Why do people (I mean citizens of industrialised nations) insist on prolonged life? So many people seek medical intervention when they get old, or their unhealthy lives catch up with them, or a genetic predisposition to ailments becomes clear. But why?
This excerpt from a Reuters article today is what set my blood boiling:
New U.S. cholesterol guidelines issued on Monday set the lowest level yet for high-risk patients, with recommendations for aggressive use of drugs to get levels down.
The new recommendations also stress no patient should rely on drugs alone to lower cholesterol, but should also take responsibility for the right diet and exercise to keep the heart and arteries healthy.
Living things get old, fall ill, and die: that’s Nature’s cycle. It makes me furious that people like us try to cheat death with “aggressive use of drugs” and medical procedures. Doesn’t “should also take responsibility” sound as if being responsible for your actions is secondary to getting the right medication?
Cripes! Make your choices and live (or die) with them.
I grant that some folks are late bloomers and that numerous key figures in history were bolstered by medical arts. But if they hadn’t survived, we’d be familiar with some other character’s paintings or polemics.
Reasons to accept medical intervention strike closer to home, too. My own father has recently undergone multiple heart surgeries to clear blocked arteries. Both my parents take medication daily to maintain their health.
But neither history nor family changes my mind. I think it’s wrong to meddle with the decay of the body.
I advocate an aggressive sense of mortality.
Posted by kuri at July 13, 2004 09:45 AMWhat’s the point of dying old when most people spend their existence procrastinating the moment they eventually start living?
“when I’m done with the heavy stuff at work these days”… “When I’m a little richer”… “when I retire”… “when the kids are independent”. The worst kind of collective delusion, with plenty of flavours, yours for the taking. pity.
Posted by: olivier on July 13, 2004 10:31 AM“cheat death with aggressive use of drugs”
YES! Mo’ drugs!
As a former officially-dead, brain-damaged, quadraplegic, I’m all for extension of life by whatever means.
Age? Bah.
I can’t wait to put my brain in bottle and get hooked up direct to the Internet. Maji.
L8r…
taro, officially-dead-in-1973-now-shooting-for-2073
Couldn’t have said it better myself! Why do people insist on medical means to prolong life? Because they’re afraid to die! They haven’t found peace with the natural processes of Nature. Once you’ve achieved that peaceful acceptance, you understand that life is just a blink of the eye in the whole scheme of things. We have many, many more wonderful experiences that await us after this life is over. Why cling so tenaciously to something that’s only “the illusion?”
Posted by: Cara on July 13, 2004 12:08 PMHmmm…perhaps you should read Logan’s Run.
Where is your line? I know you have one. At what point would you have us stop interfering with the natural process? Cancer treatments…smallpox vaccinations…trauma surgery after an accident…brushing your teeth…surgery to correct a birth defect?
For my part, this is all there is. There is no afterlife whatsoever. I intend to go on living as long as there is someone left alive for me to love. If everyone I love or care about is gone, I don’t see the point in hanging around.
Posted by: Bob on July 13, 2004 03:06 PMI’m afraid you got the question backward. It should be “why does the medical field seek out aging people to extend their life?” This practice ensures the medical community with an almost unlimited source of revenue to treat the younger population that can’t afford to pay for their treatment.
Posted by: Dad on July 13, 2004 07:50 PMI’ve always advocated a quality over quantity approach in life. Ah, but the rub is in the definition of just what a quality life is. I think that’s best left to the individual.
Posted by: Mom on July 13, 2004 07:56 PMAxel: I think you may have misread; I wrote mortality not morality. My sense of morality is hardly aggressive. :-)
Do you really think I’m on a crusade because I’ve written about a topic I feel strongly about? Hmmmmm. I think crusades involve more action than a single voice whinging about something she can’t change.
Posted by: Kristen on July 14, 2004 06:33 AMWell, it’s certainly a way of looking at things.
As long as each individual retains the right to dope up on medication if he should so desire, at his own expense, then I can see no problem with not wishing to halt illness. Having lost someone close from cancer, and believe me, it wasn’t nice to watch and certainly awful for the person in question to experience, I personally hope that we’ll he injecting and concocting every poison under the sun until they find a way to stop it.
I think we have the priviledge, living in rich countries,
to be able to delay illness, to repair the body… I wonder how the majority of people in this world who die from all sorts of diseases would feel about having the luxury to choose death?
If this sounds judgemental, it’s not supposed to!!!:-)
Just different perspectives right? I guess I advocate an aggressive sense of survival!
I am with Bob - this is all I have so I am trying to make the best of it while surrounding myself with vibrant people who make life interesting. But a quote struck me recently.
“A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?”
—Jane Wagner
This drives me as I want more wishing that I could have done more.
Another quote from a vibrant person that inspired me recently,
“Life is a collection of experiences.”
—Kristen McQuillin
I’m baffled by your anger directed toward people who love their lives enough to do anything at all to prolong them. If medical science has found ways, even aggressive drug therapy, to mitigate a main cause of heart disease, why does your blood boil at the idea that some people might welcome them?
It’s not a right-to-die argument, it’s a no-right-to-live (under certain circumstances) argument.
Posted by: Michael on July 16, 2004 07:16 AMSorry, a follow-up point. Untreated, HIV kills almost all of it’s victims, but aggressive anti-retroviral therapy can restore long-term normality to the lives of many. Cancer, caught early enough and treated with the appropriate aggressive combination of drugs, radiation and surgery, can often be completely cured.
Are these situations different to the case of high cholesterol?
Posted by: Michael on July 16, 2004 07:50 AMI didnt feel any anger towards individuals and individual choices from your post. When i read your post I had the feeling that what set your blood boiling was a medical culture that prioritises profits over health, cure rather than prevention, and knowledge in the hands of experts rather than openess and self-care. Possibly im reading my opinions into yours a bit here…
I draw a very different line from you on this, I dont particularly think its wrong to meddle with the decay of the body, but at the same time, Im very interested to hear a different viewpoint, one that makes me question my own and define my own a bit more clearly…
Posted by: j-ster on July 16, 2004 11:47 AM