Actually, family and friends would attest that I have long proselytized the belief that we’d all be better off if nobody lived beyond 80. This stems from my very Bible-centric upbringing:
Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
(Psalm 90:10)
Yet, ironically, family and friends would also attest that I am the least religious person they know. Even more ironic, though, is that the religious people I know are the ones who find my belief in this respect most sacrilegious. But here’s the kicker: I don’t know a single religious person who, despite professing abiding faith, would rely on the word of God, instead of that of a doctor, for peace of mind about his/her health and wellbeing.
This is why, notwithstanding the Psalm above, I was so heartened on Sunday, when I read an article by renowned physicist Ezekiel Emanuel (57), the brains behind President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, healthcare reform, in which he endorsed my longstanding view on this categorical imperative for dying with dignity.
Here is the seminal and instructive passage in “Why I hope I Die at 75: An argument that society and families – and you – will be better off if nature takes it course swiftly and promptly,” which Dr. Emanuel wrote for the October issue of The Atlantic:
[H]ere is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.
It might be helpful to know that Emanuel is also chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania….
In any event, I could not have written a more informed and cogent reason for my professed belief about aging … and dying. Therefore, consistent with my proselytization, I beseech anyone who professes any concern about limited human resources and spiraling healthcare costs to read this article.
But it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge two apparent contradictions:
- Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact.com is the critically acclaimed arbiter of truth in American politics. This is why all reasonable people took as gospel its proclamation in 2009 that Sarah Palin’s claim about Obama proposing “death panels” to decide whether to give or withhold healthcare to old people was the “Lie of the Year.” Except that, given the seemingly macabre revelations in Emanuel’s article, Obama haters could be forgiven for thinking that Palin was right.
- I feel very strongly about not living beyond 80, and would even forego five years to comport with Emanuel’s more scientific determination (or, if strength fails me, even 10 years to comport with the word of God). Yet my inconsistency is such that I was prepared to spend my last dime to ensure that illness did not rob my Mummy of one second of 100 years … or more. Which is why I never considered life (and God) so cruel as when, due to natural causes, it (and He?) abandoned her at 64.
Emanuel might be able to reconcile his apparent contradiction. But I cannot reconcile mine. Not to mention that what I might think is a self-sacrificing view with respect to my own mortality others might think is just a variant strain of Dorian-Gray narcissism, which makes the prospect of not always looking and feeling (relatively) young so unbearable that dying becomes preferable to the ravages of old age.
But, hey, that’s life.