....but I do have concerns about a lengthy period of suffering at the end. Maybe that's one of the reasons that eventual relocation to Oregon appeals to me

This is the way my mother checked out....25 years ago last weekend. She attended church; had a bite of lunch and didn't feel well afterward; went to bed to rest. My father found her a short while later.....called 911 but she was gone. Probably a stroke and very quick end of life. What a way to go, IMHO

 

It's nice to see a new member with a serious post here on Vintage

While I don't agree with every detail of your post, it's a good summary. Unfortunately, the dark side of capitalism seems to be an over-emphasis on consumption....feeding the beast via advertising.

We see it with every occasion and holiday.....thanks to Hallmark and Walmart. There is no holiday that is safe from their thrust for the holy dollar.

 

Simple for me its because it is longer just about me. What would a marriage be without children. However, after paying for the kids collage and the wife new kitchen.... Has anyone every watch the TV commercial were a Grandfather sits on a porch with his two grand children and a Harley zooms by. Just by the sound the grandfather details all the specs about the bike to his grand children. His grand children respond in their amazement. " Grandpa you had a Harley?" His respond "No your grand mother wanted aluminum siding"

Sooner or later it comes back if you are lucky and it becomes about you again.

So treat yourself to the S2000 when the time is right.

 

Just dandy.

 

I think about death every day... I think about those dear relatives who have died (and I miss them), I think about my parents (both died this year)... death is an intrinsic part of life (can't have life without death)... but I havent changed much (if anything) even though my turn will come...that is truly amazing... i have not done anything significant to alter my life...and I am not a very happy person! (nor am I a misserable lout).... That is truly amazing to me...knowing I am going to die, why do I maintain my modest, quiet, somewhat withdrawn, lifestyle...why??

This is a great topic!

 

I don't think about death very often. Every so often, it thrusts itself upon me in the form of a deer alongside the road or a lizard that was in the wrong place at the wrong time when I moved a piece of firewood. And then there was the morning that we lost Willie, our otherwise apparently healthy 10 year old cat who had a seizure and simply died in my arms after jumping up on the bed with a big purr. I think that death to innocents is more meaningful to me than death in general.

Having a diagnosis of a rare form of cancer can be an eye opener. It also helps put life in better focus. Being able to look back and say that the past 12 years since the diagnosis has been a bit of a lottery win is nice too.

What I don't get about how we view death in today's society is how the value of a life has been redefined. I seem to recall that, as a kid, protecting the life of a person was about the highest calling we could shoot for. No wonder that so many kids wanted to be cops, firepeople, doctors, nurses and rockstars (ok, we all needed to stretch our imagination from time to time).

Today, though, we seem inured to loss of life unless it is right in front of us. One half a million dead folks every year from smoking is more of a statistic than a call to arms. The same, sadly, appears to be the case for tens of thousands of kids who die in Africa simply because water is dirty or there is not enough food for survival.

I'm with Dean on the lottery thing. When I think about the odds against me appearing in this world, I think I was pretty lucky. On the other hand, had I not been the product of the combination of events that eventually led me to exist, I wouldn't have been around to ponder all this or, I might have been someone else or even the lizard that I carried away from the woodpile and buried under the pine tree behind the shop last week. But then, if that had been the case, would someone have taken the time to bury me? Complex questions...

 

Why not?

 

A few more thoughts...

The lottery and lucky chance thing probably have a lot to do with living in the industrialized world. For all its problems, I'm guessing there is a significant percentage of third wold people who don't think life is much of a gift.

If we procreate because we are driven to do it, then again, is that all we are? One of the many animals caught in an endless cycle of death and procreation until the next asteroid hits?

What about this observation (by no means a LB original): By having children, you have doomed them to die.

 

Then there are near-death experiences and stories that people tell about them.

When I had my hydroplane spin-out on the PA Turnpike back in July, it's as close as I have come. For the 10 seconds (or less) that I was in the spin, I recall thinking "Is this how it ends?" Luckily for me, I came to rest in level grass on the side of the road. Total replacement for the front of the car, but not even a headache for me...

Now, if a large truck or SUV had been right behind me....

Even stranger, in the half hour before the accident, I clearly remember thinking: "I need to drive carefully in all of this rain. Gee, I've never had a serious accident. I wonder what it feels like...."

 

If you are looking to nature for meaning and comfort, don't bother. Nature cares not a whit about such things. As Darwin observed, "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient [Nature] would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae* with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars."

The pogonopherans shall inherit the Earth, so you might as well start getting used to the idea.

*A group of wasp species that lay their eggs within the bodies of caterpillars, so the young will have a ready meal when they hatch. The caterpillar dies in what I can only assume is a very painful death - eaten from the inside out.