How much anesthesia would be enough?

I am alive. A strange thing to proclaim. As this is the most fundamental, most obvious thing. I am typing these keys and vomiting out my thoughts as I am alive. So it is a mundane fact. But yet this is the most amazing fact. I am alive so I can move my fingers. So being alive is being able to control your body parts? Not quite. When I am asleep I have no clue where my arms or legs are or whether my mouth is open or closed (which I wish I would know as it becomes embarrassing sometimes). But nonetheless I am alive even in those moments of almost zero control over my own body.

I am alive as I can think. So being alive is being able to think? But we stop thinking so many times. Not only when we are asleep but in a drunken state or struck by cupid or faced by death.

I am alive as I can feel the pain in my tooth (or the hollow left as I got my tooth extracted today! Ironically it was my wisdom tooth which I got rid off…..so this blabbering is a result of that). Feeling pain makes me alive. Of but this pain was can be controlled by the anesthesia. The anesthesia can be increased to ensure that no pain is felt. That’s what the doctor promised me, “I would not let you have pain, just tell me if you feel pain and I would give you one more shot”. I did that. And the operation which people get done with one shot, I got it done with three shots. But I needed that to lose some aliveness of mine.

So it is difficult to decide what makes us alive. But what is a simple observable fact is that the aliveness can be lost temporarily. I know it can be lost completely as well.

But Dear all, I want to talk about life and not about death.

Let’s come to the title. How much anesthesia do we need or is enough? Well in case of pain it is easy know. If it still hurts I know I need more of it. In case of heart break if I know if I still think of the ex-sweetheart I need more of it. Well the shot varies for people; some go crazy shopping, some need to chatter, some would drink and so on.

But these are extreme cases. In more normal and so called rational states of mind, do we need to loose a little aliveness? Well instead of making generalization let me just state that I think I take sedatives everyday. Sometimes I question my work, and the reason for it, the meaning of it etc. but my experience has been that after that I would indulge even more in my work. To explain this my hypothesis is that I work even more hard not because I want to but because that helps me forget the question.

Let me take leave here today and would blabber some more tomorrow.

For next few hours let us live without sedatives.