Year End 2004

Are you used to the way you live your life? Do you get up in the morning and go about your business without thinking about just how remarkable it is? Most people are go-go-go and never stop until they are forced to. People don't like to think about the form that force might take, because there are examples all around us, and it's easier to ignore it. People think it will always happen to someone else, but perhaps it's better to learn from the examples of others before you have to learn for yourself.

People who know me are likely to know that I'm of an age where I notice age sneaking up on me, making up ground whenever I'm not looking. It isn't just the reduced wind, progressive trifocals, creaky joints, or sore muscles. It's the growing realization that try as I may, my body is gradually deteriorating.

There's lots I can do, and have been doing, but it's a gradual, inexorable slope. If I'm twice my present age when my body delivers the ultimate betrayal, or an act of mercy, depending on how you look at it, I will have done extremely well and will have nothing to complain about. One learns to cope with gradual change, and with luck none of the individual steps requires urgent medical intervention.

That isn't true for everyone, though. You'd have to be wilfully blind not to notice that people sometimes have abrupt bodily failures requiring urgent and sometimes extreme medical attention. People have strokes, heart attacks, and cancers that suddenly break out of their bunkers to rampage through an organ or the whole body. There are more diseases, conditions, syndromes, and symptoms than any layman can dream of, and medical experts can barely keep up. It seems like the more we learn how to cure, the more we learn of that we can't cure.

Sometimes our current medical technology simply isn't good enough, or arrives too late. The worst case end result is not death. I don't fear death. There any number of ways I could die suddenly; being in the wrong place at the wrong time while driving to work tomorrow is one of the higher probabilities. Some cancers can take you from well to dead in a few months, or even weeks.

No. I fear the detours on the road to death. I fear being captured by the medical system to be forced to live when I no longer desire to. I fear living in constant pain. I fear the loss or scrambling of senses that connect me to the outside world. I fear a brain injury that leaves my body whole, but without a 'me' able to turn the lights on in the morning, or a 'me' that can't cope with the world. I fear being subject to a cure that is little better than the disease. I fear being a slave to a drug regimen.

I don't have any special insight on how to deal with those fears. All I do is try to enjoy each day as it comes. I like looking at the sky, with all the wonderful interactions between clouds, wind, sun, moon, and stars. I like to listen to the world around me. Some smells, like cigarettes and car exhaust, I could do without, but I'll pay that price to be able to smell food, flowers, and warm cat fur. When was the last time you actually tasted a meal, enjoying the smells, the texture, and combinations of flavours? As a quick look at my waistline will tell you, I love food. I enjoy fabric textures almost more than I enjoy the colours, and pick out my clothes more by texture than colour.

I try to enjoy the social interactions with the people around me, and not get hung up on work issues, or get into a frantic rush. It's remarkable how similar other people are to us, and how different. Take the time to explore those similarities, and differences.

Enjoy what you have in your life, while you have it. As I'm learning in a gradual way, and as some people learn in a catastrophic way, what you have won't always be there. What with Remembrance Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, the end of the year is the traditional time for reflection, giving thanks, and giving joy to others. Maybe you should do a little of that all year round.