Someone in the family is dying. Or in the process of the last stages. She is struggling immensely. And everyone I know is working frenetically to extend her life.
To be fair, she is not on a ventilator or equivalent, but she does not want to live anymore too. She wants to reduce her food (I mean the individual in this case), and voluntarily slide into weakness which shall eventually mean imminent death.
Folks around here, are averse to let her exercise this choice. They believe (and probably rightly so), that this would mean a very painful end.
But.....and I just building a decision tree. It's possible she fasts and she eventually dies a painful death in about 10 days, versus she has lived a very painful life for about 4 years already and she might continue to live out for another 4.
Who decides, and how?
When I am the subject, in a similar situation - who should be allowed to decide? No matter how senile or old I become?
Very difficult ethical questions.
Also, today, as I contemplated on a hero (Dennis Ritchie from the Kernighan Ritchie fame - folks who wrote the C compiler) - and contributed hugely to present-day computer science......I realized that no matter how/who and what they achieved....we all die. And we are all forgotten.
It's very ephemeral. And yes, at times it's like staring into meaningless vacuity.
On days like today, after a 10 hr workday, I find it very hard to find meaning in this journey. Of course, it's one-off, of course, tomorrow the sun will rise again.
All I need is a drink and the desperate need to take the edge off. But even that is a symptom in this modern world that some systems in "our head" have broken down.
Final point.....to cuss or not.....to die or not...to live or not....to call out our hypocrisy or not?
Ethically challenged me.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment