by We are all disposable. The longer we live, the closer we move to the trash bin.
As we age, and become less than we were, technology strives to keep us alive, to help the heart keep pumping and to keep the skeletal architecture of us strong and the impulse of our muscle twitching.
Is this the craven life we crave?
Why do we want medicine and technology to extend our lives if the quality of that life is only one of hanging on and holding out? Do we judge that quality of life, or do our caregivers do it for us?
When did the essence of life become more important than the living?
Instead of making our elders the wise center of our families, we store them away in nursing homes and in long-term care facilities where they are cared for by strangers and not those who love them.
We stockpile the elderly because it is easier for us to live our own lives than to wallow in their creeping deaths.
We now live longer to only become lonelier and many of us are not strong enough of mind and willing enough of spirit to singularly go it alone in the twilight of our final days and that creates an unimaginable horror within us all.
Scientists claim there is no reason our bodies can’t survive to the age of 200 years old.
I ask: “Why would anyone want to bother living beyond 90 if we are only kept alive by wires, tubes, medication and a yearning for the life of youth once enjoyed?”
Right David, I agree with you 200%.
I do not want to “live” with any “yearning”…
I want to “live” till the date I enjoy “living”…not when I yearn for the past.
Not everybody can be a “Stephen Hawking” in their lifetime!
That is a brave stance, Katha. So if technology offered you the chance to “live” in your body for 200 years with the last 100 years being spent in bed with only the use of your eyes — you would prefer death over that last century of living?
Hi David,
Right now I live with all my five senses, so I know the flavor…I don’t want to live without four of them…
Amazing, Katha! Do you feel suicidal when you have a stuffy nose? SMILE!
Ha!!!
Not yet, but the day “stuffy nose” will mean alots of tubes, pipes, oxygen instead of a few cleanex, vix and cough drops and an assurance of being cured within a fixed time frame…probably I will ask to pull the plug.
Well said, Katha! Have you seen the movie “Million Dollar Baby?” I finally watched it for the first time last night and I have to say the end of the movie reminded me of this discussion with you! Wowser!
David!!!
“Million Dollar Baby” is one of my all time favourites.
I love Hilary Swank and I LOVE Clint Eastwood – even at this age.
I watched the movie in the theatre in US then I bought the DVD when it came out.
Yes, I know the similarity you are talking about…
Oh, that’s good to know, Katha. I’d seen pieces of the movie but just last night I saw the whole thing. I think I’d bite my tongue again and again in the same situation.
Well, that’s you…
Are you saying you would’ve just “lived” in that state, Katha?
No,no way I would have just “lived” in that state… I am saying exactly opposite…
But Katha, she bit her tongue twice so she would bleed to death because “Clint” — her trainer — would not disconnect her. Where is the opposite here?
Oh, now I got it –
sorry…I took that “I’d bite my tongue again and again” literally instead of comparing with the last scene of the movie –
I need to sharpen my “movie-buff-me” I guess, once I get time…someday…sometime…
Katha! Okay, that’s what I thought! Her biting her tongue twice was really gruesome. I don’t blame you for forgetting it. Even that tongue-letting, however, didn’t convince Clint to do their righteous dirty deed. He waited.
Yes, I remember…loved him for it.
You have seen “The Bridges of Madison County”? Another must watch…
Right, Katha. He left her after turning down her death wish. He talked to a priest. Then he saw the hospital was keeping her “dead” and unmoving with drugs and only then did he step in to save her with death. Then he faded away.
I didn’t like the Bridges book much. Was the movie any better?
Right, he injected her – if I can remember correctly – adrenaline – right?
I watched the movie first – Meryl Streep was just too good in the “Bridges”…may be personifying the subtler moments where she just reached for the car door to run way but restrained herself – it was just stunning.
The plot was nothing exceptional – I agree.
Katha —
Yes, he injected her with three times the amount of adrenalin needed to kill her after he turned off her breathing machine and then disconnected her breathing tube. Yes, the plot of Bridges was disappointing. I’m not big on celebrating infidelity on screen.
Hi David,
I went to see the movie with couple of my friends and sat there…just speechless…even after the movie was finished.
Explaining “Mo Cuishle” was too much to take.
I understand your point about “Bridges”…
There is nothing to celebrate about infidelity – be it off screen or on.
Cheating is cheap.
But why deprive Meryl Streep a genuine appluad when she deserves one? Let’s blame the writer…
Katha!
Yes. The revelation of that secret between them and sharing it with us was a special, private, moment that is unforgettable.
Ms. Streep didn’t have to take the role! She could’ve turned it down and said infidelity is beneath her as a person and an artist.
It’s all in the choices made.
True David, I agree with you – 200%.
But( There will always be a ‘but’ with me as I try to see as many point of views as I can…)if I put myself in an actor’s shoes – should I let go of chances to “act” in as many dynamic roles as I can?
As a performer my role is to provide “justice” to a ceratin character – be it a cheating wife, a killer, a hooker…whatever! The more unusual the character is from my own persona – the more challanging it gets.
I am just acting in it – it is never going to change the real me!
But again, I understand your point too and respect it.
I understand your point, too, Katha. I just wonder if those powerful enough to convince with their skills have a requirement to do only good with that power?
David!
It takes a lot of will power to do the “ethically right” thing at every point in our life and we have to sacrifice our independence for it – be it long term or short term…
How many of us are ready to do it? How many of us are ready to sacrifice “me?”
Can the perfomers influnece all of us in such a way that we would start doing it? I wish they could….
I’m not sure if we have a choice of not doing it. I’m sure there are lucrative incentives to sell out — I’m just not sure if the end result is worth the sacrifice.