Pay Attention at Your Own Peril

Chances are, few people outside the medical profession or Wikipedia know what the pancreas looks like, what it does, or even where it's located in the body (my best guess: gut). The health food store offers a myriad of "cleansing products" for livers, gastrointestinal tracts and cholesterol-choked arteries, but not one herbal tea that promises a sparkling pancreas. Thanks to those obnoxious Viagra commercial (again, what is with those two bath tubs??), we know more than we need to about erectile dysfunction, but the pancreas is an organ (or gland?) that remains shrouded in mystery.

But just because the pancreas keeps a low profile doesn't mean it's not important. Far from it! It turns out that a healthy pancreas is real handy when it comes to the “staying-on-this-side-of-the-grass” business. You can sail through life without an inkling anything‘s wrong - that is, until your doctor uses “pancreatic” as an adjective. Then suddenly: You. Are. Finished. Nouns like “tumor,“ and “treatment” usually follow, and the prognosis is usually a matter of months, a period roughly the span of a reality TV star's "career."

If I were to design a personal banner, it would include a picture of a pancreas, because it sums up my philosophy: it's not the predicted events that get you, it’s the stuff that comes without warning that knocks you on your ass. I contemplated this recently when friends started worrying about the Mayan countdown to oblivion in 2012. It seems that, based on some pre-Colombian calendar, the world will come to an end in that year, and now people are abuzz with end-time scenarios. I pointed out the fact that these predictions came to light just in time to promote a movie, but that coincidence just seemed to prove that the signs are all there.

Sigh. Doesn't anyone remember that not one of the dire scenarios concocted by cuckoos - California falling into the ocean, Saddam Hussein being revealed as the Anti-Christ, alligators emerging from toilets to bite you where you live - has ever come true? Not once! These predictions merely played to our worst fears - well, it could happen! - and so we waited, quivering, shivering, for the ax to fall, to no avail. Just as that mute little gland, the pancreas, does nothing to call attention to itself until it’s too late, disaster has a sneaky way of blindsiding us.

Don’t believe me? Consider the Asian tsunami a few years back, or the earthquake in Chile. (I don’t count the collapse of the American economy in 2008, because any idiot could have predicted it; unfortunately, most of those idiots were too busy running things into the ground to be of much use.) When it comes to real catastrophes, you don't hear about the predictions until afterwards.

In the face of the failure of predictions, why not simply embrace the unforeseen? It's not all bad. Some events I never thought I'd witness have had their own charm: an American president speaking Hebrew (Bill Clinton saying “Shalom, chaver” to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin); entire aisles in supermarkets dedicated to selling bottled water; Woody Allen’s appearance at the 2002 Oscars; the appearance of Janet Jackson‘s nipple at the SuperBowl; the uproar that followed.

Let's be really real: it’s inevitable that some bad things will take us by surprise; we might as well stop worrying about predictions of bad things that may never, ever happen.

Still, it doesn't hurt to keep searching the health store for a tonic that will make the pancreas sit up and sing. You never know.