The Glad Game

he 1950s and 60s were in many ways a simpler and more sentimental time to grow up in than today, or at least it seems so to me. But I remember a certain movie that even back then I found too schmaltzy to stomach. It was Pollyanna, a live-action 1960 Disney movie about a young orphan who comes to town and wins the hearts of all the embittered townspeople with her unstoppable optimism. Oh ugh. Even as a kid, I agreed with the movie’s screenwriter David Swift, who is quoted as saying that “Pollyanna was so filled with happiness and light that I wanted to kick her.”

The movie was an adaptation of the book by Eleanor H. Porter. It was the first of her “Glad books”, published in 1913 when the children in books were angelic, optimistic, and dutiful, and in the end were always rewarded for their goodness. With this as the norm, it’s small wonder that subversive stories like A High Wind in Jamaica (I raved about it here) met with such simultaneous outrage and acclaim.

One of the ways Pollyanna accomplished this optimism was to play what she called “The Glad Game”. One plays it by imagining all of the good things that have come about because your dog died, or whatever situation you find yourself in.

As a kid, I would be mortified at anyone accusing me of being a Pollyanna, or (shudder) indulging in The Glad Game. But I confess I recently found myself doing it, and not just once but on three separate occasions. As with many of the Things of Importance in a Third-Ager’s life, they all had to do with my health.

The third incident happened just the other day. I had completed my required endoscopy to find the source of my internal bleeding (chronicled here). The doctor had told me before-hand that they would be looking for the cause of the problem, and upon identifying it, they would zap it, snip it, clip it, or take a piece for a biopsy, depending on what they found. (I told my doc that “biopsy” sounds like cancer, and asked had she avoided ever mentioning that possibility because it was so unlikely, or just because it was so scary? She said they—doctors—don’t like to talk about it because it’s scary. That answer in itself is kind of scary.)

Well anyway, as I mentioned in my previous report, my upper GI tract inspection showed no serious problems of any kind. The goal of the procedure, at which it completely failed, was to find and fix the problem causing my bleeding, but I couldn’t help thinking, “This is good news! No cancer in the upper GI tract, and when they do the other half of the procedure, I’ll have a complete clean bill of health for the entire food tube!”

My second example was last year when I was recovering from a knee injury. The scans showed something that was “probably nothing, but you should check it out”, which is doc-speak for “don’t sue me if you ignore it and it turns out to be cancer.”

So I arranged a bone scan, although I was pretty confident that I didn’t have cancer (the main cancer indicator was knee pain, and I already knew where that pain was coming from—I BUSTED IT!), and I thought to myself, “what a stroke of luck! This bone scan covers my entire body, so now I’ll get a complete skeleton cancer scan, all free-like!” And I did!

My first example stems from a cardiac incident many years ago, that started me on a cycle of regular tests with my cardiologist. Every test came back fine since that first incident, and after a few nervous years, I finally decided that with all this testing, I’ve probably lowered my risk of being surprised by a heart attack! “Good thing I had that thing that sent me to the cardiac ward!”

I actually had those thoughts. The true offense of The Glad Game is, of course, not to think it, but to tell others about it, preferably with personal examples, so that they will learn how wrong they were to feel bad when their house burned down. I am telling you about it now, it’s true, but not to encourage you to adopt the approach. Far from it! But if your subconscious points out some silver lining in a storm cloud, you might as well take it—you’ll need it when the real disaster hits!

To balance out the cosmic glad scale just a little bit, I’ll play a little of the misère version of The Glad Game. The misère version, I’ve decided, is like the misère version of Hearts, or Sprouts, or a number of other games where you are allowed to turn the rules upside down, so that if you can force your opponent to “win” by the normal rules of the game, he or she loses, and you win! Plus I think a word like misère is especially apt to apply to The Glad Game. Serves it right, so to speak.

So here goes. Ever since I got my new hearing aids (here), I’ve been a nervous wreck. I’ve gotten much clumsier—every time I put a glass down on a table, I can tell from the sound that I’ve hit it so hard that I’m sure it will explode in my hands. And my car and most of my home appliances with moving parts are all on the verge of total collapse, judging by the racket they make whenever you turn them on. I know I can just hear better now, but it’s no comfort to realize you were constantly teetering on the edge of mechanical disaster before and didn’t even know it!

The way I use The Glad Game to bolster my own health self-image (I wrote all about unrealistic optimism here) reminds me of a famous quote by Nietzche: “That which does not kill me makes me stronger”. That was the opening quote of a movie I’m proud to be a fan of, that 1982 Arnold Schwarzenegger classic, Conan the Barbarian. Now if you ask Conan what makes him glad, he’s got a ready answer for you: “Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentation of the women”. What a guy!

Here’s wishing you get whatever makes you glad in the coming year, with much thanks for listening,

Dorn
12/31/2019