Going too far is as bad as not going far enough. – Chinese proverb
Most people will probably agree that quality is more important than quantity, and most reasonable people recognize that it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. But it seems very few people, especially in America, can resist the temptation to want more of something that was fine as it was. This isn’t about portion size, though I suppose one could stretch the point to include that; what I’m really talking about is portion number.
The hero of C.S. Lewis’ fantasy novel Out of the Silent Planet, Dr. Ransom, arrives via a series of adventures on Mars, whose inhabitants never “fell” and therefore still live in a state of grace. One of the Martians tells Ransom that his people cannot understand the human drive to keep repeating things; if a Martian has a pleasant experience, he appreciates it for what it was and feels no compelling need to do it over again. In fact, they feel that to repeat it too soon would actually cheapen the initial experience. Reading that was one of those moments in which a book has a profound effect on one’s life; I had always felt exactly like Lewis’ Martians, and had never understood why other people didn’t. That passage gave me the words to describe how I felt, and let me know that I wasn’t the only person on Earth who saw it that way.
Let me give you a few examples. Once Olivia told me that she liked a new album so much she had “put it on repeat all afternoon”. I told her that I didn’t think my CD player had such a function, and she replied that she suspected it did but I just hadn’t ever looked for it. As it turned out she was exactly right; it had simply never occurred to me. Though I do play favorite albums more often than others, I literally could not comprehend why anyone would want to play the same album over again immediately after listening to it once. I was similarly flabbergasted by the kids who had seen Star Wars dozens of times; though I like the movie, I’ve probably seen it fewer times in my life than some of those kids watched it in a month. It’s the same thing with food flavors: every time we went to Plum Street Sno-Balls I got a different flavor, and would never return to the same one twice in a summer no matter how much I liked it; Jack, on the other hand, got the same flavor (pralines and cream) every single time we went there, without fail. The query, “Don’t you even want to try another flavor?” was invariably answered with, “I like this one.” I reckon that’s why I sympathize with the male need for sexual variety, even though I don’t really feel it myself (for reasons I’ve previously explained); on the other hand, I just don’t “get” why anyone would want to have sex twice in a single hour.
As you can probably guess, I find Hollywood’s addiction to unnecessary sequels, remakes and “reboots” incomprehensible. There are some movies which either need or can smoothly accommodate sequels, and others which can’t; there are some which practically scream, “Do not cheapen me with a sequel!” (Rule of thumb: if the writers can’t think of an actual name and instead just call it “Such-and-such II” it probably didn’t need one). Sometimes it’s easy to tell; nothing short of physical force or a very large sum of money could have compelled me to see Highlander II, because though I loved Highlander I could clearly see that the only way to make a sequel was to pervert the story. Alas, I wasn’t so perceptive when it came to Ghostbusters II. The same thing goes for television shows; I truly respect producers who end a show while it’s still strong, rather than allowing it to “jump the shark” and degenerate into self-parody before finally limping into its grave. And I promise you that if I ever feel my creative juices ebbing and recognize that the quality of this blog is starting to slip, I will have the wisdom to say “OK, that’s enough,” and go out on a high note.
And that brings me to my main point (yes, there is one): I feel the same way about lives as I do about shows. Even if a person has a happy life, even if he has a spectacular life, everything has a point at which it’s best for it to end. Change is natural; just because a person is aging or disabled due to disease or injury does not mean his life is necessarily worse than it was when he was young and hale. In fact, some people are actually happier after such a change of life, just as some sequels surpass the original. So I’m not saying there should be some specific point at which everyone hangs it up; some TV series are spent after three seasons, while others can carry on for seven or more. What I am saying is that I respect the wisdom of those who can see when it’s time to go, and choose to leave this plane in a dignified manner of their own choosing rather than being dragged kicking and screaming across the threshold, pathetically clinging to life like the cast of After MASH. Furthermore, I think it’s an abomination for tyrants to prevent people from doing so, even when their lives have degenerated into inescapable nightmares; an individual who does not own and control his own body is a slave, and self-determination includes the right to self-termination. Quality, as I said at the beginning, is far more important than quantity, and a successful life is judged by its character rather than by the number of years it endures.
In the assisted suicide furor of the 1990’s, I had an opponent quote Cardinal O’Connor that “There is redemptive value in human suffering.”
It’s asinine comments like that that make me hope that karma brings to those proponents a full measure of redemption.
Why is that an asinine comment? He’s a Catholic Cardinal – he has no power over anyone unless they choose to follow him. You can laugh at him – but I think he should be given the benefit of the doubt that he’s searched for the truth and found what he thinks it is.
How can I criticize a Cardinal on his beliefs unless I’M SURE that might thought process has led me to the correct answer? And, if I’m so sure of that – how arrogant is it of it me to assume that my journey led to a better solution to the problem than his did?
And – in fact, though I agree with Maggie that a person should be able to “kick it” when they feel they are ready – I DO agree with the Cardinal that there is a redemptive value in suffering. I mean – I agree with that statement in general. I’m not sure that I agree there’s redemptive value in a stage 4 cancer patient suffering until the bitter end. Do you remember when Captain Kirk refused to allow the Vulcan religious guy to “remove” his “pain”? Kirk told him … “I want my pain … I need my pain … my pain is what makes me who I am”.
If someone wants to suffer, that’s his business. But the moment he offers suffering as a moral value, he becomes a monster.
How does a guy who merely “offers” something become a monster? See, i don’t get that. How can a guy who offers an opinion in a free society be a monster?
He’s stating, that he believes that there is some “redemption” in “suffering” – he would not be the first man on the planet to state such an opinion. I would submit that many of the stoic philosophers stated almost exactly the same thing?
Was Epictetus a monster? Because, when I read his work, all I see – over and over again – is that “there’s redemption in suffering”. Epictetus separated the world into two components – things you can control, and things you can’t. You can’t control when a man with a knife approaches you and tells you he wants your wallet – but you DO have control over your response to him. Epictetus taught that, it’s in that moment, that you must take the correct action.
It’s the same with cancer. I think people should be allowed to end their lives whenever they wish. However, that’s NOT my personal philosophy. My personal philosophy is along the lines of Epictetus – NEVER QUIT – NEVER EVER QUIT.
Disclaimer: I don’t agree with everything Epictetus said … some things I disagree with him on … some things I disregard even though I know he was right on them.
Opinions … do not make monsters – actions do.
“Opinions … do not make monsters – actions do.”
So, were I to offer the opinion that children should be slowly roasted to death while their parents are forced to watch, you would draw no inferences about my character?
You can make that opinion – it does not make you a monster. When you apply the term “monster” to a debate opponent (and make no mistake – that’s all he is if all he’s sharing is an opinion) it’s a lazy debate tactic.
Reserve the term for the real monsters and it won’t lose effect. Otherwise, I’ll call the guy who sold my wife that lemon car of her’s a “monster”.
krulac,
I agree that if he had only offered his opinion on the role of suffering human life – and you are right that it is a very Catholic thing to say – then I’d agree with you. But he, and the opponents that I mentioned were actively opposing attempts to de-criminalize suicide in terminally ill patients.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I am opposed to the State imposing any such solutions which is why I viewed Dr. Kervorkian to be as much of a threat as a benefit. Why? Because although he championed assisted suicide for the terminally ill, he was also an advocate of socialized medicine. And he who pays the piper calls the tune. The combination of legal suicide with a government controlled health care system could prove to be a lethal mixture.
I advocate that the individual be sovereign in both realms. Cardinal O’Connor did not, at least in regard to suicide. And given the long term Catholic position on healthcare, very likely not in the other realm either.
So it’s not just the redemptive value of human suffering alone but his willingness to use the apparatus of the state to see to it that you conform to his idea of value. It’s an advocacy of the initiation of force and that is what makes it asinine.
Well if that’s the case then maybe I should call the Cardinal a monster for favoring nationalized healthcare? Since I disagree with him on that – then perhaps I should just call him names?
You know what? People have the right in a democracy or republic to pursue prohibitionist policies using the political system they’ve been given. “Democratic” does not necessarily mean “free” and a “majority” can impose prohibitions as it sees fit. In fact, the US, since it’s inception (and before) has always had some kind of prohibitionist policies in place.
It’s an evolution of thought here – that a free society should have absolutely NO restrictions on individual conduct that harms no one or only the consenting individuals. The founders “talked” this – but didn’t always “walk” it.
If you want to LOSE this argument – then, by all means – demonize your opponents in it. They’ll use those words against you for their political gain. People don’t realize it – but the early Christian Church held a lot of sway over politics in this nation – not so much anymore. We didn’t make the progress by “demonizing” the church – we made this progress by making solid arguments.
Well, first of all, I didn’t call him a monster. I said that his aphorism was asinine.
Additionally, if people have the right to pursue prohibitionist policies using the political system they’ve been given, then any outcome that follows the political forms is legitimate. I dispute that characterization. By that light, such atrocities as The Alien and Sedition Acts, The Fugitive Slave Act, The Chinese Exclusion Act, etc., are legitimate exercises of right. They are not. They should be characterized as illegitimate exercises of power.
If you had written that, “People have the [means] … to pursue prohibitionist policies using the political system they’ve been given,” I would agree with you. They do have the means. But to invoke the “rights” in that context is to smuggle in a positive moral sanction that purveyors of that kind of coercion do not deserve.
And originally, majority rule in the US was a means to an end, not the raison d’etre of its governance.
As James Madison explains in Federalist No. 10:
Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.
The Constitution was designed, imperfectly, toward the end of protecting individual rights by means of thwarting the majority in many things; requiring supermajorities for amendments, treaties, and the like. Separation of powers among co-equal branches were designed to make legislation difficult to pass and the 6 year terms of Senators, as well as their election by State Legislatures were designed to dampen swings of populist madness. Political parties were not envisioned at the Convention; indeed some Founders inveighed against such structures as hostile to liberty. The Electoral College was an attempt to elect a national leadership without resort to political parties. Their rationale was that the citizen of one state would likely be unable to form a valid opinion of the character of a leading citizen of another state, but they would be able to make good judgement regarding those in their immediate circle who they would select as delegates. And those local delegates would make selections from among their number at the state level, the idea being that men of greater affairs locally would have more contact with other like men in the state and that these men would have correspondingly more contact with similar men in other states.
But it was left up to the several States to make those arrangements and the States opted for political parties so the enabling ideas underpinning the Electoral College was changed in the 12th Amendment and ratified in 1804.
So even in its structure, the Constitution and its advocates did not grant rights toward the end of abusing others (with the significant exception of slavery) and did their best to see to it that illegitimately using the means available toward the end of abusing others was thwarted where possible.
I’m not demonizing the Catholic church here. I’m pronouncing moral judgement on its advocating the use of government force to support their normative system.
In a free society, a proper moral system is voluntary and, if correctly structured, an advantage to the practitioner of it. Force is not required to make an individual hew to the line. And this is true of all moralities that do not require the initiation of force by their adherents.
If someone wants to practice Stoicism, Epicureanism, Catholicism or the Mithras Cult it’s all the same to me. Such practitioners will reap the benefits of their belief; they will also suffer from its deficiencies. So long as they don’t try to impose those beliefs on me or externalize the negative aspects of their practices, the law of civil society has nothing to say to them.
I understand that institutions evolve and that we should do what we can to move those institutions along. For instance, the Founders made some profound mistakes regarding slavery but they did the best they could with what they had under the circumstances. Despite that, the real world effects of such errors were still felt in the Civil War and the near century it took for the South to recover. Good intentions don’t trump causality.
The Catholic church wants it both ways. It wants to retain the imprimatur of a divine institution that delivers God’s Will to the world at large and expects governments to act on those pronouncements – just read any papal encyclical – while deflecting blame for the excesses of its past upon “over-zealous individuals.” It is legitimate to judge an institution’s actions in the past by the standards of that time period if it is an institution of man. If you arrogate to yourself the status of a divine establishment, you don’t get that pass.
Up through the end of the 19th century, there was a suicide cult in Japan that practiced the ritual of self-mummification. They had particular moral strictures in place that required monks of a certain degree to adhere to self-starvation and the ingestion of liquids that would limit bacterial decomposition after death. Their crowning ritual was entering a coffin sized space where they would ring a bell once a day until they died. At which point, their spiritual prowess would be judged on whether their bodies decayed or not; if they did not, then they would be dressed in their best robes and displayed to the believers.
It’s not demonizing them to describe their beliefs as death obsessed, futile and destructive. It’s a statement of fact.
You can’t move institutions along the road toward liberalism (in its original sense) without criticizing their norms and the practitioners that personify those norms when they are antithetical to liberty. So I’ll say it again. Cardinal O’Connor’s aphorism about human suffering, done to bolster continuing the use of government force in service of his institution’s normative mandates was asinine.
Opinions … do not make monsters – actions do.
When the Catholic church makes a moral pronouncement that something is wrong, millions of voters try to ban it. This makes that speech an action that threatens the freedom of non-members.
I do not accept the principle that people who so vote, or so speak, should not at least be judged exactly the same as people who attempt force by more direct means. Nothing becomes right or wrong merely because government says so.
Sometimes, to accomplish something, we have to work through the pain. Weightlifting, Jiu Jitsu, even some intellectual pursuits require almost painful exercise or attention or focus. I don’t have a problem with that. I surmise that what you are trying to achieve is worth the cost (or pain) of the endeavor to you. Including the chemotherapy which may only be an exercise in pain toward the possibility of more time and life in your hands. The pain may be worth it to you for that 20% chance.
My problem with the Cardinal is that he fetishizes pain; makes it the metaphysical norm and is willing to use government power to force other people – who have decided that the trade-off of pain vs life expectancy is no longer worth it to them – to conform to his normative standard. And that is morally repugnant.
Most people on the other side would use basically the same argument against allowing physically healthy, but psychologically suffering, people to commit suicide. It’s true, but there is some indefinite limit, which as a priest he chooses to leave in God’s hands.
While I am one who does like a repeat experience; I can listen to Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony over and over again, I agree with your evaluation of the GhostBusters and Highlander sequels. Travesty incarnate.
Two diagnostic tests to see if you truly own or control something:
1) Can you sell it?
2) Can you destroy or ‘end’ it?
If you answered “no” to both, then you certainly don’t own and are not in control of whatever that thing is.
But by the context of assisted suicide that would mean it is wrong because the patients are incapable of ending their own lives. Therefore, the patients are actually the property of the people who can destroy or end their lives. Which is pretty much what’s going on right now.
Hardly, since the patients are simply buying the service of ending their life from another person in a peaceful, voluntary transaction. It’s like you just that I no longer own my home and the land it sits upon because I hired someone to demolish the building. That I am able to destroy the building, even with the aid of another, is ultimately just an expression of the fact that I own and control it completely and utterly. Were it otherwise, I could not order its destruction (or sale).
Aw, but you see you’ve already had to expand your definition beyond the two simple tests you said were sufficient to establish ownership. Those test are sufficient for the majority of cases but there do exists more complicated circumstances where your idea breaks down, like this one.
Only if you consider doing something yourself and paying someone to do it for you meaningfully different as far as agency over the acted-upon property goes. I do not.
And now we just splitting hairs, but that’s part of my point. You tried to suggest that ownership could be established merely by the means of a simple test, but that test itself relied on assumptions you made about the nature of agency.
So did you want to argue that, agency-wise, doing and paying to have are different? You’ve already conceded the point otherwise. In any event, I’m done with this line of discussion, there are no counterpoints being offered.
Cheers
Yes, because how can you prove to the people you’re paying to destroy if you can’t destroy it in the first. And for that matter, you can’t sell to a person without proving that you own it.
So both of your tests still depend on the conventional definition of whether or not you own something: if everybody else says you own it.
In short, your simple test don’t work because they attempt to provide a simple solution to the complex problems of establishing ownership. They can work in a number of circumstances but break down when it is difficult to establish ownership and we need a way of determining who owns what.
For instance, land cannot be destroyed and thus fails to pass the second test, yet land ownership is the most common and earliest form of property. Ideas can also not be destroyed, but patenting ideas have been an important part of developing science and technology.
Maggie, why do guys push for sex twice in one hour? For the same reason that a starving man, when food becomes available to him, will gorge himself. In either case, if he can’t be confident that another opportunity will come soon, he’ll grab all that he can while this opportunity remains open. Whereas an attractive woman can take it for granted that she’ll get sex whenever she wants.
I’d agree with this. I’d also point out that hopefully the sex would last for at least an hour. With all the foreplay and all who has time to repeat in less than an hour anyway?
and afterplay…
I agree that if sex means a complete sexual encounter, there is no way it can be done twice in that time, unless it is very rushed.
“Whereas an attractive woman can take it for granted that she’ll get sex whenever she wants.”
Not really. That would be true only if men and women’s biological wirings were identical.
While a woman can certainly “open her legs”, so-to-speak, and expect numerous men to eagerly want her, for a women to actually ENJOY sex with a man requires she actually desires him rather than merely “allows him to have sex with her”.
For most women, with women’s much-more-complicated and fluidic needs, that means it’s probably as difficult for a woman to find a man with whom she actively desires sex as it is for a man to find a woman who wants him (or will at least allow him to satisfy himself via her).
That last bit reminds me of a joke:
“Do you want to have sex? No? Well can you lie still so I can?”
Ugh…Highlander II. And now they’re rebooting it with Ryan Reynolds. Why? I can understand some reboots, especially of certain science fiction or fantasy series if they were made before the advent of more sophisticated technology for special effects. For example, the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
And yet Conan the Barbarian from 1982 remains far superior to the remake. This is not always true, but in this instance, it was.
The effects and sets didn’t hold up, but it turned out these were relatively unimportant.
I like how you led into this whole point, Maggie. I agree with what you’re saying completely …
I just want to comment on your “lead in” because, I’m not sure you know the problem you’re actually commenting on here …
Take you and Jack and the sno-balls.
First, you and Jack had minds that functioned completely different. In fact, YOURS is the more “abnormal” mind in a sense, because I think most people are like Jack and go with the favorite flavor. I know I do – until I’m tired of it and I’ll try something else. Play an album over and over? Hell – try playing A SONG over and over. When I set up to deadlift – I’m deadlifting 450 lbs now and set my iPod on “Foo Fighters – Wasting Light Album – WHITE LIMO” and I play that song repeatedly until I’m done with five sets – which takes me 30 minutes or so. It hurts so bad to deadlift it’s the only song I can get motivation from and concentration at the same time to lift that amount of weight.
There’s something I’ve been looking at off and on for a few years – and that’s dopamine response in the brain. Dopamine makes us feel good – any activity that makes you feel good is manipulating the dopa in your brain. Sex … Drugs … Rock and Roll … Porn … Food … Shopping … Gambling … Dangerous Activities … etc.
As kids, we seek out things that make us feel good and, given the comforts of society, it’s pretty easy to find them. Once we find them, we want to keep feeling good … or even better … and so we repeat those things that made us feel good and look for others to make us feel even BETTER.
This cycle of repeated dopamine “spiking” leads, I believe, over a long time – to a reduced sensitivity of the brain to dopamine … thereby requiring more experiences of higher intensity to get to the same level of “feel good”. This isn’t natural according to evolution though – because dopamine spikes in the early humans were few and far between as they were fighting for survival most of the time. Their dopa spikes were punctuated by frequent and long spikes of “suffering”. Therefore, they never went “off baseline” – as we do in the modern world, which holds basically limitless numbers of “feel good” activities.
When YOU listen to a song, you’re probably “digesting” it – listening to all the nuances – and allowing the song to take your mind on a journey. When I listen to “White Limo” – I’m ONLY seeking the dopamine response I get from a series of notes played in sequence at sufficiently high volume to motivate me to lift weight.
I fuckin’ totally understand why YOU can’t listen to the same stuff over and over – your mind is different. Somehow your “reward system” in your brain is more self-regulating, probably because you’re smarter than most people.
That’s not most of us skipper – and I hope you know that because that fact is going to impact how successful your blog is. You’re not going to change the way people’s minds work – that’s set. YOU CAN wake us up to certain facts … you can TRY to teach us how your mind works but you’re not going to get through to many of us. You can connect the dots for us so that we can come up with the same conclusions but you will never be able to change the way all of us think – because we can’t even do that ourselves.
Now – sex twice an hour? Please! At 50, and I know this from recent experience – it’s tough for me to sail twice in two hours but not when I was in my early 20’s. I remember one night me and my girlfriend – five times in two hours, until I thought it was “broken” … FOREVER. Next morning, woke up and did it again just to make sure everything worked – it did!
There are other young men who could probably beat my “record” like a rented mule.
krulak wrote:
Complicating all this is the fact that dopamine is also necessary for movement, so dopamine receptor agonists used to treat Parkinson’s Disease can have problematic side effects of inducing compulsive repetitive behavior, including compulsive gambling and alcoholism.
This article explains things in detail that is way above my pay grade.
Yes, it’s fascinating and – I don’t understand it all quite yet.
I thought this was really interesting though – I found it this week …
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Is-Porn-Poison-for-the-Brain
I could care less about Porn – I really don’t have any sort of problem with it at all. However, I think the internet high-speed porn phenomena gives us a chance to analyze dopamine functions in the brain in a hyper-stimulative environment.
krulac wrote:
Well, yes but I don’t think it’s the first or only chance. We’ve had hyper-stimulative environments in all kinds of things long before we had NMR, CAT scans and today’s Star Trek tricorder gizmos.
Casino environments come to mind, along with race tracks, fancy night club floor shows, Roman gladiatorial combat and various circuses, even various religious ceremonies. Not all the stimulations were entirely sexual by any means. But people kept coming back for more. I expect the “do it again” impulses or desires for all kinds of behavior have closely related causes.
More reading on the subject……
http://sexademic.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/explaining-porn-watching-with-science/
Thanks Dude,
That was a great read.
Oh, I totally agree I’m the abnormal one. Even as a child I never understood cries of “let’s do that again!” (go back on the same ride or whatever). More than once in a trip to the park, of course. But not twice in a row.
I get the feeling we’re all missing something talking about Catholic Cardinals and Dr. Kevorkian in these comments. Maggie, as a loyal reader I ask, is there something we should be reading between the lines for here?
No, not really. It’s just that I’ve never been afraid of death as most people seem to be, and I recently realized it was tied up in my brain with the whole “enough is enough” thing.
Maggie, I agree with you completely, though I admit I never seem to tire of nice conversation and a glass of wine.
Your thoughts remind me of the two issues that I seem to think about almost everyday. As a medical oncologist, I see people suffering with cancer and elderly people dealing with end of life issues on a daily basis.
As I watch people naturally decline in their later years, I think, for myself only, why would I want to live forever? I have enjoyed my life and continue to enjoy and find purpose in my life, but to go on and on? No, not for me. At some point I realize that life becomes a repetition. I do believe there is time to get off, and leave the precious natural resources that I consume to those who still have life to experience.
The more important issue, and I believe the crux of your writing, is the termination of life. Although I have struggled with this issue for years, it really hit me last year when we had to euthanize our beloved dog, my only dog as an adult. What a wonderful experience it was to hold our dog after suffering for sometime, holding him and allowing him to die peaceful in our arms as the vet delivered the lethal medicine. He died peacefully and with dignity.
I thought and continue to think what a sin (that’s for Cardinal O’Connor) it is that we can treat our pets so “humanely” and yet we torture ourselves and other humans with the right to suffer. To watch a cancer patient finish their last days in a bed lingering on and on, suffering despite all the medications and hospice is a tragedy. The ideals of hospice have been awesome and continue to change our treatment of the dying but true peace and freedom will only come when I am able to say, “I have had enough, can we end this life that has served it’s purpose.”
I’m really glad an oncologist chimed in on this thread, because cancer was exactly what started the train of thought which arrived at this station. My husband and I got on this subject recently, and I told him that if I do get cancer as several other members of my family did, I have no intention of submitting to chemotherapy. If some physician wants me to try an experimental therapy without horrible side effects, sure. But to me, having to go through that kind of torture, degradation and expense just to delay my inevitable departure for a few extra years seems absurd and revolting.
You may change your mind when the time comes. Several relatives I have have done so.
When the actual date hits you, the urge to continue living may irrationally consume you. I know it does this to many people. The instinct is strong, and rarely voluntary. Were it so, we would not be as numerous nor as fecund.
I agree that aging has it’s effects (dammit) … but aside from that, if I could escape the aging process – I’d want to live forever. I really don’t think many people alive today have seen as much of the world as I have – or done as much as I have. If I died tomorrow I’d still be a lucky man for the life I’ve lived.
But I can still think of HUNDREDS of more years of things to do! And in those hundreds of years – I could think up even more! 😀
This is my principal regret. There’s so much to learn. I could spend my whole life learning, and never learn enough. This is an excellent reason not to die. To continue exploring the world and expanding your consciousness.
For some reason this conversion reminds me of the movie “Blade Runner” in which the replicant Roy has seen and done many things and is trying to get his preprogrammed death put off.
I respect that view point, and hear it a lot, all the way until a person is faced with cancer. They may even say it at our first meeting but most of the time they change there mind after I have spoken to them. As you seem to suggest in a lot in your writings, we can reason all we want but until we walk in those shoes, we really do not know what we will do. I may say that I could never kill another human, but that may certainly change if my life is threatened, and cancer is life threatening.
But let me give a more reasoned comment. I cannot take away the expense, but I would never give a treatment that I would consider a torture and don’t know if I have ever had a patient who has experienced it explain it as such. And what is degrading about chemotherapy? Is a patient who experiences alopecia degraded? Is a patient who has nausea or vomiting (though more unusual now) or has fatigue degraded? I’m not sure I understand what you mean. I find my patients more dignified when taking chemotherapy. Is chemotherapy or other cancer treatment more demeaning than cancer itself? Is the pain, inanition and depression caused by cancer not degrading enough? I find most people on chemotherapy uplifted, they are fighting for their life. You know, very few cancer patients commit suicide.
There are three reasons to give chemotherapy: to cure, to prolong life, and to relieve symptoms. The first one is easy, at 44 with a potentially curable cancer (breast cancer, lymphoma, colon cancer, etc.) and I could give you a reasonable chance of cure (greater than 50%,) would 6 months of mild hell not be worth it? Palliating symptoms is also a little easier than the middle one. What if I could tell you that the chemotherapy would not prolong your life at all, but It would relieve your pain? What if the chemotherapy was actually less toxic than the cancer, could relieve some of your symptoms and could make your death easier? Would this be worth it? Many studies have now shown that people on treatment have better quality of life on treatment than those off, even though the treatment may not prolong their life.
Discussing chemotherapy and prolonging life, although the cancer will eventually take your life is a more difficult issue, and I believe more to your point. I always make it clear that our primary goal is to maintain quality of life and not just quantity of life. If we can balance these two issues, I believe most people can and do, do well on chemotherapy. These are always very significant discussions concerning these issues and I especially ask the patient to consider their goals. What do they want to continue to live for? Most just want to live, but many may want to see a child graduate, a 50th wedding anniversary or other important event.
Chemotherapy side effects have actually been easier over the last several years and can be quite tolerable. Let’s take you for an example, what do you still look forward to? What if that cancer altered that plan, would you feel differently? Let’s say Maxine Doogan rocked the world and got a case all the way to the supreme court (California vs Doogan) with the court considering the equal rights issues related to whores. The case is placed on the docket in September but you are diagnosed with incurable cancer in January with the likelihood that you will die in June. If I could give you the chance with chemotherapy to live another 6 months with a reasonable quality of life, would it be worth it? Would it be worth living to see a major injustice hopefully overturned by the supreme court? I would think so.
On the other hand, I did have a previously very healthy 44 yo man come in with very advanced colon cancer. Current treatments for this disease can offer on average of 2 years improvement in survival with very tolerable toxicity. He made it clear that he was happy with his life, he had no children and nothing pressing in the future that he needed to live for. After some pressure he took one treatment and decided it was not for him. He elected to take no other treatment and died within 2 months. I agreed completely with him, and supported him until his death. Make that person an 80 yo and you really wonder the purpose of chemo to prolong somebody’s life 3-4 months. There I completely agree with you. Every person is different and we have to weigh multiple aspects about the person before deciding to give or not to give therapy.
But finally, chemotherapy and the support drugs surrounding them are changing rapidly for the better. Adding 1 year might not be much but what if I told you, you could live 5 years and your quality of life would be good and you could continue to write and challenge us on a daily basis. Wouldn’t that be worthwhile? It would be for us, so Maggie, never say never.
“What do they want to continue to live for? Most just want to live, but many may want to see a child graduate, a 50th wedding anniversary or other important event.”
With Dad, it was pretty simple: he was trying to outlive his mother. She had already buried two children (one lost to heart disease and the other to cancer), and he didn’t want her to have to bury him too. But it became apparent that he would have to undergo a lot of pain, a steady degradation of health, and his loved ones (including his mother) seeing all that, all for a small chance of outliving her. A small chance; she’s 95 and her doctor says he would not be surprised if she lived to 105. No amount of chemo and radiation was going to keep Dad alive another ten years, and when he fully realized the hell it would be to extend his life for even a few extra months, he decided enough was enough, and opted for hospice care.
His mother is not going to make it to 105. She died today at about 11:00 AM, Central Standard Time. She loved greatly, and she was greatly loved, and she knew it.
Farewell, Grandma. I don’t know what happens after death, but if it’s anything like you expected, you have a husband and three of your kids welcoming you home.
It’s OK with me if some people say “enough is enough,” but it would take a horrible apparent future with no way out to make me pull the plug, or even cancel my cryonics arrangements.
I admit, I’ve always been one who likes too much of a good thing. Recently I saw an ad on the internet: “Date 50+ Men!” I thought “Wow, how fun that would be again”> and then I realized they meant men over 50 in age, not in number.
Now that was funny!
Star Trek 2?
Toy Story 2?
You mean The Wrath of Khan? That’s a title. As for Toy Story, I definitely think the second wasn’t remotely as good; it required vastly more suspension of disbelief than the first, and that was more than I could give.