Thursday, September 18, 2014

I am not alone ... in thinking that I don't want to live past 75

This is an awful time to blog about this topic, one might think.  I could even be accused of being insanely awful and insensitive: It has been only days since the friend's father passed away, and the treatment protocol for my mother's fracture after her fall is yet to be sorted out and, yet, I blog about this?

I would argue otherwise.  Such contexts are valuable opportunities to think about our own fragility and what we want to do with our lives, with how much ever useful time we have remaining.  During such crises, we have evidence right in front of us, unlike when one is happy vacationing in Tahiti.  The insane person is the one who contemplates about his own mortality when vacationing in a tropical paradise.

A couple of weeks ago, when everything was so well, during a conversation with cousins, they asked me when I started thinking about eating and living healthily.  "For almost twenty years, I would think" I told them.  We talked more about healthy lifestyles and I suggested that they think about advanced directives too.  After all, things can go bad at any age, at any minute.  Which is also when I told them that as far as I am concerned, I am on a twenty-five year countdown.

They were shocked.

But, to me, the shock is that most of the population don't seem to have thought about their own mortality and don't seem to have an idea of the ideal age they would want to die--with well thought out arguments.  How can that be!  We plan for retirement. We plan for vacations.  We even plan on where to go for a dinner with a few others.  We don't plan for our death, which is the only certain thing ever?

As I noted in this post, 75 seems like a wonderful age for me to call it quits:
I have experienced a good life, have seen quite a bit of this world, and have met a mix of good and bad people.  A quarter century more seems a luxury at this point.  And when that end comes, I look forward to a good death, without machines and tubes and chemicals to keep me "alive."
For that matter, as I wrote there, it is completely ok if the end happens today too.  What a wonderful life I have had!

It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise to read a lengthy essay in The Atlantic with a title that says it all: "Why I hope to die at 75."  The author, unlike me, is a somebody:
Ezekiel Emanuel is director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and heads the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
As I often remind myself, it is not what I say because the world cares about who says it--and I am a nobody ;)

So, what is Emanuel's logic?
Its specificity forces us to think about the end of our lives and engage with the deepest existential questions and ponder what we want to leave our children and grandchildren, our community, our fellow Americans, the world. The deadline also forces each of us to ask whether our consumption is worth our contribution. As most of us learned in college during late-night bull sessions, these questions foster deep anxiety and discomfort. The specificity of 75 means we can no longer just continue to ignore them and maintain our easy, socially acceptable agnosticism. For me, 18 more years with which to wade through these questions is preferable to years of trying to hang on to every additional day and forget the psychic pain they bring up, while enduring the physical pain of an elongated dying process.
Seventy-five years is all I want to live.
No different from my own reasoning!  As I wrote in another post:
When we realize there is only a limited amount of time, we are then able to easily rank some as important and others are not worth even a tiny second of our lives.
If the latter, we stop caring for sports in which people get paid gazillions to entertain us. We stop caring for movies that are formulaic.  We don't care for unprofessional colleagues. We end marriages and we divorce. Life is way too short for these.
I would rather spend time, and money, on what truly matters.
Anyway, you don't want to know what I think, and would rather hear from Emanuel:
By the time I reach 75, I will have lived a complete life. I will have loved and been loved. My children will be grown and in the midst of their own rich lives. I will have seen my grandchildren born and beginning their lives. I will have pursued my life’s projects and made whatever contributions, important or not, I am going to make. And hopefully, I will not have too many mental and physical limitations. Dying at 75 will not be a tragedy. Indeed, I plan to have my memorial service before I die. And I don’t want any crying or wailing, but a warm gathering filled with fun reminiscences, stories of my awkwardness, and celebrations of a good life. After I die, my survivors can have their own memorial service if they want—that is not my business.
Let me be clear about my wish. I’m neither asking for more time than is likely nor foreshortening my life. Today I am, as far as my physician and I know, very healthy, with no chronic illness. I just climbed Kilimanjaro with two of my nephews. So I am not talking about bargaining with God to live to 75 because I have a terminal illness.
Precisely!  I am way more of a health-obsessed guy than most other people who would want to live well into their old age.  As a student once joked, if I want to die at 75 then I should stop doing the healthy stuff and take up smoking instead!

Even as I healthily work towards that countdown, for now, like any mortal, all I want is for my mother to be on her feet soon.

8 comments:

Ramesh said...

Since I agree with you that we all have a limited amount of time and that we should use it wisely, can I help you consider that this might, just, be in the waste of time bracket ?

Sriram Khé said...

You telling me that the time I spent reading that essay, thinking about my life, and blogging about all those is wasted time when the clock is ticking?
Tsk, tsk, tsk!!! :( :( :(

Did you write that comment as you were flicking the telly watching the latest updates on Kim Kardashian? muahahaha ;)

Ramesh said...

Only that time spent on thinking and blogging about your favourite topic :)

By the way, who is Kim Kardashian :):):)

Sriram Khé said...

Though Anne commented--at a different post--that you should stay away from knowing anything about the Kardashians, perhaps out of a fear that you will fall victim to the wailing siren, let me tell you this much: I know of her because, well, it is all part of the small talk. But, I would not be able to ID her in a lineup because I have no idea how she looks. I tell ya, it is great to join in and laugh at the joke even without knowing who she is ;)

Anne in Salem said...

How does an atheist view the end of life? Most Christians, including this one, view that we have no control over end of life. It just isn't up to us; it's all in God's plan. When He wants us, he comes and gets us. Who or what determines when your time is up? And you know very well that virtuous living has no bearing on longevity.

Sriram Khé said...

Who or what determines when our time is up? Simple: we have no idea. It is all random. Life itself is an accident.

With an exception of a tiny, tiny, minority, believers try their best to postpone their own ending, which is why there is so much that they spend on end of life care, right? After all, when any of the holy books were written, none of the modern medicines existed--not even antibiotics! While I thoroughly disagree with the sects that refuse modern medical treatment and leave it up to god, I suppose they are being uber-consistent with their belief that it is all god's plan.

If you mean "virtuous" as in being "good," of course that alone does not determine a long life, as much as being "good" does not get us the high grades or the cars or anything else. But, if that "virtuous" means healthy habits of eating well, no smoking, even temperament, etc., then, of course those are important contributors to a long life.

Hali said...

Personally, I haven't thought too much about when I die. That's because I almost died when I was 16 years old. I could've easily been a goner, but God had more work for me to do here. I firmly believe that God is in control and determines when to take us off the earth. I've already relied on machines keeping me alive and I currently take a cocktail of different medicine to keep me alive. At any point, I could decide to stop taking those pills, but I know God provided the medicine so that I could still be here. If I did stop taking them, I believe God will intervene in someway to keep me here for as long as He needs me. I believe in modern medicine as well as leaving it up to God. He will provide!

Anonymous said...

I personally think death is an under discussed topic, and it is often looked at with the wrong mindset. Why would anyone be scared? You should only be afraid of death if you consciously know the life you have lived so far is not to your own standards of good. In all reality, someone may say that they know what happens afterwards, because of religion etc., but no one can logically say they know for sure. If you really think about that, there is not much that is more interesting. Death should be looked at at as the biggest leap into the unknown anyone can make, in this life that is. I am not saying you should not take pride in your life because that would be foolish. What if this is all that there is? Then your's ended earlier, or was not as fulfilling, because of the decisions you made. Of course if you are a religious person then your view of death is different, but I am not so, and I think death should be talked about openly more and from different view points. Just a thought.