Doctor S. II - 3/13/91

Dear Dr. S…

 

Your response to the books and poetry I passed along was most kind. Having heard you speak on several occasions while attending Grand Rounds, I thought I detected a kindred spirit. Your fond regard for quotations reflects an obvious love for the spoken word and it's capacity to mirror truth and beauty. 

 

Your reference to my sensitivity in synthesizing head and heart, a capacity with which you are no stranger, called to mind a number of related ideas I have chosen to place in Attachment 1 to avoid the clutter of a data dump. I've also included a bit of background concerning the manner and mode of my sensitivity training in Attachment 2. 

 

With regard to said sensitivity, I would suggest that our ground is common. For both pilots and physicians, by the nature of their professions, are present at the cutting edge of life -- the point where stark reality (what is) crosses swords with vain imaginings (what we think is). A lot of sparks fly and a lot of light is shed in that arena, and what most often catches fire is ones heart. 

 

In my own case, perhaps my exposure to the heat and light of raw reality (i.e.. combat flying, aircraft emergencies, thunderstorms, bad weather, low fuel and any number of other unpleasantries too numerous to mention, etc.) had the very real effect of both melting and sensitizing my heart. For the nearer one comes to death, and its ever present possibility, the more alert, aware, and alive one is likely to become.

 

I would further suggest that both pilots and physicians are often called upon to respond to forces that shatter any illusion of control, and the only way to respond successfully is to become increasingly open and sensitive to what is, here and now. It's simple! When you don't know the only appropriate response is to look and listen. Unfortunately, in the routine circumstances of our lives we are all too often allowed the illusion of thinking we know and so act inappropriately. 

 

Following my experience in Vietnam, my own sense of not knowing became profound, while my looking and listening was transformed into a full-blown search for the meaning of life-- a quest to make sense of apparent non-sense. Capturing lightening in a jar would be easier, but probably not as much fun. 

 

As the poetry I have done suggests, mine became a proverbial quest for truth. As with all the mediums of expression I've used (i.e.. open letters, essays, abstract drawings, journals, vignettes, etc.), the poetry itself was simply a humble attempt to share insights as I proceeded on my journey. Perhaps my compulsion to share springs, in part, from the joy that sharing said discoveries seems to occasion. Or perhaps, the operative principle, as I recently read, is that "shared ideas expand", and that collective, not individual awareness is the ultimate objective. 

 

Since I need very little encouragement, and you offered quite a lot, I've taken the liberty of forwarding a sample of some other attempts to capture glimpses of truth as I have been privileged to see it (Attachment 3). 

 

Yours, RFH

 

(See 3 Attachments to this letter: Reflections on Intelligence and Sensitivity, 

Sensitivity Training and Tale Chase, in the Prose Section)