musingsonwomenshealth.com

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

Utere, non numera


There was a time when I believed that practice made perfect, but now that I am old, I have to wonder why it matters. Not so much the need to practice, you understand, but more the need to strive for perfection. Surely practicing is meant to accomplish something else -we can never achieve perfection. In a way, practice is only a meditation, a method of concentrating attention, of minimizing distractions, of building neural pathways. Utere, non numera: ‘Use the hours, don’t count them’, as the motto on a medieval sundial was said to have urged.

Anyway, the idea of being ‘the best’ has always troubled me -not because it is unattainable, but because being the best at something is meaningless. Let us say that after a lifetime of playing chess, you think you have finally achieved your goal and have become better than anyone else you’ve ever played. Apart from the obvious fact that you haven’t played everybody -somebody out there may well play better than you- the question still has to be asked about whether that is a meaningful goal. It may be a source of pride… but why?

Would the legendary Sisyphus, who was condemned forever to roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down again, believe that he was engaged in a meaningful task? No doubt he could be assured that he had rolled a boulder up a hill more often than anyone else, but would that be anything to be proud of? Should he be honoured for his ability to endure futility? Or shamed for accepting it? The philosopher Richard Taylor concluded that any meaning that our activities have is purely subjective, given that, from the perspective of the Universe, what we do is not of any lasting significance.[i]

On the other hand, the philosopher, Susan Wolf argues that the meaningfulness of an activity or goal is a function not only of one’s being fulfilled in engaging in it/pursuing it, but the feeling of fulfilment also needs to be a fitting response to the activity or goal. And it is only a fitting response if the activity or goal is objectively pursuit-worthy.[ii] In other words, if someone else thinks what you did was worth the effort.

Still, that’s a bit wishy-washy: social media has taught us that, no matter the endeavour, there’s always an audience that jumps on board; an audience that finds the most inane accomplishment worthy of praise. Worthy of pursuit… No doubt you could justify it to them (and yourself) by pointing out that it has made you a better person. But, what is left unsaid, left unproved, is whether the years of practice are what have changed you, or just the goal you may (or may not) have reached -the old question of whether it’s really the journey and all of its interesting detours, or the arrival at the destination that has proved the most beneficial. Life itself is a journey, and we all intuit what the end might offer. Is there a lesson there…?

After all, even if the hope of reaching the goal is what sustains whatever activity is required to attain it, arrival usually ends that -any value that the motivation afforded, exists only until the goal has been reached. For the same spirit to be rekindled, another goal has to be invented and more practicing has to be endured. So one really has to wonder which is more valuable -learning something unexpected during the practice, or simply achieving the goal: the chicken or the egg?

The coffee group I go to on most Wednesdays at the Food Court is a garrulous and argumentative bunch; it was even more so during the height of the Covid era. In those days, with all the pandemic restrictions that seemed to change from week to week, it was the challenge of new interactions that intrigued me; it still does. We are all old -over seventy, I would think- and during the initial ravages of Covid, many were finding the hows and whens of wearing a mask confusing.

Adil, an octogenarian with tousled snow white hair is a regular, and he often takes command of our socially distanced table. Whenever Saul, a youthful lad, barely brushing his seventieth year, arrived with his nose hanging out above his mask though, Adil always told him to put his nose away until he sat down -same words each time, same irritable scowl visible on whatever of his rumpled face was still uncovered.

Saul, his head balding like a monk’s tonsure, was always casually dressed in a wrinkled grey sweat shirt and khaki pants that hung from his waist like curtains.

One day, as he moved the chair to sit down, I remember he obediently clothed his nose and shook his head. “Sate my curiosity, Adil,” he said, and then removed his mask as he sat down with his coffee. “If I’m going to undress my face as soon as I sit down, why do you insist on denouncing my nose every time?”

Adil blinked and then almost growled at Saul. “And why do you insist on using words I do not understand?”

Saul winked at me and then stared at Adil. “What word is obfuscatory this time, Addi?” he asked, trying not to smile.

“Damn, there you go again, Saul… can you not speak English to me? Where do you find these words?”

I thought I’d calm things down a little. “You seem to have an impressive vocabulary, Saul…”

He smiled at me and had a sip of his coffee. “I’ve always loved words, G,” he explained.

“But why not use simple words that everybody would understand, Saul,” Adil said, no longer offended.

Saul shrugged. “Many years ago in school, each of us had to give a short talk to the class, and the best talk would get a prize. My teacher said we should all practice our vocabulary so we could use the most appropriate words to explain our theses…”

Adil rolled his eyes at the word ‘theses’ but didn’t say anything.

“Anyway,” Saul continued, “I found I preferred to impress my classmates with all of the sesquipedalianisms I’d learned, and… well, the teacher said I needed more practice,” he added with a twinkle in his eyes.

Adil held up his hand. “It is not impressing me, Saul. You should not still need the practice at your age, should you?”

Saul blinked and then a wry smile appeared. He winked at me again. “Do you still run, Addi?” he asked, trying hard not to roll his eyes.

Adil stared at him for a moment before answering. “What has that got to do with you showing off your vocabrilary?”

Saul glanced at me as if he was going to correct Adil’s word, but I shook my head at him -English wasn’t Adil’s first language.

“Well, why do you run? I mean at your age, you’re not really practicing for anything are you…?” Saul was smiling, and his expression suggested he was actually interested in the answer.

For the first time since I’d arrived, Adil’s face broke out in a wide grin. “I first started to run when I was very young and still in my own country. I came here when I was fifteen or sixteen, I think, and I wanted to fit in with the others at my high school. Track and field seemed like a good way -I was not heavy enough for football, or skillful enough for hockey or basketball. Anyway, I still had to practice to make the team, and then keep on practicing to actually win a race or two. I found I really enjoyed competing -especially when I began to win.”

Saul was nodding his head. “So, are you still practicing for something -a marathon, or whatever…?”

Adil shook his head with a kind of faraway look in his eyes. “I eventually realized that it was not actually winning that I enjoyed; it was running.” He looked happy that Saul had finally asked him, and shoved a plate brimming with doughnuts towards us. “We do not always eat just to fill our stomachs, do we?”

Saul smiled at his friend… Or maybe it was the doughnuts.

[i] https://psyche.co/ideas/sisyphus-skateboarders-and-the-value-in-endless-failure

[ii] Ibid.

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