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THE QUALITY OF LIFE AND DEATH

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SURVIVAL OPTIONS

by Lawrence R. Spencer

Like millions of world citizens I am slipping down the Rabbit Hole of Physical Mortality toward a certain and irrevocable death of my physical body.  I will be 65 years old in August of 2011, along with 36.3 million others in the USA.  There will be 86.7 million people 65 and over by the year 2050.  That’s a 147% projected increase in the 65-and-over population between 2000 and 2050. By comparison, the population as a whole would have increased by only 49 percent over the same.

THE VALUE OF LIVING

Isn’t the purpose of living in a body to experience as much joy and pleasurable experience as possible?  Sumptuous smells, sexual sensation, marvelous sights, exhilarating sounds, unpredictable motions, textures, physical / emotional impact and dramatic moments of interaction with other living beings are worthy reasons for life.  Wonder, intellectual intrigue, mental challenges, freedom to play and barriers to accomplishment are all a part of the games that make life a pleasant preoccupation.

Conversely, isn’t the purpose of every living being to avoid painful sensation and emotion, failure, loneliness and oblivion?

Memories of pleasure never diminish from the mind: remember your first true love? Your most exquisite moments of sexual bliss or the most tender moments of compassion, cuteness, communication and compassion? The joys of living endure in our heart and mind forever.  We can resurrect and relive the emotional rapture of music, the aesthetics of dance, the exuberance of sporting competition, dramatic performances, victories in life and each passionate moment of love: simply by remembering. Every moment of pleasure can be relived in the present as though it happened yesterday!

Painful memories, however, can be suppressed and forgotten with medication, drugs, time and ultimately with death. Pain does not linger beyond consciousness.  For millennia sages and seers have assured us that it is washed away in the amnesia waves of afterlife. Likewise, the newborn baby does not suffer from memories of a life recently departed. Rather, it eagerly grasps the vigorous promise of action, joy and the sensations of new adventures that await.

Isn’t it logical, then, to live out one’s natural life with as much enjoyment as possible? Do the supposed benefits of physical longevity justify the disability, pain, dysfunction, financial expense and burden of labour placed upon others who must become your care-givers during these so-called “Golden Years” of life?

THE COSTS OF DYING

In truth, the vast majority of people live those “golden” years in ever-increasing pain, loneliness and sorrow — a relentless accumulation of physical and emotional pain and dysfunction during their declining years. They must also endure agony and grief as their life partners, friends, family and workmates wither and die around them.

In addition, the majority of people over 65 years of age can anticipate a multitude of diseases such as heart failure, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, pneumonia, atrophied muscles, dementia, failing memory, inability to function sexually, digestive disorders and depression to name of few. And finally, the ultimate certainty of death.

What about the financial expense involved to support an aging person for 10, 20 or 30 years after they leave the work force? What are the cumulative expenses of hospitalization, medical examinations, medical insurance, medical testing, prescription drugs, long-term care assistance and medical support? How much of one’s accumulated life savings or investments are consumed in order to keep an old, disabled, pain-riddled body alive for these last, lingering days?

$100,000?  $500,000? $1,000,000? $5,000,000 or more?

In the US we spend an average of $6,500 to bury a depleted corpse six feet under the ground.  There are about 23,000 active cemeteries in the United States alone. Every year we bury enough embalming fluid to fill eight Olympic-size swimming pools, enough metal to build the Golden Gate Bridge, and so much reinforced concrete in burial vaults that we could build a two-lane highway from New York to Detroit!

How much real estate is used to accommodate the billions of dead bodies that pile up under the Earth in a decade?  What could the millions of acres of land used for graveyards be used for instead? The cost of maintaining cemeteries is billions of dollars a year! For what purpose? To remind living people that you had a body once, but that it’s dead now? Is this the height of vanity or the abyss of stupidity? Or both.

What does the tremendous expense of dying and death really buy?  Who is the recipient of this money? Doctors, hospitals, drug companies, pharmacies, insurance companies, assisted living facilities, morticians, funeral homes, lawyers, government tax collectors, and possibly – if you plan very carefully and don’t outlive your life savings – your own family.

YOUR FINAL VACATION

How much pleasurable life experience could you pay for with the same amount of money if you spent it on a few years of pleasurable traveling, luxurious living and youthful adventures?  What kind of vacation could you pay for with $350,000 or $750,000?  How about 2 years in a luxury condominium on the beach in Maui? Or, perhaps first class accommodations on an 18-month luxury cruise ship around the world? Perhaps you could visit every beautiful travel destination you ever imagined: Tuscany, Paris, The Norwegian fjords, New Zealand, Switzerland, Banff, or the Grand Tetons.

Or, with a little planning the benefactors of your life insurance policy upon your death could live a more comfortable, pleasurable life.  You could invest the same money in putting all of your grandchildren through college.  Why not become the benefactor of a charity that creates a better future for the adults of tomorrow, or ensures the well-being of the natural environment for future generation?  Your generosity will ensure that you name lives in the mind and hearts of others for centuries: at least as engraved on a plaque or monument or building façade, instead of a gravestone.

What if we combined the resources spent on supporting each of our 150 pounds of decaying flesh for the last 20 or 30 more years of painfully unproductive lives?  These accumulated resources, carefully distributed and ethically invested, could be used to turn Earth into an actual Paradise for all living creatures, the environment and for future generations of people.

How you would feel if you suddenly become completely certain that you would return to live again shortly after your death to live a new body, and begin a new life?

VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA AND CREMATION

If you knew this could you chose to knowingly plan a painless end of your own life?  Does it make any sense to suffer through decades of pain and decay when you could leave this world in a blaze of joy, pleasure while ensuring a life of prosperity for the those to come – which may even effect your own future self?

The paraphrase the ethical enigma posed by the Elizabethan bard:

Painful, lingering death or a pleasant departure? That is the question. Whether it is nobler in the lives of men to bear the slings and arrows of misfortune, or, to die with grace and dignity with prosperity for all?

I wish you and all of us a happy and prosperous “Rest of your Eternity”.

_________________________________________

Here are a few EDUCATIONAL LINKS to assist you to make an educated decision about the options available to you:

Unassisted Euthanasia: http://www.exitinternational.net/page/Home

“Green Burial” (Cremation) Information: http://www.greenburials.org/index.htm

Cremation Facilities in your area: http://www.greenburialcouncil.org/finding-a-provider/

Planning Your “Final Cruise”: http://www.cruisecritic.com/

Charitable Giving: http://www.charitywatch.org/toprated.html

ART, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, PICTURE POEMS, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER

THAT AWKWARD MOMENT

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Definition of awkward

1. lacking dexterity, proficiency, or skill; clumsy; inept: the new recruits were awkward in their exercises.
2. ungainly or inelegant in movements or posture: despite a great deal of practice she remained an awkward dancer.
3. unwieldy; difficult to use: an awkward implement.
4. embarrassing: an awkward moment.
5. embarrassed: he felt awkward about leaving.
6. difficult to deal with; requiring tact: an awkward situation; an awkward customer.
7. deliberately uncooperative or unhelpful: he could help but he is being awkward.
8. dangerous or difficult: an awkward ascent of the ridge.
9. perverse (antiquated)
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RED RISING REVIEW

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red rising“The Red Rising Trilogy is an epic Macho Cinderella Story. The story and characters are eloquently sculpted from well-weathered egalitarian clichés of Star-Wars-Hunger-Game-Of-Thrones post-apocalyptic-peasant-revolts set in a high-tech ultra-hierarchal-Greco-Roman-space-opera-society.  Brilliant prose, plot twists and legions of antagonists are collectively dedicated to dystopian gore, guts and glory of gold-obsessed class-based blood feuds wherein the purposelessness of human life is to learn to love pain and power.

Predictably, The “Golden Couple” get married and live happily ever after, as most human fantasy stories aspire… getting married, having babies, living in a castle, served and lauded by the peasants is a “happy ending”.

The unwritten story, as usual, is that humans all die, inevitably, with nostalgic finality to seek their reward in “The Veil”.

This trilogy is perfect Hollywood film fodder for servants of money-motivated vested interests of the planetary power elite. The subservient classes: Red, Pinks, Browns etc., will spend their minimum wages in theaters by the shovel full to wallow in the “beautiful dramatic pain” of egalitarian dreams crushed in the subterranean mines of Mars.

Sadly, the genius of Pierce Brown as a masterful wordsmith and epic storyteller is wasted on repeating the same worn out “Hero Epic” story line recycled ad nausea since the days of Homer. Humans live in painful servitude until they die to be rewarded in the “afterlife”.  All in a blink of the eye for the soulless of “gods” who worship power and gold.

Where have all the Immortals gone?  Buried in the gory-damn dust of impossible dreams.

~ Lawrence R. Spencer ~

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EPHEMERAL MAN

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ETHEREAL MAN“Think continually how many doctors have died who often knit their brows over their dying patients, how many astrologers who had foretold the deaths of others as a matter of importance, how many philosophers who had discoursed at great length on death and immortality, how many heroic warriors who had killed many men, how many tyrants who had used their power over men’s lives with terrible brutality, as if immortal themselves. How often have no whole cities died, if I may use the phrase, Helike, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and innumerable others? Go over in your mind the dead whom you have known, one after the other: one paid the last rites to a friend and was himself laid out for burial by a third, who also died; and all in a short time. Altogether, human affairs must be regarded as ephemeral, and of little worth: yesterday sperm, tomorrow a mummy or ashes.”

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, The Meditations

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — 26 April 121 – 17 March 180 AD) was Roman Emperor from 161 to 180. He ruled with Lucius Verus as co-emperor from 161 until Verus’ death in 169. He was the last of the Five Good Emperors, and is also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers.

During his reign, the Empire defeated a revitalized Parthian Empire in the East: Aurelius’ general Avidius Cassius sacked the capital Ctesiphon in 164. In central Europe, Aurelius fought the Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatians with success during the Marcomannic Wars, although the threat of the Germanic tribes began to represent a troubling reality for the Empire. A revolt in the East led by Avidius Cassius failed to gain momentum and was suppressed immediately.

Marcus Aurelius’ Stoic tome Meditations, written in Greek while on campaign between 170 and 180, is still revered as a literary monument to a philosophy of service and duty, describing how to find and preserve equanimity in the midst of conflict by following nature as a source of guidance and inspiration.