Will to Live

"Will to Live", I come across this term quite often in the teachings and writings of many philosophers. I could not grasp the true meaning of the phrase though each philosopher offers his meaning. That reminds me of Heinrich Suso, a medieval Christian mystic's words. He says,- "If a man cannot grasp matter, let him be idle; the matter will grasp him". I thought, I could at least understand the meaning behind this Mystic's quote. So had long forgotten the phrase - "Will to Live"

Now I am going to explain about a major event that took place in my personal life little over two years ago. I had a mild heart attack on Saturday the 26th May 2007 at around 2.30 pm. I was in sound belief that the chest pain was nothing but gastric, which was similar to the ones I quite often had and that would go in a couple of hours. This time, when it refused to go, reluctantly I agreed to be shifted to a city hospital emergency room at around 8.30 pm, where the ECG confirmed
the attack. Immediately I was administered with so many drips, injections and oral drugs and kept under observation in ICCU. I was not allowed to move even sideways. By 11 o'clock the ECG monitor showed normal heart functioning. Two of the drips were removed from ankle and wrist veins. However, one drip on the other wrist was continued. The ECG machine also was continued with connections to my chest. The cardiologist talked some encouraging words with a warning that I should not even move sideways at least till morning and left. There was no sleep despite administration of morphine till 5 am and I did not know when I actually went to sleep. Suddenly I woke up at 6 feeling wet coldness to my hand. I had turned to my side in sleep and the drip had got disconnected. Blood was oozing from my vein, there were little pools on the bed as there was rubber sheet under the sheet.Three fourths of my hospital shirt was soaked in blood and a large portion of blanket was wet. I was shivering like a cat in snow storm. After I called in help, everything was set right. In my fair estimation, I had lost over 500 Ml. of blood. Next half an hour, while the paramedic was changing the sheets, cleaning my body (whole of chest and back) with surgical spirit to completely wipe out the blood stain, my mind was surprisingly calm and quiet...there was absolutely no fear of death...was in a sort of unattempted meditation...the nurse was trying her best to fill courage but nothing entered my head...the meaning of life I had so far, looked totally nonsensical...well, I am not able to put in words that state of mind, but I now knew what is "Will to Live"....life has its own unique ways to counter emergencies (like the timing it made me wake up despite morphine, for, the doctor later opined that ten more minutes of blood loss would have been disastrous!) when human intellect could do nothing.....

It is an established fact that over 90% of deaths in snake bite cases are not because of the injected poison in the blood stream, but because of the shock taking place before the poison reaches brain. Similarly, I now think, more often than not,
death takes place because of the fear of death than the disease or the illness we suffer.