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You are a great guy, especially considering how creatively I innovated problems for you when we were yournger, but more importantly you have been creative and innovative in your approach to solving the problems associated with cancer and stroke through your research at Henry Ford Hospital. Research that intersected ideally at the crossroads of the currently best known solution to a problem I now posess.
In relation to this article, I do see a great hope for the future of human creativity. Creativity, in solving problems, creates other residual problems. I expect that with the removal of part of my right temporal lobe, I will see some temporary and residual problems in my life. The neuro-oncologist, and neurosurgeon have both made me aware of the likely outcomes. In my ability to creatively view the likely outcomes of my future, I am also consciously choosing to favor the residual problems over the primary ones by far. Without creative medical intervention, my primary problems are expected to be: increasing seizure frequency, possible death or injury to me or others from an untimely seizure, certainty of increased tumor aggressiveness without ever having direct pathology of said tumor material, and accepting that choosing inaction will most certainly lead to a shorter and lower quality for my remaining life. From speaking with the experts in gliomas, as well as my communications with others in the four days since I've been aware, I am pretty firmly convinced that human civilization is at a tipping point with creativity sharing, the likes of which have never before been seen on earth. The ability that a person like me has to share the amount of information I've traded in the last four days, about a potential life-threatening condition, has only confirmed to me further that creativity is everything. We are traders of creativity and information. We trade creative solutions to creatively born problems.
Like you, I enjoy the beauty of Michigan's Upper Penninsula. We would be able to enjoy it if it was truly only old growth forest. We could not get there, but we can and that's what makes it special. Similarly, I also enjoy writing this post more than others I've written in the past. My creative thinking about what the rest of my life may or may not look like has given me perspective of life farther from the "treadmill of problems" than ever before.
Thank you brother.
-Jeff
*I would guess that the cost in watts of this email transmission is far more efficient than the amount of energy it would take to cut a field to feed a horse, to pulp the trees and bleach the paper, to ship the india ink, from Oakland County to Detroit.
In addition, please disregard what I said when you grabbed some extra Upper Penninsula white pines, hemp rope, cinder blocks, and chain to whip up an actual working trebuchet on the shoreline of Lake Superior that one time.
Your creative energy easily saw beyond the limitations I placed on the situation. It wasn't until we had that damned trebuchet together that I realized that day at the beach that could easily have been ordinary and forgotten instead became one that I'll remember forever. Plus it made for a cool beach fire days later. Hot dogs and all. Thanks again.
Of course, someone could have been killed as that 30 pound stone travelled some distance into the lake. The likelyhood of that was miniscule and the I think the entire collatteral damage of that creative excercise was someone getting a pinched finger. The incredible value of that creative endeavor, the teamwork, and trust built is something I'd pinch my finger for any day.
This is quite a feeling. I trust you completely.
Jeff
- Of course, someone could have been killed as that 30 pound stone travelled some distance into the lake. The likelyhood of that was miniscule and the I think the entire collatteral damage of that creative excercise was someone getting a pinched finger. The incredible value of that creative endeavor, the teamwork, and trust built is something I'd pinch my finger for any day.
I won't ever forget it either. I'll have to dig up the pictures and post them.
I remember our biggest mistake was using old jeans for the sling. :) Luckily they didn't give out on the backswing and send the stone into the neighbor's cottage. If we go for trebuchet 2.0, I'm sure we can get quite a bit further into the lake.
Jeff
Before I walked into the office and met my help last Friday, I could not have expected to feel as fortuitous as I do now. Both gentlemen clearly demonstrated their expertise in gliomas, but more importantly, demonstrated just as clearly, that my problem and their solutions were matched as well as anyone could ever expect.
I tend to feel stronger that people are creativity traders more than ever before.
I live in Michigan. If you visited the state 200 years ago, it would have been covered in old growth forests. If you visited it 100 years ago, it would be dominated by clear-cut fields. Many of those fields have returned to forest, especially in the Upper Peninsula. I'm not sure if there isn't some balance to the equation. Without immigration, population growth in the US would be negative, and watts are relatively cheap.
As an aside, the discussion sparked by this post was well more interesting and thoughtful that the piece itself.
So, I guess that would be about 9.5 x 10^8 joules per day?
I agree that it's poor language choice to say 'needs x watts'. Maybe 'consumes energy at a rate of x watts'?
Either way, there is no way a science journalist should make such a grievous error; it renders his article misleading to most of his readers, and nonsense to the rest.
Due to several creative people I know and love, and a few more creative people that I've met, paths have been revealed to me that may likely enable me to beat a brain tumor that, left alone, will certainly end me. Creative solutions, ideas at first, were shared, imagined, revised, and acted on to instead give me, a 38 year-old, trained to teach middle school-aged students about math, science, and themselves, what I feel is the best chance at survival anyone in my place could possibly have.
Of course, the cost of this creativity will give me a nasty headache, some temporarily muddled thoughts, a small chance of reduced vision on my left side, but I will gladly accept the costs of this creativity. I also see some amazing possibilities for all people as we move forward as a society of people creatively trading problems, solutions, and agreeing on acceptable costs. Is that what this is really about?
I better get some sleep. It should help me negate some of the opportunity costs of tomorrow's initial decision.
Thanks again Mark.
Jeff
It's absurd how distracted we get, and how this strips away what isn't substantial. That's one thing those costs are buying. I've been given a perspective that I didn't have, and won't soon forget. We definitely did get that out of this.
We are going forward, brother! We have more to create, and that is an awesome thing.
Thank you, Jeff.
Jeff