Desicritics Comments on When Is It The Right Time To Die?

Comment by Ledzius

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:32:36 EST

Perhaps Mark Twain said it best in a tongue-in-cheek manner: "I do not fear death, in view of the fact that I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."

Comment by Deepti Lamba

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 05:07:08 EST

Good article t

Comment by temporal

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:21:07 EST

"Birth, and copulation, and death. That's all the facts when you come to brass tacks." So wrote T.S. Eliot in "Sweeney Agonistes." In fact, some of the best writing about death has come from poets. Dylan Thomas raged, raged against the dying of the light in "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," his famous villanelle about his dying father, and insisted defiantly in another poem that "death shall have no dominion" -- before dying at age 39 of alcoholism. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was more sanguine: "The young may die, but the old must!" he wrote in "Christus." The great 17th century French dramatist Pierre Corneille's attitude was darker: "Every moment in life is a step towards death." Shakespeare's characters occasionally railed, but like Richard II, they eventually bowed to fate: "The worst is death, and death will have his day." There's nothing like milestone birthdays, the loss of one's parents or scary diagnoses to stir intimations of mortality. In his essay "Illness as More Than Metaphor," Susan Sontag's son, David Rieff, wrote: "There are those who can reconcile themselves to death and those who can't. Increasingly, I've come to think that it is one of the most important ways the world divides up." Death is a hot topic among writers these days

Comment by kerty

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:17:22 EST

Deepti "If humans offered unconditional love we'd all live in utopia." We don't have to extend unconditional love to whole humanity. But can we start small, with baby steps? Start with our own family members, our own loved ones, our own hand-picked circle of friends? If we think even that is impossible or too utopian, than there is no hope for humans. Humans are irretrievably lost and ideals of love and respect are nothing but self-serving platitudes and empty rhetorics. Nothing can ever be built on them. That is remarkably bleak world view - much like semitic world view that we all are sinners incapable to be anything more. They are not the 'truth' but they have the power to create self-fulfilling realities - all ideas and world views have such powers - that is why what we choose as ideas and world view creates the fate - because power of that choice will make it a self-fulfilling reality. We should want unconditional love become a self-fulfilling reality, and not its anti-thesis, because that too can become a self-fulfilling reality.

Comment by Deepti Lamba

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:51:16 EST

For unconditional love I will surround myself with golden retrievers. If humans offered unconditional love we'd all live in utopia. Until then its all about what goes around comes around.

Comment by kerty

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:40:43 EST

Deepti "Respect is earned and not handed over just because of advancing years. And yes, with love comes respect." Respect, love, tolerance - they all can be withheld and one can find endless reasons to withhold them. And that is the central flaw with conditional respect, conditional love, conditional tolerance - because conditions to withhold them will always exist, people can always find reasons to withhold. It evolves people to small-mindedness, pettiness, negetivity, nasty self-centeredness. Only when people begin to ignore or rise above those reasons and conditions that they can rise to a position to respect, love, tolerate. Unconditional offerings create an opposite dynamics - because love is offered unconditionally, it raises the bar for the other person to justify it, deserve it, match it. It makes people to look out for more ways to love rather than more reasons to withhold love. When a person is being looked up to and it is offered to him unconditionally, onus is him to live up to it, deserve it. It encourages both giver and receiver to grow. It also enlarges the person who gives love or respect unconditionally - it takes a person of heart, magnanimity and character to be able to love or respect somebody unconditionally in spite of all human imperfections and flaws that would be inherent in any person. We owe it to our loves ones and near ones. That is how we can turn ordinary human interactions into endearing relationships.

Comment by Deepti Lamba

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:33:19 EST

Respect is earned and not handed over just because of advancing years. And yes, with love comes respect. But we are supposed to respect even children, their need for personal space, put ourselves in their shoes and then direct their actions. But rarely do adults do that and similarly in today's urban India old people are 'revered' absentmindedly. No one has time for them and nor should they wait around to be recognized as 'Gods' (small G or big doesn't matter to me). Gone are those days. Senior years are to be enjoyed if health permits. My grandpa went on a world tour alone. There is an ad also playing here in India where an old lady tells her husband that they should ask for money from their son and the old man replies that the only thing he ever asked for was her hand from her father. She gets mad and he shows her tickets to Singapore. In many ways I miss having Aaman's parents around. And wish they were still alive. His parents would have made great grandparents. They would have been there for the children, passed down the family heritage, told them stories and his mom hopefully would have been there for me like my sister's mother in law helps her through thick and thin. However at the same time I feel old people should keep money aside for themselves. If their kids misbehave with them then kicking them out should not be a problem. Like I said to SS we can lay down how things should be but rarely are they followed nor are situations that simple. Fun? Its a very subjective concept. I probably will not ever be the kind of old person Kerty seems to be talking about. Hopefully I will be able to see the world, continue writing, go dancing and still be interested in getting on with it;) I don't want my kids to revere me. Love me for sure, include me in their lives and if they have any problems turn to me. I am not going to sit on a high horse and expect them to treat me with kid gloves. Hopefully I will have the same relationship with them the way I have it with my mom. She is my best friend.

Comment by Aditi

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:41:41 EST

"With love comes huge responsibilities - there goes the fun to flirt and fuck around" Hahaha. Kerty, is that your only idea of "fun"?! :))

Comment by kerty

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:30:17 EST

Aditi I used the word God in the same sense as what Deepti meant, not as creator or spiritual super entity but as human icons and object of reverence born out of human relationships. Perhaps I should have used lowercase God to convey that. Like love - respect and reverence too can not be defined and would manifest in highly personal ways. Respect places a person and relationship at much higher pedestal than mere tolerance or merely putting up. Similarly, love places the person and relationship at much higher pedestal than mere respect. Similarly, reverence and worship places a person and relationship at much higher pedestal than mere love. Even though we can not define any of them in concrete terms, we know reverence would look and feel a lot different than tolerance or even love. Only people in love could feel that special bond of love and how it gets exchanged by between 2 lovers - it is deeply personal. Yet, love is a universal value and people know what it is and can see and tell when love is present or not present. With love comes huge responsibilities - there goes the fun to flirt and fuck around. And yet, would lovers have any other way? Nope. Most would rather give up the whole world for their love. Same is true of reverence - with it comes a huge chip on the shoulder and one must grow to be able wear the title with dignity. Does it sap fun out of them? Not really. With age and wisdom, the idea of fun too undergoes transformations - people experience it differently and express it differently. It looks inadequate and antiquated when we judge it from yardsticks of youth culture.

Comment by Ayan Roy

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:46:42 EST

Lust for life, in my opinion, depends upon three things - curiousity, enthusiasm and good health. A person is almost 'dead' in my opinion if (s)he does not have an iota of curiousity or enthusiasm even though his/her health may be okay. I don't know when I will die, but I will try to enjoy/experience each and every moment of my life, learn something new everyday and strive to maintain my body and health to the best of my ability. One way of deciding when to die would be to make a wishlist of "100 fun things I would like to do before I die" (possible, achieveable ones, like watching movies one after the other countinuously for 24 hours, having sex in an isolated beach, travelling on a hot air balloon, shaving my head for no reason at all, getting a tattoo etc.) and keep ticking them off as the years pass, one by one.. Once your list is exhausted, it's time to die! Well, when you feel it's the right time to die, you should exclaim in the ways of the Klingons (go die now if you don't know who the Klingons are !!): "TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE!!"

Comment by commonsense

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:16:36 EST

AN to Kerty: ""You really cannot define what God should be or can be to someone else."" that is true for lesser mortals, but not for the likes of kerty.

Comment by Aditi

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:12:56 EST

Kerty: "You don't lock up God or treat God as disposable doll or consign God to tokenism or reverence that is merely symbolic. God has to be at the right, left and center of one's life - that is what it means to treat somebody as God" You really cannot define what God should be or can be to someone else. A small technicality, maybe, but god spelled as lower case is often in reference to a deified object or being which is what I believe Dee meant here....at least thats how I interpret it. And I agree, in our country once someone crosses a certain age-threshold, they are now ready to be associated with wisdom, religion, etc. The fun is sapped out of their lives by society just by consciously or unconsciously deeming them ancient and venerable.

Comment by kerty

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:30:59 EST

Deepti "They become gods with clay feet, breathing in some corner of the house, absentmindedly revered and conveniently forgotten." You don't lock up God or treat God as disposable doll or consign God to tokenism or reverence that is merely symbolic. God has to be at the right, left and center of one's life - that is what it means to treat somebody as God. We should treat old folks the same way we would like to be treated during our own hay days. They have spent whole life contributing to life on this planet - let them enjoy their sunset years. Make them feel important, somebody special, useful, part of social life, indispensible centers of family life. Make them centers of our lives. Let them go out with a bang, like a royal king and queen. As old folks yield world to the new generations, family remain their last and only refuge - it should not be taken away from them. Being revered places an awful responsibility and person so revered has to fulfill its mandate and not fall before the adoring devotees. Most people would fail in one or more respects - but that is to be expected as nobody is 100% perfect - what matters is that it allows people to try to be better, try to be worthy of somebody's love and respect, it encourages each human to grow to be worthy of love and respect of other people - especially those people that should matter the most to the individuals - one's own immediate family. Even if people end up succeeding less than 100%, it is still lot better than not.

Comment by Deepti Lamba

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:22:20 EST

Jawahara, I am sorry for your loss. Getting over the death of a parent is always hard; no matter at what age they go and at what age we lose them. I do agree its a matter of perspective- my grandparents suffered a lot till the end and that kind of spooks me.

Comment by Jawahara

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:47:08 EST

Aah, t, you know how to make me de-lurk ;-). Life and dying definitely have limitations because they are related to the physical, to our frail human bodies. But speech, or rather the freedom of speech and expression has no limits and should have no limits. As long as there is no direct exhortation of violence, speech need have no limits. If I insult you, you can insult me...verbally! That's it! But then you knew I'd say that...so no surprises there, huh? Interesting piece, Dee. I would say that one's length of life should be determined by oneself. I can't imagine living to be 85, but my father died earlier this year at that age. He still had friends, wrote regularly for the local newspapers and was a well-known person in our home-town. I don't know if he was truly ready to die even though his body was giving out. There are some 80-year olds who are frail and sick, others are not. It all depends on the individual for me.

Comment by Deepti Lamba

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:54:37 EST

Yes t, all is debatable even my asking not to grant godly status to the older generation would get me into hot waters. SS, like I say to my six year old- wanting and getting are two different things;)

Comment by temporal

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:09:19 EST

dee: deep thoughts for an afternoon * there is no right or wrong time to die * dying and speech (freedom of speech) have a lot in common! * each person is free to chose the mode. *** time to introduce the nose the individual's speech freedom stops at another's nose when it impugns, invades or irritates the "nasal" passages of another than the state has to step in... *** and what does above have anything remotely to do with the subject matter of death and dying? patience is in such short supply...khair...dying or more precisely when to die is a personal prerogative ...people die...in child birth, in infancy, in auto accidents, in natural calamities...in these cases it is obvious the "choice" factor is redundant.. but there are other factors where it is not... euthanasia...(digression: for the record am for it in some cases)..."collateral damage"... (war crimes and court martial is the way to go)... and individual acts of terrorism...where individuals or heads of governments in a state of delusion chose acts that result in deaths....their own and other civilians... this is where i return to dying and speech (freedom of speech) have a lot in common! ... just like a bad singer is free to sing all s/he wants in the privacy of the bathroom...s/he has little or no right to serenade outside other folks windows at 3 am...the person who wants to terminate his/her life is welcome to do so at anytime...provided others are left alone... jawahara loves me for saying this: speech, living and dying have limitations;)

Comment by smallsquirrel

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:16:43 EST

I, like you, am conflicted. I got a late start in having a family, so I really don't want to die too young. Here in the US we tend to think of late 80's as a good time, health permitting. I guess I do not really care about the number itself, I just do not want to suffer through what happened with my paternal grandmother... alzheimers, colon cancer, bypass surgery... decreased EVERYTHING. In the end she became a very angry and demented woman who insisted on wearing filthy clothes (she was a proud, well put-together woman just months before) and shouted obscenities at anyone within earshot. It was tragic. She would have been horrified at herself had she been in her right mind, and I never want to put my own family through that kind of hell.