Remember this? "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
The Jacob Rokk Corollary: If a book is published about a difficult (and extremely misunderstood) topic, but none are able to comprehend its true message, was its publication a worthwhile effort?
Imagine a disease capable of inflicting the set of humans susceptible to it with an extended, painful death. Percentage-wise, it can be one of the most common diseases for that group, who are forced to live their lives forever under its threat of occurrence, and when it strikes, its diagnosis is devastating.
Imagine that this disease has viable, effective treatments to forestall death/prolong life, but even if those treatments are “successful”, a victim’s remaining years of life must be conducted under the specter that the disease may return at any moment. The diseased must attempt the nearly impossible feat of finding a way to enjoy life in 90-day increments, facing quarterly lab tests to detect its recurrence, each time holding one’s breath, earnestly hoping for another 3-month “reprieve”.
Imagine this affliction is actually strengthened by the most powerful naturally occurring chemical element in the afflicted’s body – the essential, beneficial element that empowers his total lifeforce, enabling him to fully become what his body was meant to be – so that the principal, most widely accepted method to fight it involves removing that element, and along with it, that lifeforce.
Finally, imagine that malady carries with it all the mental shock, emotional anxiety, and social stigma of the dreaded ‘c’ word, cancer.
One might think: it couldn’t get any worse, could it?
Unfortunately, it could. For associated with the treatments are side effects, unspeakably ghastly ones. Quality-of-life destructive ones. Years-long, and sometimes permanent ones. Side effects so all-encompassing that, if the mind’s response to them is not carefully monitored, just might veer said mind (in a worst-case scenario) in a suicidal direction.
And then, on top of all that, the “final straw”: for the victim who has experienced that disease, the treatment(s), and side effects, the surrounding daily world he lives in creates an environment in which (he is led to believe) shame, guilt, embarrassment, humiliation, ridicule, scorn are heaped on him for enduring those side effects, making it nearly impossible to seek help for fear his potential help-givers will likewise “look down on him” or “make fun of him”.
If you were successful performing this mental exercise, congratulations … you’ve just accurately pictured, in your mind, prostate cancer. But if not, don’t be discouraged – most likely only those who’ve actually experienced the disease can truly comprehend and thus explain what it honestly feels like.
The pseudo-diary Male Fraud (releasing soon) shows what it was like for one such man, from inside his head.