This Is My Rifle: Lumps, Life & The Future of the Selfie Generation Posted by Jason James on 04/16/14 | Filed under Opinion, This is My Rifle

Two weeks ago I found a lump on my back.

FUCK.

That's pretty much the only word I could think of as I ran my fingers over a ball of god-knows-what sitting beneath my skin. In the years leading up to this moment I had a small black bump in the upper middle section of my back, which I had always believed was an ingrown hair. Now this bump was a quarter-sized, painless protruding mountain sitting underneath a tiny black dot. Immediately after the word "FUCK" punched my brain right in the nuts, the following word kicked me swiftly in the mind-liver: CANCER.

The next morning I went straight to the clinic next to my office. I barely slept the night before and I needed a definitive answer as to what exactly was growing on my upper back. The doctor at the clinic took one look at my back and said, "That's Lipoma. It's a non-life threatening collection of blood and tissue. Do you have any questions?"

Yeah, fuckbag. I have like a billion of them but I can tell by your quick deadpan responses you want to get me out of here as soon as you can.

"Ok. No, thanks", I replied as I walked out of the examination room.

Less than 4 hours later I was on a flight to NYC. I had an event to attend, hands to shake, introductions to make and some much needed creative discussions to be had with my long-time producer and friend, Rodney Hazard. The lump on my back was going to have to wait a few days.

On Sunday afternoon as I boarded my flight home I noticed that the hard ball of "dear god I hope it's not a tumor" had decreased in size to that of a nickel. So as I breathed a sigh of relief, I sat back in my seat and pulled out my book. I now had 5 hours to immerse myself in the written word and put my possible health problems to the back of my mind.

"What's that you're reading?"

I glanced over to my far left and saw an older man in glasses and a windbreaker staring at the cover of my book with an inquisitive look on his face. In his lap was a brief case and he looked like a president or CEO on vacation. He was as casual as a man in his profession ever gets- khaki slacks and loafers with a powder blue button-up shirt under his black Nike parka.

"Oh, it's a book about Saddam Hussein's switch from trading oil for American currency to the Euro and the roll it played in the Iraq war", I replied.

Now the man sitting between us sat up and joined the conversation. He was tall and stocky- his large frame wrapped in a black sweater pulled down over top of a striped shirt and tie. He was jovial and felt like he was somebody's favorite grandfather. He spoke with authority but not condescendingly and had an air of wisdom and understanding. He was British and well into his seventies.

"That's a complicated story for a man as young as yourself to reading about", he said as he chuckled to himself.

The man in the glasses and parka then offered me an Altoid as if to insinuate that I would be answering and asking a lot of questions for the rest of my flight.

As it turned out, the two men seated next to me were both well established in their respective fields. The British gentleman directly to my left was a medical doctor and historian, and the casual executive in the window seat was a retired finance capitalist (or stock trader in layman's terms). For the next 5 hours I got a crash course in a variety of subjects culminating in a lighthearted debate over just how unprepared my generation is for the hardships coming our way in the very near future.

"The problem with your generation is that they don't know how the system works- especially finance. You're losing because you do not know what you're fighting or how to fight it".

It was this statement from the former broker that stuck with me in the days that followed. As I laid on my couch with a nasty flu (thanks New York!) and a lump on my back that had swollen up to it’s original size of a quarter, I kept thinking about what he told me. He was, from what I could briefly pick up, one of the good guys. He spent years in the stock market and knew the ins and outs of financial capitalism- including how to game the system. In his opinion, what it all boiled down to was a lack of knowledge on our behalf; wall street was robbing us blind and we hadn't the first clue as to who, what, when, where, why or how. We occupied their territory but didn't know the first thing about the system we sought to destroy. I could feel that he was almost angry at our ignorance and our complete inability to understand the basic fundamentals of economics. He wanted to see a change but saw nothing resembling one coming because all of our supposed leaders are busy taking selfies.

As much as I hated to admit it, he was right.

Now, when I say I hated to admit it, it wasn't because I feel so passionately about my generation that I find it hard to accept our faults. In fact, I agree with his assessment. What made it hard for me to acknowledge was that included in this generation of people is myself, and as a member of this group I too am wrong.

As a writer, I at times have been guilty of the same mistakes made by many of my peers; I have a general idea of what’s going on but I do not know for sure. We like to believe that we are the most informed generation in history but the truth is we are master generalists specializing in absolutely nothing. Most of what we consider information is regurgitated speculation passed down from unknown sources and we share these articles and memes without engaging in any real research. The Internet has afforded us a vast number of privileges, including the ability to pass on what can only be loosely defined as accurate information at light speed. Many of us don’t even read the bulk of what we’re sharing, we just see the headline, check to make sure it confirms our pre-existing bias, approve, upvote, like and retweet.

Last Wednesday I went to another doctor to get a second opinion. The doctor at this particular clinic was fresh out of medical school and inexperienced. He took a little more time to look at my back and then gave me the same diagnosis; “It’s Lipoma. Here’s a prescription for some cream that should take care of it. Come back in 2 weeks if the lump hasn’t gone down in size”.

And I’m out of there.

I can’t stop thinking about my grandmother. For an entire year she bounced around between doctors trying to find a diagnosis for her sudden illness. She was sick and she knew it, yet every doctor she went to pushed her out of the door before they could actually look into her state of health. By the time she found a doctor that would run the proper tests on her it was too late; she had terminal cancer and was dead within months.

These are the stories that liberal news organizations like CNN and filmmakers like Michael Moore do not talk about. These are the realities that Americans do not know when they promote universal health care. Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko” was so inaccurate in it’s analysis of the Canadian health care system that it should be completely disregarded. Our prescription medications are not free; in fact, I nearly died from strep throat when living in Toronto because I could not get access to antibiotics. Our doctors are underpaid and unmotivated, and are so overwhelmed that they do not have the time or energy to properly diagnose their patients. People in need of life saving surgeries often travel to the US if they have the financial means of doing so and those who don’t often die while waiting in line for the needed procedures. Yes, universal health care works for those who cannot pay for health insurance, but for those of us who can, we would much prefer a private system.

The truth about the world we’re living in, and even more so the one we’re entering into, is out there but we’re losing it underneath digestible headlines, memes, speculative journalism and flat out propaganda. We have a responsibility to protect our liberties, our personal health and the health of our planet so that our way of life can be preserved for centuries to come. The banks and corporations we have identified as enemies of human life are winning, and not because they are better than us but because we don’t know how to beat them.

We are literally one selfie away from oblivion.

(Jason James is an artist, freelance columnist and writer for RefinedHype.com. You can read/download his free eBook, "This Is My Rifle" and listen/download his most recent album, "Pyramids in Stereo". You can also contact him here and here.)

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