Senicide is the abandonment to death, suicide, or killing of the elderly.
I'm getting old and falling apart. Not looking for sympathy here. It's just a fact of life everybody goes through who lives long enough to get old. I don't want to put my children through the stress of taking care of me in my old age. Frankly, the idea disgusts me, and I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling this way. However, I also don't want to burden my kids through the stigma associated with suicide. How much better would it be if there was a societally acceptable way to shuck off this mortal coil, without causing undue distress to loved ones? (see previous post 'Resolution')
We are burdens, fellow old folks, plain and simple. We eat up medical resources faster than a whale feasting on krill. We take advantage of our childrens' love and sense of duty by stealing their time and money. Oh, we pitch in here and there when we can, but on the whole we are bleeding the younger generations dry. On top of that, our ludicrous attempts to extend our lifetimes through any means possible is a huge factor in our planet's human reproduction blues. Let it go, senior citizens, and realize that WE are the biggest turds in the toilet bowl.
I'm not saying run out into the shed and shoot yourself this minute, although I personally see suicide, especially the rightly motivated kind, as an honorable and unselfish act. As per my previous post, I believe that we can approach this subject carefully and kindly as a culture. I mean, we all die anyway, right? Why not take our deaths into our own collective hands, by enacting new traditions that support a cooler approach to an otherwise explosively emotional subject? And while we're at it, lets put an upper age limit on who can run for elected office, let some new blood take the reins. I swear, if I see one more bony-handed octogenarian pontificating about foreign policy as seen through the lens of the Franco-Prussian war, I'll fall off my walker!
Btw, I've opened up moderated comments for the time being, in case you want to sound off on this very controversial subject. Best to you all.
10 comments:
One of the most defining moments of my life was hearing from my father how he almost died of a fentanyl overdose. He'd been in the hospital for about a month and a half or so. His body was torturing him. His epidermis was mostly gone. His condition was so horrible that even veteran nurses were shaken. An old, helpless man, his own body slowly breaking his mind with suffering.
Sobbing, he told me how that night he was absorbing too much fentanyl because of his lack of skin. I think it was his first night on it, because the other pain meds weren't enough. He said to me, "It was so quiet." The fentanyl had taken away all his pain. It may have been the only time during that ordeal where he wasn't under extreme pain while conscious. And he knew he was slipping away.
The nurse, unfortunately, came in and noticed his oxygen was too low. I don't know what she did to revive him but she did something. The next morning, he wept like a five year old kid infront of me about having to face another day, about not getting to just go peacefully into night where all was "so quiet". He lived another month a half of torture before he finally got to go, and he didn't go peacefully. The doctor informed me that he kept saying, "I don't want to do this". He was terrorized to the very last moment. Luckily that doctor cleared him for hospice and I, having the legal authority to make that call, had him put there. He died soon after.
There really aren't words to express how much I cherish the thought of a "good death" --- to go peacefully and quietly, through a doctor administered fentanyl overdose or otherwise. I don't think I can cherish any thought more. I suppose it's how some people think of God --- as some bright, perfect thing you wish could exist, and which you could love more than anything else you've ever known. Something which, while not justifying what happened before, still doesn't possess quite the same stain that being alive did. I don't feel much but I get misty eyed when I think about it --- to go without pain or terror, or sorrow or fear, simply drifting into the quiet.
An apt poem from Ligotti
You lie in the bed,
an arm full of tubes,
a mind full of drugs,
but still thinking.
You see the figure
enter the quiet room
and you lift your arm
and focus your mind.
You ask the doctor,
if it can be arranged,
that your last day
not be your worst day.
(Request, from Death Poems)
"...to go without pain or terror, or sorrow or fear, simply drifting into the quiet."
And on top of all that, no sense of guilt. What a joyful thing if society could come to this place of acceptance of death. Not as good as never being born in the first place, obviously, but if we also care about the living, it's an important subject to ruminate on.
I support "suicide on demand" rights for all adults, regardless of age or physical health. Perhaps with a reasonable waiting period required. What do you say, Jim?
Unknown- Yeah, that sounds great, including the waiting period which is a pretty good compromise, I think. You know, one reason overpopulation is rarely discussed even among most environmentalists is because nobody wants to step on people's 'self-determination'. And yet, most folks are SO against even talking about suicide, even though in the case of procreation it's a rather specious argument since another life is involved, while in the suicide's case we're actually discussing personal sovereignty. Everything's backwards.
Sorry for the delay in posting your comment. I just finished moving yesterday and am still in the midst of a hurricane, lol. Hopefully things will settle down now. Take care.
I agree with Unknown. This is something I have felt strongly about for a few years now. None of us asked to be born, so why should we have to continue in this life if we don’t want to be here? I feel I’m obligated to stick around and take care of my parents. I love them and want them to as comfortable as possible with the best care possible. Once they’re gone, I’m checking out. I have no other obligations tying me to this planet.
Jim, glad to see new blog posts from you. You have been missed.
Cawood Pace- Thanks. Not sure I'll be posting much stuff directly related to AN, although, who knows? I'm getting older now, and the focus of my thoughts has shifted to subjects related to aging and impending death. New life experiences, new insights, yes?
Good luck to you and to your parents. It's all so tragic, isn't it? These days the only meditation that offers me a slice of sanity is "It's all inevitable". Just blind and dumb chemistry shaking around, tiny lego blocks connecting and disconnecting. The definition of futility. Ugh.
Señor Crawford,
My name is Raúl and I am from Paraguay. I read your words with much interest. In my view, you should not see yourself as a burden. You are a victim but also you are brave enough to realize the madness this world is. Life is a rope. Life is not a blessing as the propagandist of the so-called positive insist on bombarding us. This world is a prison or a prison farm.
Take care.
I'm late discovering this post, not sure if you're still around Jim. I'm almost 50 and have already made up my mind that I'm not staying on this shit planet for more than 19 more years TOPS! I've made it clear to those close to me that I have no intention of becoming elderly. Each decade that passes things become more precarious. When I try to explain this to my best friend of 25+ years, he says things like, "I want us to hang out when we're 90." He's a normie with a young child. I just don't get it, now many 90 years olds are still enjoying life? Everyone has an anecdote about some 80/90 years old who still dances, goes to parties, and love life. For every one of those, there are thousands literally rotting away in a home. The fact that safe/effective euthanasia isn't legal in all states is something none of us should tolerate.
I never partied or danced, not sure that's what I'd call having a "good time."
I did become a Christian three years ago, though, which changed my outlook one existence by almost 180 degrees. Suicide is off the table for me, since I know now what's at stake. I understand that one's way toward God is often highly personal, so I won't get into much detail; I just at one point happened to remember what the blogger Vox Day often said: only Christianity solves the problem of evil. So one evening I looked it up, reading about it from a Christian perspective (gotquestions), and then "the explosion happened", as Huysmans called his own born-again experience (see his forword twenty years after A rebours, published in 1904 or so).
I still don't like life much, and Christianity has a very rich intellectual tradition. I remember Karl White, who deleted his blog, and whom I liked to read regularly when I was still an atheist and antinatalist, also understood that some Christians saw more deeply regarding the human condition than many "pollyanna" atheists alive today (he mentioned Kierkegaard and Pascal). (The first lesson monks on the Holy Mount Athos learn is to welcome and embrace death, for it's the way to Christ, and everyday spent there is a preparation for death.)
So while my evil heart does indeed want to commit suicide -- and I think artificially prolonging peoples' lives isn't necessarily Christian --, I can't anymore. I did survive a hanging attempt ten years ago in my early twenties, and had I not been born-again, I would have tried again at some point. Because life sure is ugly at times, and pretty awful; nothing that the Bible or Christ Himself would deny. Even Jeremiah at one point cursed his birth (Jeremiah 20:14-18).
Like Andy Nowicki, a Catholic author, I do reject much of the modern-day theology too -- he writes about this in his very readable "Confessions of a Would-Be Wanker." He was also published by Nine-Banded Books (Considering Suicide), which was reviewed, I think, by Ann Sterzinger.
I really like Nowicki's take on sexuality, because even as an atheist I knew and sensed that there's something very wrong with that drive. As a Christian, I am now of the conviction that while sex cannot be seen as evil in itself -- marriage having been blessed by God, though celibacy actually being recommended instead --, it certainly is a result of the fall.
My life's pretty horrible and yucky, sure; but more so does the modern world, its ugliness and vulgarity, especially regarding sexual matters. In this regard, Andy Nowicki is indeed a kind of soul mate; there were others in the past, but it's always a pleasant surprise to find contemporaries who kind of share one's views on important existential matters.
Re. antinatalism, I would most likely not have children due to my mental illness and ugliness; and I'm a loser not even able to provide for wife and children, should there be a woman crazy enough to marry me. However, that's about it. I do support a kind of eugenics, like Fredrick "hotwheels" Brennan, whose views on eugenics, even if they softened after his own born-again experience, he still holds to some extent (he favors voluntary genetic screening). Marriage needs fixing, too, certainly. The current debacle the West is experiencing in terms of sexual relations cannot be sustained, we are already in the process of reaping what we've sown the past decades. (I was born out of wedlock, and while I didn't suffer too much at home, I was bullied hard in school and became dysfunctional due to mental illness developing in my teens.)
I'm in no mood to challenge another's religious beliefs these days. In my view, our choices are reflections of who we are, and who we are happens all of itself. Whatever floats your boat, and since you still recognize the problems of having kids and have decided not to have any yourself, for whatever reason, I've gotta say I'm feeling copacetic about this information exchange, my man!
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