I can’t comprehend dying,
because
I simply cannot imagine not living.
It’s all I know.
It feels right to live.
But if I were forced to contemplate dying,
I have but one thought: What an honor it is to be alive.
To realize the odds of making it into life is a staggering thought mathematically.
According to an article in the Huffpost Healthy Living, August 17, 2011, it is 10 to the power of 2,685,000. There are only 10 to the power of 80 atoms in the known universe. There are 1,000 trillion that make up a quadrillion. The chances of making it through all the layers of complexity are in the quadrillions. In other words, it’s impossible, nevertheless, here we are. It’s more than a miracle, it has defied reality as we know it.
To have been a winner in this game of biological roulette is so sobering that it is impossible to give in to the thought of having to end life now that I have made it to life.
(Although the opposite argument is that the odds of coming into life are so remote that life must come and go at an unimaginably fast rate.)
Just think of the privileged seat I’ve had in being alive:
To think, to walk, to feel, to contemplate, to love,
to worry, to be loyal, to have made mistakes, to have
goals, to have laughed and cried, to have worked through
hurt, to have felt insecure and then to feel secure, to be
confident and not so confident, to feel the sting
of anxiety, to remember good times, to grow from painful
ones, to marry, to have brought your own into the world, to create,
to dream, to imagine, . . . .
Maybe we humans are the first creatures to have ever been alive as humans
In the fourteen billion years of existence of the universe.
No energy, no atom, no star, no planet has ever experienced consciousness, let alone intelligence.
Just think, nothing else has ever had the opportunity to contemplate its own existence other than we humans.
There is no greater honor than to be alive.
This is an honor I will fight to keep. I will never
go quietly. I will fight for every single breathe
I am privileged to breath.
But, you ask, if such a time should come, that I know it needs to end,
would I ask for help to let life go? I don’t think so. If all I could do was breath, I would count each breathe as just another fortunate breathe I have been privileged to breath.
To give up being alive is
too awful a sacrifice.
What is the greatest thrill there is? Of course, again I say, BEING ALIVE.
You ask a second time, if life became utterly unbearable, would I ask someone to aid me in ending my life? I guess I would give it a thought, but only a small one.
I push life forward, I support the extension of life. We are now verging on living as long as 100 years with quality of life.
Researchers have even said they can see life extending to 120. I am sure my grandchildren will be part of a 150 club.
Am I aware of the pain in this life, suffered by young and old alike: Little children caught in war and disease, the old trapped in depression and disability?
Do I want to extend their lives just for the sake of living?
That question Is full of twists and turns. I am against war, I do not want one person to suffer. I want to find ways to improve each of our qualities of life. That is a key to extending life. Here are four avenues we must pursue to extend life in a meaningful way:
1. Continue to ENHANCE meaning in life. This has much to do with the arts, science, and philosophy. For example, poetry that speaks to the life of a one hundred year old may be different than one which speaks to a thirty year old. We need more questions that challenge a one hundred year old to continue unearthing new insights.
2. Breakthroughs in prosthetic and exoskeleton aids, as well as internal organ, muscle, bone and sinew replacements are developing, but need to be accelerated. My next personal project is to experiment with an exoskeleton aid for my right leg which has been weakened because of polio.
3. Breakthroughs in genetic engineering (e. g. CRISPER Cas 9) that replaces mutated genes with healthy ones need to come to market as soon as possible. With this beautiful technology, you swallow a pill that dissolves into a tool in your blood stream and enters the nucleus of your cells and grabs errant genes and replaces them with healthy ones.
4. Reconstitution of our basic institutions making our economy available to those who are bound to live to 150 need to be thought through now. The good thing about our capitalist structure is the notion that there is no theoretical limit to economic growth. As long as we can imagine and invent, money will be the logical derivative. There’s enough money and to spare for young and old alike. Money grows and retains its value the more we create products that meet consumer demand. Let’s see, I’ll take all the items mentioned in 2 and 3 above.
5. Having big goals for all to participate in: control of global warming, space travel, colonies on Mars, under water colonization, cities that float and travel on water, cities that exist twenty miles up in space. For these to take place we need old adventurous types as well as adventurous new types.
6. Enlarging the power of the United Nations to coordinate strong efforts at controlling war through meaningful diplomacy. It is true, young men are more inclined to warrior mentality, older men are far more wise in opting for diplomacy. For this reason, we need a lot more older men and women to keep diplomacy growing.
7. Creating and growing food and beverages that sustain, enhance, and heal our bodies, as well as breakthrough medicines that can put life giving ingredients into our diets and medications, e. g. Resveratrol. Resveratrol is in my daily diet every single day of my life when I drink Green Tea HP. I am extremely serious about creating great stuff like this.
After all that, if I fall apart and loose my grip on life, I might ask for help to aid me to end life. For those who wish to do that, I would support them 100%. If we are given the power and the right to continually stretch lifespan, I suppose we should have the right to choose the time we feel it is right to end it. Right now, I am in high gear to grow and extend meaning and longevity to life. Full speed ahead, balls to the walls, mate.