself. She said I appeared somewhat peaked, more pooped than usual. And I got to thinking, maybe it’s about time that some parts of me started the aging process, too.”
“What do you mean by that?” was my snappy reply.
Whereupon he vented, “I got to thinking that from the time I open my eyes in the morning, I see through new lenses that took the place of my cataracted ones. Then I leveraged myself from bed to a sitting position with a repaired shoulder rotor cuff. I stood up braced on my artificial knees, balanced by my ceramic hips, and straightened a fused spine where a herniated disc once was. Afterward, I used a long handled shoehorn to put on a pair of slip-on orthotic shoes for my flat feet.
“Stella had the TV playing but I could not see or hear it clearly until I inserted my contact lenses and hearing aids.“I shaved using my carpal tunneled hand, which left a few nicks on my face. Then I combed my Rogaine-enhanced hair, touched up with Just for Men, before crunching my breakfast cereal with a set of teeth that has several bridges, silver fillings, and a gold crown.
“My pacemaker jolted me with a kick in the chest when it got my ticker back in sync again. I was now ready for the day.
“So I ask again: Do I look any different?”
I knew about some of Dan’s ailments and tried not to look stunned by the anatomy inventory recitation.“Dan,” said I, “I think you are a walking wonder. Not only have you survived all those procedures and are able to function near normal but just think of all the possibilities you present both now and in the future. When you become frustrated, you can truthfully declare that you were ‘beside yourself,’ or that you’re not ‘feeling like yourself.’ If you were to be cremated, you would not be able to fit into a standard urn, but you would become a treasure-trove to a used prosthetic collector.
“All joking aside, I do believe you are the living proof that the whole IS more than the sum of its parts. For without some of the parts provided by modern medical technology, you may not have still been here. Just think of a bunch of microchips, circuits, wires, transistors, and batteries — all by themselves they are junk or less, but put together properly they can be a computer, a GPS, an MP3 player, or a Bill Gates. So like the old song says, consider yourself fortunate “to be in the condition your condition is in.”
“I guess you’re right,” he said thinking it over. “And I’ll walk you back to your car as soon as I shake off this restless leg syndrome.”


http://www.baldwincountynow.com/articles/2008/01/16/columnists/doc478d20e08f780487991213.txt