"The unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates

- - scatterings of ideas sent to my younger self, a sensitive girl who was fooled into believing she was a boy because of anatomy - -

Friday 4 November 2011

Is it this awesome?

Spoiler Alert! If you are a Gray's Anatomy fan, but have not seen the November 3rd episode (last night), then you probably want to read this another time. 

Every now and then a fictional account becomes much more to me. A good book (thank you Calie) feeds the soul, or a movie or television program moves you to think differently about the world. I love that, and hope that some day something I create can be such a catalyst.

For those who do not (or cannot) watch this television program, Gray's Anatomy (to grossly simplify) follows the lives of the surgeons in a Seattle hospital; their careers, their love lives, and everything in between.

Last evening's episode began with an operation to 'harvest' the living heart from an accident victim who was brain-dead, for immediate transplant. The heart was put into a device in a plexiglas box designed to keep it alive and beating. A phone call reveals the planned recipient has died. The heart, with no ready donor, is left in that box, in the keeping of Dr. Christina Yang, beating and in plain sight for the remainder of the episode. At first a curiosity, then a nuisance, the heart soon becomes a symbol of all that is miraculous, and truly awesome in the world.

Christina had made a 'bucket list' for herself, and needed to shorten it. By naming each item, then comparing it to 'heart in a box', she was able to decide which on the list should stay (as awesome) or go (less awesome).

There are times in your life when you need to dream big, and believe that truly miraculous and awesome is what you deserve. I will remember that heart, still beating, alive and eventually hidden again but still awesome; giving someone who might otherwise have died that day a miracle.

4 comments:

  1. Hmm, seems to be a common theme this season - there was an episode of House a few weeks ago where they did the exact same thing with a lung . . . kept breathing in a plexiglass box for the entire hour.

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  2. I hope the writers made good use out of that "device". I did watch House for a couple of seasons, until I realized that I had stopped caring about the characters.

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  3. It does sound like an episode of House.

    I'm interpreting this post as a metaphor, Halle. True?

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  4. Hi Calie, I think we all have 'bucket lists' even if we never actually write them out. I certainly do, and yes, the post is a metaphor. I hope it works for others too.

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