The Arithmetic of Survival

Brinkmanship, Illusion, and the Years I Have Left

Wheels are down for February’s descent into March, but calamity feels ready to strike as we land. Turbulence ahead. Oxygen masks poised to drop. War with Iran feels closer than it should, and Cuba once again sits in the crosshairs of engineered American destabilisation.

I watched Trump’s State of the Union from beginning to end, my phone in hand streaming AI-generated slop alongside it. Some commentators claimed he was toned down, chastened, even seeking approval. If that is what pundit America considers moderate and restrained, then democracy is Dead On Arrival.

His rhetoric about migrants and refugees was not merely dehumanising — it followed the grammar of fascism. His attacks on the trans community follow a pattern recognisable from Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s: isolate a minority, strip them of dignity, and teach the majority to see them as disposable to the point of extermination. And when he claimed that Iran would soon possess missiles capable of striking the United States, it sounded like a George W. Bush tribute act — resurrecting the old anthem of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Trump is a political showman, more illusionist than statesman, using sleight of hand to redirect attention. Houdini performed illusions to entertain. Trump performs them to obscure the consolidation of power and also to hide the kleptocracy that benefits him and his circle.

So we wait — to see whether he steps back from the brink or pushes the world toward another war whose casualties will not include him.

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“While political leaders gamble with nations, I calculate lung capacity, scan dates, and the number of chapters left to complete.”

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I am uneasy at the end of this month. In truth, I have been uneasy at the end of every month since February 2020.

The world sailed into the storm of Covid, and I sailed with it. But I could not lash myself to the mast and wait for calmer seas. Cancer took hold of me that year. Surgery and radiation were immediate and unforgiving.

To think of myself before cancer, before the pandemic, is like Hamlet holding Yorick’s skull: “I knew him, Horatio.” That earlier self feels distant — almost a stranger.

That was then. This is now.

Six years on, I am still in the ring, taking my blows like everyone else — ducking and weaving through this so-called new normal. For how long, I am never certain.

I remain under surveillance for cancer recurrence. There are growths on my liver that concern my oncologist; we will know more in May.

Yet I worry more about my interstitial lung disease. It is idiopathic — no clear cause, no map. A biopsy could provide answers, though that may wait until autumn if my lung function tests in June and CT scans show no significant change.

When you live with lung disease, the goal is not cure but slowing decline. I walk two to three hours a day to keep lung functions and my heart as strong as possible. So, it buys me time against the disease. It’s all the more important because twenty years ago, heart disease and a heart attack reshaped that terrain as well.

I live largely as a hermit now — not from fear of living, but from a rational desire not to invite Covid, RSV, or a severe flu that could destroy my lungs and hasten the end.

If I maintain this discipline, I may have seven — perhaps eight — years like this before things turn sharply downward.

That is the arithmetic I live with.

And that arithmetic sharpens everything.

If I budget my time wisely, I can finish what I began with my father.

The Green & Pleasant Land awaits a publisher’s green light. Love Among the Ruins is already in print. That leaves Life on the Never, Never to complete Harry Leslie Smith’s cycle — 1923 to 1953 — a working-class chronicle of life before the welfare state and at its birth.

If I complete that circle, then I will have done what I was meant to do and what gives me pleasure to do.

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I began this Substack to illuminate my father’s life, activism, his politics, and my own lived experience alongside them. It’s a fresco of lived experienced, heartbreak, joy and wonder that argues for a return of socialism-so that society can function for humanity rather than the wealthy.

If this work matters to you, your subscriptions and support keep it alive — and keep me housed.

February has been difficult for many of us. With your help, the project continues. And whatever March brings, I will face it still writing.