g5000
Diamond Member
- Nov 26, 2011
- 125,190
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A friend of mine died last night. Pancreatic cancer. He will be sorely missed.
As I sat with my friend while he went through the dying process this past year, death has been on my mind quite a bit lately. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much I enjoy being alive.
As my friend lived far past the expectations the doctors had given him, a child asked me one day how much longer I would have to be on this deathwatch. I made an exasperated joke about how I could not possibly know the answer to that question, there not being a countdown timer on our foreheads.
But what if there could be a countdown timer? What if you could know the day and time of your death?
Would you want to know?
Would your answer change if right after you agreed you found out you had only six days left to live? Would you rather not know in that case?
There would certainly be advantages to knowing the time you would die. You could run up a big credit card debt (Jerry Lewis reference). But I suppose in such a world, the credit card company would know before you do when you were going to die.
You would know when to erase your porn collection from your computer, and do other tidying up efforts.
All those amends you keep putting off would be completed.
Your bucket list would have a drop dead date.
And so forth.
But I think there would also be a terrible disadvantage. Knowing your death date would create tremendous anxiety, even if it were years off.
"I only have forty-two years left!"
It sure would give an appreciation for life, though, wouldn't it?
Anyway. Your thoughts?
As I sat with my friend while he went through the dying process this past year, death has been on my mind quite a bit lately. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much I enjoy being alive.
As my friend lived far past the expectations the doctors had given him, a child asked me one day how much longer I would have to be on this deathwatch. I made an exasperated joke about how I could not possibly know the answer to that question, there not being a countdown timer on our foreheads.
But what if there could be a countdown timer? What if you could know the day and time of your death?
Would you want to know?
Would your answer change if right after you agreed you found out you had only six days left to live? Would you rather not know in that case?
There would certainly be advantages to knowing the time you would die. You could run up a big credit card debt (Jerry Lewis reference). But I suppose in such a world, the credit card company would know before you do when you were going to die.
You would know when to erase your porn collection from your computer, and do other tidying up efforts.
All those amends you keep putting off would be completed.
Your bucket list would have a drop dead date.
And so forth.
But I think there would also be a terrible disadvantage. Knowing your death date would create tremendous anxiety, even if it were years off.
"I only have forty-two years left!"
It sure would give an appreciation for life, though, wouldn't it?
Anyway. Your thoughts?
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for his family........
