Life is a process of discomfort. Rarely excruciating, but always threatening. Toothache, backache, stomach ache, headache. Heartache. There is always something that hurts. And it only gets worse as you get older. Things wear down, and reach a point where there’s no recovery. And then you’re just stuck with the ache – this nagging reminder that your body is slowly falling apart. And part of me just wants to be free of it. But never enough to actually end it. To overcome the delusional parts that still want to live. So instead I lie, wallowing in my pain. And look for ways to temporarily numb it.
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I think there was once a kind of biological mercy to all of this. Animals who are old and in pain will shut down, stop eating, stop fending for themselves and essentially become easy targets for predators to kill. Call it assisted suicide. But humans, with no predators and with the 99c meal at the mcdonalds drive thru, we keep living long past our natural expiration date. And science pats itself on the back for extending the human life expectancy by preserving living corpses.
A little while ago an Australian man made headlines because he was around 100 years old and decided he would travel to Europe for an assisted suicide. International headlines for what every animal does naturally. Funny species we are.