Tag Archives: death

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I DON’T WANNA (BE BORN AND) GROW UP (AGAIN)

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I’m not getting old any more.  I AM old.   I’m 66.  Jesus F*cking Krist!  Who woulda’ thunk?  Back when I was “young” — (between 18 and 45) I never imaged that I could get to be 66 years old! I thought that’s something that grandparents did.  Well, guess what?  I’m a grandparent too!  F*ck!  When you’re young, you think you’re going to live forever!  Young people think anyone 5 years older than they are are “old”.  For sure they don’t think they are personally ever going to be “old”.  You’re going to live forever, right?  You’re always going to be able to stay up all night and party, have sex whenever you want to, drink and smoke and work and run, play sports and do whatever the hell you want to do, like there’s no tomorrow.  Well, guess what?  It ain’t gonna happen!  When your body gets old you slow down. Aches, pains, arthritis, hip replacements, knee surgery, no sex drive, no hard-on, no wetness where it’s supposed to be wet.

OK, it’s a fact of life…and death.  So, I’m beginning to realize that I’m gonna die sooner than later.  I know that reincarnation is a real thing.  I can remember living many, many times before.  Other bodies, other places, other times.  Being able to remember that I’m an immortal spiritual being doesn’t make the prospect of being born again, in a new body, any easier to confront.  For me, the idea of getting a new body and starting all over again on planet Earth doesn’t sound like much fun.  It’s a Tom Waits moment…. “I don’t wanna grow up”…. This song is an anthem of protest against being “born again”:

I DON’T WANNA GROW UP (LYRICS by Tom Waits)

“When I’m lyin’ in my bed at night
I don’t wanna grow up
Nothin’ ever seems to turn out right
I don’t wanna grow up
How do you move in a world of fog
That’s always changing things
Makes me wish that I could be a dog
When I see the price that you pay
I don’t wanna grow up
I don’t ever wanna be that way
I don’t wanna grow up

Seems like folks turn into things
That they’d never want
The only thing to live for
Is today
I’m gonna put a hole in my TV set
I don’t wanna grow up
Open up the medicine chest
And I don’t wanna grow up
I don’t wnna have to shout it out
I don’t want my hair to fall out
I don’t wanna be filled with doubt
I don’t wanna be a good boy scout
I don’t wanna have to learn to count
I don’t wanna have the biggest amount
I don’t wanna grow up

Well when I see my parents fight
I don’t wanna grow up
They all go out and drinking all night
And I don’t wanna grow up
I’d rather stay here in my room
Nothin’ out there but sad and gloom
I don’t wanna live in a big old Tomb
On Grand Street

When I see the 5 o’clock news
I don’t wanna grow up
Comb their hair and shine their shoes
I don’t wanna grow up
Stay around in my old hometown
I don’t wanna put no money down
I don’t wanna get me a big old loan
Work them fingers to the bone
I don’t wanna float a broom
Fall in and get married then boom
How the hell did I get here so soon
I don’t wanna grow up”

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DREAMS: ELSEWHERE OR NOWHERE

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When you sleep, YOU may be elsewhere or nowhere…. 
Sleeping Beauty
“The acute phase announced itself by nightmares of a grotesque and terrifying and premonitory nature. Miss R. had a series of dreams about one central theme: she dreamed she was imprisoned in an inaccessible castle, but the castle had the form and shape of herself; she dreamed of enchantments, bewitchment, entrancement; she dreamed that she had become a living, sentient statue of stone; she dreamed that the world had come to a stop; she dreamed that she had fallen into a sleep so deep that nothing could wake her; she dreamed of a death which was different from death.”   ~ Oliver Sacks, describing the symptoms experienced by Rose R., a patient who fell ill with Encephalitis Lethargica (Sleepy Sickness), from Awakenings. Later in the text, Rose R. is described as “…she was simply — elsewhere (or nowhere).”PAINTING:  Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898),  The Sleeping Beauty, 1870-1873

Dream of girl before sunrise - Karl Briullov
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PHILOSPHICAL MIND: 360 B.C.E.

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Painting by John LaFarge, American (1835- 1910)

“Philosophical minds always love knowledge of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation and corruption. He whose desires are drawn towards knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul. Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence, think much of human life?

He cannot.

Or can such an one account death fearful?

No indeed.

Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true philosophy?

Certainly not.

Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward-can he, I say, ever be unjust or hard in his dealings?

Impossible.

Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical. ”

Plato, THE REPUBLIC, 360 BCE

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SUGAR VENDING SHARK MACHINES

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So which is safer, a shark or a sugar vending machine?

Choose the waves. The odds a person will die from a soda vending machine accident in a year are 1 in 112,000,000, while the odds that a person will die from a shark attack in a year are 1 in 251,800,000. This means that a person is more than twice as likely to be killed tipping a soda machine than to end up as food for a large toothy fish.  Admittedly these are both rare occurrences, but in the United States 2-3 people per year die as a result of being crushed by vending machines. It’s common, on the other hand, to have a year with no recorded fatal shark attacks in the US.

However, sugar-filled soda pop (and all other refined sugar products) contributed to a total of 231,404 deaths in 2007  alone.

Total prevalence of diabetes

Total: 25.8 million children and adults in the United States—8.3% of the population—have diabetes.

Diagnosed: 18.8 million people

Undiagnosed: 7.0 million people

Prediabetes: 79 million people*

New Cases: 1.9 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in people aged 20 years and older in 2010.