Love this essay! There’ve been a number of recent pieces on “how to live forever” that have me rolling my eyes—LOL, no thank you.
As for myself, I am in favor of a planned passing. I know this has been shaped by living too long in Texas, a state which prohibits female bodily autonomy, and so I’ve decided that, if possible, I will claim some agency for myself at the end.
Now my grandmother lived a vivacious 96(!) years, and while I’d love the same for myself, I sometimes look around at the state of the world (and the lack of pensions and safety nets) and think, “96? In this economy?” 😆
My mom is 87 and has dementia. She has no quality of life anymore. It's terrible for everyone involved. My aunt, on the other hand is 92 and, while showing signs of cognitive decline, her years from 80, when my mom started showing signs of dementia, to 92 have been full of life and happiness. There is just no way to predict when life will go from a gift to a burden. My dad died at 74 when I was 16 and I'd certainly have liked another decade or more with him. Nobody knows how long they have, or if they'll live beyond their mind or body's ability to thrive. That's the deal, the human condition. Certainly is not part of the bargain, but joy can be. If you don't want your adult kids to wish for your death with anything other than mercy in their hearts, don't be a shitty parent.
“Wow. Someone did not enjoy his parents.” Lolol. I love that first Alain de Botton quote and really agree about needing to take care of our elders. And as the canvas shrinks that does not mean the appetite for joy does! Your aunt sounds like a dream...
Thank you for this. I think about this stuff a lot for someone who is just 52. Some of it, I think, comes from spending so much time with my ancestors. More of it comes from my aging parents and my mother's metastasized triple negative breast cancer. And probably no small part of it is just the way I move through the world and through my writing. Anyway. Thank you for putting words on your experience
Emmanuel clarified later that he doesn’t really hope to die at 75, only that this is the moment he believes he will refuse medical interventions to prolong life including screening for cancer etc. Who knows what he will ultimately do? I’m sure he doesn’t. No one really knows until the choice is upon them.
I loved the article by Alain Bouton. I shared it today with my 81 year old husband who has very clear criteria for both continuing and ending his life. He is vital and smart and manages his health ( he has diabetes and survived cancer) with enthusiasm and discipline because he loves, is loved, and there are things he still wants to do. We are still talking about the essay and what it means to notice more, sink into life deeper. Time does move so differently at this stage of our lives. I can definitely feel the difference between a day that fills me up and one that slides by.
Oh well, that is a rather interesting and slightly intense subject. My magical number is 96, and with a bit of luck I can stay vibrant, engaged and healthy. In my opinion, living life to the fullest and having a healthy lifestyle is the secret. 🤗🩷
I think, if anything, the die at 75 crew are more pathologically American than the illusion of immortality group. Like you said,it's about control and not wanting the vulnerability of receiving care from others. Or like people who try to have memorial services before they die.
I have been thinking a lot lately about how our attachment to busyness and efficiency leaves us too overwhelmed to tend to each other. I think this is what you are speaking to regarding elderhood being unappealing because of a lack of respect, but also a lack of care and a feeling that, as an elder person you don't matter because you aren't as productive as you once were. My father in law struggled mightily with that as he was dying.
Hmm I am thinking of my friend who is 75. She has just returned to New Zealand from a solo trip around France, Spain, Portugal and England. She is also one of the most stylish and interesting women I know. I think the goal needs to be to live well for as long as we have. You may have hit the nail on the head when you say 'We don’t respect our elders, we don’t take care of them, and therefore we don’t want to be them.' I am envisioning a different old age, which I like to think of as 'the wisdom years' 😊
When I read his magic number was 75, all I could think of was that 1970's sci fi classic "Logan's Run" and the older people in the society gathering to die in a big ceremony at the ripe old age of 30! My 30's physically were some of my best years (so far). Imagine we set the bar lower than 75, what if another pandemic causes issues with aging? What then? He is assuming a lot.
I have met people in their late 20s and early 30's who had chronic illnesses that restricted their activities a lot, and were collecting disability because the conditions were so hard on them physically. I have met very spry 70-80 year olds who had more energy and a way better social life than me in my early 50's. I think it's relative, but one thing that is very American is our discomfort with the idea of death to begin with. I have met folks from other cultures who seem to embrace death better, they don't take 20 different supplements, get every surgery possible or try to reverse their clocks. They just live. Also, look to the funeral industry if you want to see how Americans view death (it's beginning to change, thank goodness). We invest a lot of money for well kept, made up corpses to lie in better conditions than some did when they were alive - to comfort the living, not the dead. We want death to imitate life. It is the end of life, and physically the exact opposite. We think living is tied to certain things - status, money, FOMO, a mythological romance, etc. I like the idea of a moment by moment existence, not putting a number on it. Sometimes life is shitty, sometimes it is great. Moment by moment.
To make peace with the driving conditions in the state I live in, one must attain a zen attitude towards death by accident. All the supplements in the world won't save you from a large percent of a population that does not care about the rules of the road, how fast they are going or anyone else in their way for that matter. Quality of life here would improve for all if driver education and traffic enforcement was made a bigger priority. Until then, no amount of turmeric and Vitamin D will save you from all the Ford F 150's and Dodge Ram trucks going 120 in a 70 while they text, drink, bully slower drivers or all 3.
I absolutely adore how Lisa have put it about aging and making sure we can do more as we age and not less. Accepting aging and the different stages in life is crucial for continued growth and impact for those around us as well.
I just wrote a 8000-word treatise on how to live and die in the comments here, but I have deleted it now to say simply, “Thanks for the post/thoughts above.”
Neither my sister or I had children, so I now find myself in the position of being the last man standing in my family.
Just yesterday I was going through these big boxes of photos of my parents, their parents, various relatives etc, all of whom are now dead. I'm 71 and won't be here forever. I have no one to pass these photos on to. Sooner or later I'll be gone and all these photos, a century's worth of family history, will wind up in a dumpster somewhere.
As the last man standing, I feel some responsibility to save these last remaining symbols of these people who gave me life. But how? And for who? I am at peace with my parent's passing. But somehow the idea of their lifetime of photos winding up in a dumpster is disturbing that peace.
So much of what we think and so about this subject is based upon the utterly unproven, and typically unexamined, assumption that life is better than death.
For myself (and not a prescription for anybody else) going out on top seems a reasonable plan. The tricky bit seems to be determining where the top is.
I agree with you about the trouble with all of the efforts to live forever. They feel like continued avoidance of death and aging. We’d do better to have a better relationship with each of them. At the same time, I honor one’s decision to stop striving for life. That’s basically what my Grandmother did. She was 96. She lived alone to that point. It is hard, though, being old and having lost everyone your age and being mostly ignored by the younger folk.
I'm a little late to the comments here, but I saved this post because I wanted to read and think about it. Ironically, I just published something about death last week. In that post, I talked about how I am afraid of dying, and also that the reality of death has the possibility to make life incredibly beautiful, like, I-have-no-words incredibly beautiful. So I'm wondering about deciding you're going to call it at 75 or some other number. That seems to be missing the point. Life isn't a machine and neither are we or our relationships. We're also not eternal; on some undisclosed day, we are absolutely not going to be here anymore. I feel like if I hold these two facts together, keep them present in my ever-aging brain, they'll help me navigate how I want to live, how I want to be in life, and probably (depending on all those unseen and unknowable circumstances), how I want to die. For now, that's what I'm going with, my inescapable, messy, but really amazing humanness, and its mortality. We'll see what happens.
Such a needed insight on how we have aged out love of life and loving on loved ones. My dark mind goes to Monte Python "the meaning of life live organ transplant." Maybe on the 75th birthday, MrDeath at 75 can schedule his organ donation. He will no longer need them.
Love this essay! There’ve been a number of recent pieces on “how to live forever” that have me rolling my eyes—LOL, no thank you.
As for myself, I am in favor of a planned passing. I know this has been shaped by living too long in Texas, a state which prohibits female bodily autonomy, and so I’ve decided that, if possible, I will claim some agency for myself at the end.
Now my grandmother lived a vivacious 96(!) years, and while I’d love the same for myself, I sometimes look around at the state of the world (and the lack of pensions and safety nets) and think, “96? In this economy?” 😆
My mom is 87 and has dementia. She has no quality of life anymore. It's terrible for everyone involved. My aunt, on the other hand is 92 and, while showing signs of cognitive decline, her years from 80, when my mom started showing signs of dementia, to 92 have been full of life and happiness. There is just no way to predict when life will go from a gift to a burden. My dad died at 74 when I was 16 and I'd certainly have liked another decade or more with him. Nobody knows how long they have, or if they'll live beyond their mind or body's ability to thrive. That's the deal, the human condition. Certainly is not part of the bargain, but joy can be. If you don't want your adult kids to wish for your death with anything other than mercy in their hearts, don't be a shitty parent.
“Wow. Someone did not enjoy his parents.” Lolol. I love that first Alain de Botton quote and really agree about needing to take care of our elders. And as the canvas shrinks that does not mean the appetite for joy does! Your aunt sounds like a dream...
Thank you for this. I think about this stuff a lot for someone who is just 52. Some of it, I think, comes from spending so much time with my ancestors. More of it comes from my aging parents and my mother's metastasized triple negative breast cancer. And probably no small part of it is just the way I move through the world and through my writing. Anyway. Thank you for putting words on your experience
Emmanuel clarified later that he doesn’t really hope to die at 75, only that this is the moment he believes he will refuse medical interventions to prolong life including screening for cancer etc. Who knows what he will ultimately do? I’m sure he doesn’t. No one really knows until the choice is upon them.
I loved the article by Alain Bouton. I shared it today with my 81 year old husband who has very clear criteria for both continuing and ending his life. He is vital and smart and manages his health ( he has diabetes and survived cancer) with enthusiasm and discipline because he loves, is loved, and there are things he still wants to do. We are still talking about the essay and what it means to notice more, sink into life deeper. Time does move so differently at this stage of our lives. I can definitely feel the difference between a day that fills me up and one that slides by.
Oh well, that is a rather interesting and slightly intense subject. My magical number is 96, and with a bit of luck I can stay vibrant, engaged and healthy. In my opinion, living life to the fullest and having a healthy lifestyle is the secret. 🤗🩷
I think, if anything, the die at 75 crew are more pathologically American than the illusion of immortality group. Like you said,it's about control and not wanting the vulnerability of receiving care from others. Or like people who try to have memorial services before they die.
I have been thinking a lot lately about how our attachment to busyness and efficiency leaves us too overwhelmed to tend to each other. I think this is what you are speaking to regarding elderhood being unappealing because of a lack of respect, but also a lack of care and a feeling that, as an elder person you don't matter because you aren't as productive as you once were. My father in law struggled mightily with that as he was dying.
Hmm I am thinking of my friend who is 75. She has just returned to New Zealand from a solo trip around France, Spain, Portugal and England. She is also one of the most stylish and interesting women I know. I think the goal needs to be to live well for as long as we have. You may have hit the nail on the head when you say 'We don’t respect our elders, we don’t take care of them, and therefore we don’t want to be them.' I am envisioning a different old age, which I like to think of as 'the wisdom years' 😊
When I read his magic number was 75, all I could think of was that 1970's sci fi classic "Logan's Run" and the older people in the society gathering to die in a big ceremony at the ripe old age of 30! My 30's physically were some of my best years (so far). Imagine we set the bar lower than 75, what if another pandemic causes issues with aging? What then? He is assuming a lot.
I have met people in their late 20s and early 30's who had chronic illnesses that restricted their activities a lot, and were collecting disability because the conditions were so hard on them physically. I have met very spry 70-80 year olds who had more energy and a way better social life than me in my early 50's. I think it's relative, but one thing that is very American is our discomfort with the idea of death to begin with. I have met folks from other cultures who seem to embrace death better, they don't take 20 different supplements, get every surgery possible or try to reverse their clocks. They just live. Also, look to the funeral industry if you want to see how Americans view death (it's beginning to change, thank goodness). We invest a lot of money for well kept, made up corpses to lie in better conditions than some did when they were alive - to comfort the living, not the dead. We want death to imitate life. It is the end of life, and physically the exact opposite. We think living is tied to certain things - status, money, FOMO, a mythological romance, etc. I like the idea of a moment by moment existence, not putting a number on it. Sometimes life is shitty, sometimes it is great. Moment by moment.
To make peace with the driving conditions in the state I live in, one must attain a zen attitude towards death by accident. All the supplements in the world won't save you from a large percent of a population that does not care about the rules of the road, how fast they are going or anyone else in their way for that matter. Quality of life here would improve for all if driver education and traffic enforcement was made a bigger priority. Until then, no amount of turmeric and Vitamin D will save you from all the Ford F 150's and Dodge Ram trucks going 120 in a 70 while they text, drink, bully slower drivers or all 3.
I absolutely adore how Lisa have put it about aging and making sure we can do more as we age and not less. Accepting aging and the different stages in life is crucial for continued growth and impact for those around us as well.
Really appreciate the thoughts put here 👏
I just wrote a 8000-word treatise on how to live and die in the comments here, but I have deleted it now to say simply, “Thanks for the post/thoughts above.”
Neither my sister or I had children, so I now find myself in the position of being the last man standing in my family.
Just yesterday I was going through these big boxes of photos of my parents, their parents, various relatives etc, all of whom are now dead. I'm 71 and won't be here forever. I have no one to pass these photos on to. Sooner or later I'll be gone and all these photos, a century's worth of family history, will wind up in a dumpster somewhere.
As the last man standing, I feel some responsibility to save these last remaining symbols of these people who gave me life. But how? And for who? I am at peace with my parent's passing. But somehow the idea of their lifetime of photos winding up in a dumpster is disturbing that peace.
Hmm....
So much of what we think and so about this subject is based upon the utterly unproven, and typically unexamined, assumption that life is better than death.
For myself (and not a prescription for anybody else) going out on top seems a reasonable plan. The tricky bit seems to be determining where the top is.
I agree with you about the trouble with all of the efforts to live forever. They feel like continued avoidance of death and aging. We’d do better to have a better relationship with each of them. At the same time, I honor one’s decision to stop striving for life. That’s basically what my Grandmother did. She was 96. She lived alone to that point. It is hard, though, being old and having lost everyone your age and being mostly ignored by the younger folk.
I'm a little late to the comments here, but I saved this post because I wanted to read and think about it. Ironically, I just published something about death last week. In that post, I talked about how I am afraid of dying, and also that the reality of death has the possibility to make life incredibly beautiful, like, I-have-no-words incredibly beautiful. So I'm wondering about deciding you're going to call it at 75 or some other number. That seems to be missing the point. Life isn't a machine and neither are we or our relationships. We're also not eternal; on some undisclosed day, we are absolutely not going to be here anymore. I feel like if I hold these two facts together, keep them present in my ever-aging brain, they'll help me navigate how I want to live, how I want to be in life, and probably (depending on all those unseen and unknowable circumstances), how I want to die. For now, that's what I'm going with, my inescapable, messy, but really amazing humanness, and its mortality. We'll see what happens.
Here's my post from last week
https://econway.substack.com/p/im-afraid-and-lifes-a-gift
Such a needed insight on how we have aged out love of life and loving on loved ones. My dark mind goes to Monte Python "the meaning of life live organ transplant." Maybe on the 75th birthday, MrDeath at 75 can schedule his organ donation. He will no longer need them.