An Increasing Interest...in Dying

This is a link to an article in The New Yorker made available through EXIT International. The article is titled: 

We’ve Had Great Success Extending Life. What About Ending It?

In addition to the article there's a link to Dan Gaffney's blog. In this post, dated May 5, (I'm assuming it's from 2021, but there's no way to know) he touches on common aspects of dying including: coping with a terminal illness, aging, and self-deliverance. The last is my preferred phrase for throwing-in-the-towel and not necessarily his choice.

Gaffney quotes Stephen Jenkinson who was director of a palliative care program in Canada:

“More time, when it finally kicks in, is the rest of a dying person’s life, and the rest of that life will be lived in the never-before-known shadow of the inevitability of their dying. For the first time in their lives they will live knowing that they will die from what afflicts them. More time means more time to live their dying."

“It means more symptoms, more drugs for the symptoms, more drugs for the side effects of the first drugs, more weakness and diminishment and dependence to go along with more time with the kids or grandkids or walks in the park with the dog.

“That’s not all it means, not necessarily, but more time almost always means more dying. No one is born, no one walks in the park or sits looking out the window knowing how to die like that, slowly and visibly and knowingly. Very few here on these shores, where death phobia rules, learn how, or want to.”

I don't wanna get morbid or anything, but now that it appears (after 50 years of stupidity...and what does that tell us about the Powers-That-Be?) that decriminalization of marijuana throughout the U.S. is assured, choosing the time and method of one's death is an issue of increasing importance, especially to the most famous cohort in recorded history: The Baby Boomers!

In this case though, the issue's likely to REALLY benefit our Social Security system...and maybe our taxes! Oh, lordy, wouldn't THAT be something!

But for those of us who inhaled, one of the questions we'll undoubtedly face is: How long will we need to "hold it in" THIS TIME?