"Neither Eyes Nor Hands Are Free To Fulfill Their Purpose..."

In my favorite old lobotomy-drama, Suddenly Last Summer, Tennessee Williams has a doctor refer to his specialty operation as "the sharp knife in the mind that kills the devil in the soul." The line is heavy with bitter irony -- the playwright's own sister, Rose, received that very treatment when her moods and hysterics became a burden on her family. Rose's capacity was permanently limited by the operation, and Williams never forgave himself for being unable to intervene in the family's decision.

Regardless, that was the prevailing belief at the time: that making incisions into key areas of patients' brains would pacify them somehow. This concept surely owed a lot to the curious case of Phineas Gage, a railway foreman who suffered a massive brain injury in 1848 when he used the butt of a three-foot iron spike to tamp down a gunpowder charge. When the charge accidentally ignited, it blew the spike clear through his head so forcefully that when it fell to earth, it landed about 30 yards behind him.

It was downright miraculous that he survived this incident at all, but in fact Gage recovered -- mostly:

"Some months after the accident, probably in about the middle of 1849, Phineas felt strong enough to resume work. But because his personality had changed so much, the contractors who had employed him would not give him his place again. Before the accident he had been their most capable and efficient foreman, one with a well-balanced mind, and who was looked on as a shrewd smart business man. He was now fitful, irreverent, and grossly profane, showing little deference for his fellows. He was also impatient and obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, unable to settle on any of the plans he devised for future action. His friends said he was "No longer Gage..."

This disturbed many people at the time, because it forced them to question the nature, or even the very existence, of the human soul. For a brief time, Gage toured in exhibitions along with the spike itself; later he moved to Chile and worked as a coachman, where he eventually died of seizures related to his injury. He beat impossible odds, but lived his last twelve years on earth as a stranger to everyone who had ever known him. I can see why doctors began to dream of a surgical cure for insanity, but ultimately they ran up against a far more sobering truth, one which Williams understates grimly: "Whenever you enter the brain with a foreign object... even a needle-thin knife... in the hands of the most skilled surgeon... there is a great deal of risk."

This daguerreotype of Gage is the only known photograph of him; it was uploaded to Flickr in 2007 with a bunch of other unidentified portraits, and in 2008 another Flickr member pointed out whom it appeared to be. It strikes me as incredibly sad that the only portrait of him in existence was taken after he was "no longer Gage." We all deserve to be remembered at our best, but often it's our worst that stands the test of time.

I couldn't help but think of the Nine of Swords (and flinch) while reading Gage's tale. It really puts a visceral new slant on the card's traditional imagery, that's for sure. But it also provides a very heavy metaphor for the drastic changes wrought upon us by life's misfortunes.

Afflictions and persecutions may have the potential to refine and redeem you in the long term, but in the short term they create a crisis of persepective that puts blinders on your essential humanity. Fear, pain, and pressure begin to seem more real than love, reason, or respect. Meanwhile, you're still out there in the world, trying to interact with people and act like everything's just fine. Unless you're a master at hiding your thoughts and feelings, it's probably obvious to everyone else that you're not feeling like yourself, but you can't expect them to help you when you're positively radiating unpleasantness.

You may or may not be able to change the circumstances in your life that sent you into this tailspin, but there is one thing you have control over, and are still responsible for regardless of all else: your own awareness. Pull free from fantasies of worst-case-scenarios, refuse to let your fear or melancholy manifest as procrastination, and begin to deal with the details of your life as gamely and realistically as you possibly can. Remember: when you cover your eyes with your hands, neither eyes nor hands are free to fulfill their purpose. For all you know, the exit might be right in front of you. [Via]

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Nine of Swords