Choose.

Choice is at the center of everyone's life... and sometimes even their death. (listening to: Traffic and Nature)

This will be my second House-inspired post. This should come as no suprise to anyone who's been following my admiration of great writing and critical thinking. Here goes.
**DISCLAIMER: Those who are afraid of morally touchy issues, click here.

In this week's episode (sudden tangential random thought: If anyone thinks that using a TV show as a springboard for philosopical thought is stupid, there's the door. Don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out. On second thought, go ahead. Let it.) of House, a man is given the choice: Save your wife's unborn baby, or save her. He chooses her, knowing full well that his wife's wishes are self-sacrifice to save her child. Let that be. The operation to save her life causes her to bleed internally. House now offers this guy a choice: We need to save your baby. Order the C-Section. This, by the way, his wife has NO chance of surviving. The choice, to anyone but this guy is clear: Let her go. Save the baby.

...

I don't think so. See, House says it earlier in the episode: "Tragedy happens." Losing your wife and unborn baby definately qualifies as tragedy, but ordering the death of your wife to save the baby is more than tragedy. That's being asked to choose. Now, I know that the choice here is clear. Mom's probably going to die anyway, so save what you can. But that's NOT what he's being asked. He's being asked to take a PRO-ACTIVE choice to engage in a procedure he knows will kill his wife in order to save his child. People die every day. But he's killing one to save one. THAT is NOT an easy choice. I don't care who you are.
Long story short... he saves his baby, wife dies. He made the right call. But could I have made it? I don't know. I might have, but I would have had to live with the guilt of losing the one woman I cared about more than anything in the world, and knowing that I made the decision to end her life. And I would see her face every day in my baby. My baby that I have to raise alone.

So, what does this have to do with my life? I mean.. this is my blog. Not the House, MD official fan board. Take a look at the title of my blog, folks. This is the ULTIMATE sign of life.

What does it mean to claim responsibility for a life? We see ourselves as victims or circumstance, doing what we can with the hand we're dealt in this life. We take responsibility for our actions, and do what we can with the chance cards that we draw. but what happens to those people who sack up and play boldly those garbage cards they're dealt? They're heroes, or villians, depending on a flip of the coin.

People claim responsibility for lives every day. Parents claim their children very nearly more dearly than their own lives. Doctors work themselves haggard for the life and death all around them. These people stand up to that chance card and say, "F--- off. Not this one. Not today." And me? I've looked death in the eye. And Nietzsche was right: "And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." (Jenseits von Gut und Boese, page unknown) To this day, I wake up at night and think about that 13 year old boy in that car. I see the car speed past me in my mind's eye, and I think, "If I could have, would I have claimed responsibility for that life? That life that ended as I dropped my Blizzard and ran towards him?"

What does that mean? How can I have claimed responsibility for a death I had nothing to do with, and did everything in my power to save? It's a meaningless question I ask myself, and yet it haunts me. Because everyone dies. And this kid didn't have the CHOICE to not get into the car with Mom's highly drunken friend. And this kid didn't get to look out the window at the young couple walking past the car going 65 on a windy road and say, "Someday, I hope I'll go for a walk past a river with my best friend." He didn't get the CHOICE to live. He's dead. And I'm alive. And the game goes on.