<h1>The will is alive with the sound of building.</h1>

What is joy without sorrow? What is success without failure? What is a win without a loss? What is health without illness? You have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other. There is always going to be suffering. It’s how you look at your suffering, how you deal with it, that will define you. ¹

I don't know Mr. Twain. Sometimes I wander off the true and narrow path to enlightenment, but does one need to have both; to have one, you must have the other. Must life be balanced?

I remember a time when I suffered only joy, success, good health, and, if I do say for myself; I was a winner, But now..... now I know sorrow. I have not won anything for some time. I am out of balance. I am suffering the hanky without the panky; the holus without the bolus.

But this current setback is momentarily purely metaphysical. For some pessimists, the future of PWP is certain. We will end up requiring round-the-clock care, unable to be independent and perhaps with dementia.

How bleak is that!

I refuse to accept that fate. I am at war with PD. Unfortunately, at the moment, I seem to be failing. My defenses are breaking down. I am losing the battle for my sense of balance. Literally! There is some mysterious force trying to tip me over. Usually backwards.

I have had this shadow following me for nigh-on nine years and I refuse to let it upset me (get it?). With effort, I can forestall it until researchers find some way to stave it off completely . Trust me. The day will arrive when our weapons will be nuclear and the last battle will reveal us to be the winners with a legacy of joy, success and good health. These days of weary doubt and complications will just be fading memories.

Every PWP should decree their individual secular jihad; like Churchill:

We shall defend our health, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender ².

Life need not be zero-sum game in a perfect yin-yang ballet. With our will and our scientists, we shall fight on to the end. We will never surrender. The good can and will eventually outweigh the bad.

Zero-sum game, my ass!

Will somebody please hand me my cane?

(1)Mark Twain (2) Winston Churchill (with my apology)