Goodbye Letter

As promised last week, we continue the subject of Dementia and the value and choice of one's life, with a bit of a twist.

Imagine you are an elderly gentleman, and you have been suffering ongoing and increasing dementia for a while now, with moments of terrible lucidity in between. You make a choice: You do not wish to live like this any longer. And so you decide to take your life, peacefully, non-violently, still with your wits intact enough to carry out your last wish, going out as you choose, not as the illness would have you. You carry this out, but beforehand you write and leave this goodbye letter.

I leave the molecules in my brain and its body to the larger body of nature now rather than later, so that she may make better use of them now. I have ingested a substance to cause my being death quietly and quickly. By the time you read this the organized processes of matter and energy that continued me will be gone, in its place a corpse to be reconstituted into many other worthy forms, per mother nature's policy.


But I would rather fade like this, quickly, quietly, peacefully, and dignified than fester on and on to become more distorted and perverted a form, possessing less and less of my self each day. Indeed, this is a suicide. But it is a suicide out of love, not hate. It is out of dignity, not depravity. It comes from a sense of worth, not worthlessness. It is out of love for myself and you, my family, who have so dearly cared for me so long and brought such joy to my life.


I no longer wish to be a burden unto you. But this is only part of it. If my mental degradation could be reversed or even stopped or slowed to a degree where my advanced age made it irrelevant, I would choose to continue to live out my natural life, as then I could at least offer my presence, my words and my love. But as it is, I would continue to become more burdensome unto you, and act in ways contrary to the will of my self.


I would only continue to be there biologically, a form unable to reflect its substance, the capacity for my will's expression gone, and with it, effectively the person you knew. Why then, should I leave you an defective shell in my place when I will no longer even be there in any substantial way. So that this defective machinery may profane my name and our memories together? This is profoundly unreasonable and not in the spirit of my love and memory. As such, I hope you judge this act as my last of reason, love and good will towards all of you. I love you very much and hope you will remember me as a good man, or at least, as a real man, not the shell of one. Live and die well, familia.

Would you be in some way happy, sad or some mixture of this after reading this letter? Would you convince yourself it was probably the effect of this degenerating condition, or would you have the heart to face it as a free man's last will?

Dementia

Losing your mind

People often turn dementia into a joke. Even those of advanced age tend to take passing stabs at their diminishing mental capabilities. As the saying goes, sometimes we laugh not to cry. But like most serious things, on one hand we joke about it, but on the other we contemplate the horror and sadness of losing one's mind. The worst part is that often those who experience dementia have moments of lucidity which shine perhaps a most unfortunate light onto their situation.

It is easy to relegate this condition to others, especially those of advanced age, but dementia can occur even to relatively young people, and has many causes and names. Alzheimer's is one of those common names. But it has many names, and it could happen to any of us. I was surprised and dismayed to see President Ronald Reagan succumb and eventually die with this disorder. One would think such an active man with so nimble a mind as his, with the best medical care available, would never had had occasion to develop such a mind-degrading condition. Yet he did.

Some sane tips

There are some life-style choices which could counter dementia to some degree, and are healthy choices regardless. Exercising helps the body get rid of toxins, increases blood flow to the brain, lowers blood pressure, cholesterol and a slew of other things which in some way seems to help prevent dementia from occurring. A healthy diet also seems to combat dementia. And there are other things which you can do to reduce your chances of developing this brain-bashng condition. I for one, have long stopped using aluminum-based deodorants (virtually all anti-prespirants), because aluminum has been circumstantially linked to dementia. In the long run, aluminum may or may not be proven to actually cause dementia, but it is no huge sacrifice for me and I'd rather not run the risk anyway.

Sanity vs. Life

Regardless, like Ronald Reagan, anyone of us could end up with dementia. What would you do if it happened to you? There is a huge stigma against taking one's own life. Most legitimately recognized religions of the world are against it, and it is even illegal in much of the world. But the important question is, would your own personal philosophy allow it?

As an agnostic, though I continue to expand my horizons, I choose to live with what I know. And since the great beyond, the proverbial after-life, and as such, and the consequences of suicide in such a situation, is an unknown to me, I would not personally rule this option out. In fact, I have known of several people in this situation which have expressed that same sentiment. One was a very dear person to me, who was just taken to nursing home one day and I never saw again. His wife, a good soul, lived for years after and quite literally died of loneliness.

However, normally individuals lack the force of will to go against their natural survival instinct, and given the nature of dementia, those affected with it probably also lack the cognitive ability to do so as well. Additionally, there are economic and emotional consequences for loved ones which accompany such action. But most people who have seen a loved one who has lived with dementia for years finally pass away experience a sense of relief. It is a relief that their loved one is now free from such suffering, a horrible condition of living-death.

Most experience a sense of loss and a grieving similar to that experienced after a loved one has passed away long before the physical death of that person, because in a very real sense that person is already gone, the neural circuitry which allowed that human being to form and express complex thoughts and behaviors literally dead. It makes some sense that the highest order and complexity of the human being-- the mind, created by the brain, would start to break down first, whittling that being down to its more basic nature and essence, though the essence that we would consider personhood is gone in the process. We are all destined to be broken down to more basic essences, to become ashes. But oh how horrible a death to die living, to die without personhood.

What would you do?

Next week I will continue this topic, with a slight artistic slant.

Time to Decide

2009 saw the rebirth and reorganization of Gamoe.net as a blog, surely a momentous occasion for myself and the three two of you who follow this site. It was also the year I went back to school, a decision which was not so much one of "if?", but more of a "when?" and "what?" Although those are certainly important questions, experience has taught me that when it comes to choosing a path in life, making a decision-- no matter what it is-- is always the right course of action. Indecision leads to non-commitment, which leads to inaction, which is lack of movement, stagnation, a lack of progress towards any goal. Goals can be altered and redefined later, but stagnation is the possibly the worst possible condition in life. For a lack of movement is a lack of purpose as well.

Now that is no excuse for bad decision-making. That is a totally different matter altogether. Perhaps setting yourself on a life of crime isn't the best of decisions. Bad decisions can even get you killed. But so will time. And there are other components to movement in life. For example, I would find a life dedicated primarily to profit, or one unconcerned with goodness rather unfulfilling.

But the point is that making an active decision of what path you want to travel, rather than just riding along in a passenger's seat of your life, is up there with the most important and satisfying things in life, because it gives you movement and purpose, which in this case is one and the same. Movement without purpose is well, pointless. What are you moving towards? What do you wish to accomplish? There can be no true, coherent movement without purpose. Consider a person just splashing about in the water and a swimmer making her way across a lake. They might both expend the same amount of energy, but one gets somewhere, the other does not. And purpose without movement is nothing at all. Without movement, purpose cannot be fulfilled. Wishing for world peace is excellent, but if you do nothing to further it, it is merely an idea. Purpose is the direction of movement. Movement is the action of purpose.

The funny thing is, whether you succeed or fail to achieve your goals is actually not as important as the movement itself. Defining goals is essential in providing us with direction. But goals are only markers along the way. After all, some goals may extend beyond one's reach. So what? We all wind up dead anyway. Where you'll be buried is of little importance. What you did and how you lived your life is, on the other hand. This brings up a point about death helping to define us, but that's for some other article. The important thing is to decide, to move, to do. The only true failure is not to move, not to decide.

People often hold off on decisions indefinitely is because they don't want to make the wrong one. They don't want to be locked in to a choice they will regret in the future. Again, good decision-making is important, but that being said, I find that most often simply making a decision-- whichever one-- is better than holding off indefinitely. Even if you change your mind later, you'll probably be in a better position to do so than if you hadn't done anything in the first place.

I have always believed man is only truly happy after his needs are met when he is engaged in fulfilling his potential. When you have something inside your heart, you need to let it out, make it action, express it, develop it. But none of that can happen without a conscious decision. None of that can happen without movement. This seems rather obvious. But somehow, I always missed that part of the equation. And I think a lot of people do. Because of fear, generally. Fear of failing, mostly. And that is why I am writing this and putting up on the first of the year. Apart from being something I want to express, I figure it might serve somebody else as well. Don't be afraid. Decide. Do.

Now the only thing I can't decide is whether we should be saying two-thousand-and-ten or twenty-ten.

Happy 2010 (however you say it)!