Ramble Elderly

When I think of growing old, I'm always filled with a mixture of eagerness and dread. I think of all the time I have left; all the things I want to do and all the experiences waiting to happen. It makes me want to simultaneously sit down and study for everything and jump up, run around flailing in excitement. I also look at the slow drawn out death a lot of elderly people are doomed to. Moving gets painful, the mind and memories become endangered, and various systems just get worn out. It makes me want to sulk in my room and not venture outside for fear of incurring injury, wear, and tear.

Although people die in a multitude of ways, more commonly now it's not a digital switch. There isn't a stark line between vibrant life and resting death. Thanks to modern technology a new class has emerged, allowing many to slowly settle into more of a 'vibrant death'.

When I was younger, I looked at modern medicine as a way to prolong life, and certainly it does. But it's not the yellow brick road to immortality I once imagined it to be. I would argue that in spite of any level of technological advancement it won't ever be anything more than a delay of the inevitable. One might say its because of the way modern medicine markets itself (more endures than cures, if I might rhyme). I could even believe that on a subconscious level, no one really wants to live forever. I think its misleading to think of life continuing equally and indefinitely until pronounced dead. It belittles the opportunities of the present day to assume a person will always be capable of doing whatever they want.

I firmly believe that the quality of life cannot be guaranteed simply by pretending there's infinite sand in the hour glass and deluding yourself that there will always be more time for things later. Rather each advancement should be seen as birthing opportunities instead of delaying death. Nursing homes are proof enough that an EEG doesn't guarantee a person is still living.