Final Thoughts

Abstract

We live in a world so uncertain, so chancy, that we seek to fill it with certainty: fundamentalist truth, hard numbers, insurance policies, political correctness, regulatory schemes, IRBs, and tenure. But the truth is, nothing can save you from the loss at the heart of it all, the probability that you will wake, blinking, from a darkness you could not imagine, to a lit world you cannot expect. A fundamentalist politician can have a beloved gay daughter or a 15-year-old pregnant one, Wall Street firms can evaporate, you can lose your job, your house, America can lose wars, lose its cheerful, optimistic way. Nowhere is this uncertainty more terrifying true than in medicine, the tragic world to which bioethics attends. You can get cancer, your child can get cancer, and sickened and afraid, the choices you make just then will bridle or set loose the dark horse that is the future, and it will gallop off into parts unknown.