Magical thinking about end of life

Few things inspire more fear and fascination than death. Arguably religions were invented in ancient times to provide fanciful and elaborate answers for people's insatiable questions surrounding death. These days, however, death is not quite as mysterious. People like the now late Dr. Kevorkian, in part, helped the world to understand that death is not as mysterious, and magical as people might think or fondly wish it to be. It is a brute mechanical fact about how our biological systems work. No system works forever. There is no reason to think that there is a magical land for broken human bodies any more than there is a magical land for broken cars or computers.

Of course, this offends the wish and desires of people who would rather that reality be otherwise. They find more comfort in invisible, undetectable entities like spirits that go to invisible, undetectable places like heaven where they can sit on clouds and play harps. Most of us gave up that kind of fantasy when we left childhood. Most adults, especially in their later years, have acquired enough wisdom to know reality from nonsense, and that is why many old people do not fear death, even if it is the end. Some, like Kevorkian's patients, saw through the ridiculous myths and lies made up by ancient scribes, and sought to take control of their own biologies. Thank you, Jack, for helping people understand that death is not some magical place of candy, and rainbows, and a big family reunion. It is just when our machine stops and our hamster falls off our wheel.

That is not to say that we invite it. Most of us enjoy letting our hamsters run on our wheels as much as they would like. However, all must end and life is not obligatory. The best person to decide how to proceed with your life is you, and lacking compelling reasons, that is how it works most everywhere. After all, it turns out that, even if we wanted to it is too much work to try to run other people's live for them. So, by default, unless there are serious threats to the rest of us, modern society says, go for it. Do what you gotta do. Life is short enough anyway without other busybodies trying to slow you down. If life is not what you want it to be then that is largely up to you to figure out how to change. Most of us find plenty in life worth living. However, in the final analysis there is nothing magical about life or its absence. There are no guarantees, and anyone who tries to sell you one, via religion, politics, or late-night info-mercial, is probably not on the level. Once you stop believing that things have to be magical, and wonderful, and secretly different than they appear, you might just have the time to actually live your life, in peace, and freedom, on your own terms.

Kevorkian is dead. Long live Kevorkian.

Controversial figure Jack Kevorkian died today, at age 83, joining the 130 patients whom he helped end their life journeys. Most of the legitimate, intelligent "controversy" about euthanasia centers around making sure that adequate safeguards are put in place so that terminally ill patients make an informed and mentally competent decision when it comes to ending one's own life. However, in many places where euthanasia, in the form of physician assisted suicide, is legally permitted, there are elaborate safeguards. You can't just break up with your girlfriend at age 18, get drunk, and go down to the suicide drive-thru for your shot of cyanide. You have to be a terminally ill patient in a sound state of mind, and often have to wait months. Now then, Kevorkian and some of his sympathizers thought this was too much of a burden for very sick, pain-wracked patients, and they sought short-cuts. Reasonable people can disagree on the types of safeguards which should be in place, as a matter of public policy.

However, there are also the unreasonable, unintelligent objections to suicide. These often come, unsurprisingly, from absolutist religious fanatics, who seem to believe that suicide is not permitted under any circumstances. The actual number of bible verses relating to suicide are surprisingly slim, and as usual, quite vague. Some try to claim that the body is a temple and killing oneself defiles that temple, as per passages like 1 Cor 3:17. However, it's not clear why this would defile the body any more than natural death. From a Jewish perspective, dead bodies were unclean, and it didn't particularly matter how the body died. Besides, lots of things might theoretically defile the body, such as shaking hands with a gentile, or masturbating. Is suicide in the same trivial category as these types of deeds?

Others say that suicide is wrong because it is killing, and the so-called ten commandments prohibit killing. Of course, they don't really prohibit all killing. We still kill in war, and self-defense, and even in capital punishment, which is heartily endorsed by the same bible that supposedly commands us not to kill. It is conceivable that people could interpret suicide in terms of administering capital punishment to oneself, as per a variety of biblical directives which call for capital punishment of people committing minor offenses, up to and including gathering sticks on the Sabbath, blasphemy, etc.

Some try to put words in the Bible's mouth and say that what it really means is that you aren't supposed to kill innocent people for no reason. However, nobody is truly innocent, and terminally ill people certainly have reasons. At the very least, we must admit that killing of oneself is quite different than killing of a non-consenting other.

Consider the analogy to stealing. The same commandments say we are not supposed to steal. However, is it stealing when you say it is OK? Is it stealing when you do it to yourself. Clearly, no. If someone takes your money then it's stealing. If you give your money away freely then nobody would say that this donation amounts to "stealing from yourself".

Comparing then with killing, when you kill someone else you steal that person's life. However, you can't really steal from yourself, in the same way, as we just explained, because you have given at least a measure of consent, whereas an outside individual may not have.

One might similarly take the view that killing oneself can be a form of justifiable defense, or even a form of warfare, both of which are traditionally exempted from prohibitions against killing. In the first case, one might argue that killing oneself was defending oneself and one's quality of life against mortal attack by the ravages of disease, and pain. It is conceivable that one might look terminal diseases as a form of war, declared by nature against one's own body. Killing is sometimes justified in war, and that killing might include destruction of oneself, to prevent the enemies of disease and ill-health from making further gains on the battlefield.

Of course, if you disagree with anything, then you certainly shouldn't do it. You are even free to attempt to persuade others not to do it. For the record, I am not advocating that people do it, generally, because, aside from the terminally ill, most of us have plenty to live for. If this life is the only one we get, contrary to the wishful thinking of many religious people, then we want to make sure we get the most we can out of it. However, if one is satisfied with what one has gotten out of life already and now the burdens of life have become too heavy, that is something that the individual will have to address. That was what Kevorkian, in his own way was saying, which is why I say, though "Kevorkian is dead. Long live Kevorkian" in terms of his idealism.