Euthanasia

MY subject this time, dear readers, is one that always excites considerable controversy and generates fierce debate and hostility between the opposing camps, the proponents and the opponents, those for and those against. And the debate rages on, unresolved, with cases coming up from time to time that are determined by the courts in a somewhat uneven-handed and arbitrary manner, given that the law of this land in this area is outdated and inflexible and unhelpful. But it is not the legal framework that I wish to discuss on this occasion, important as it is, but rather some of the social and moral aspects of euthanasia or mercy killing, as it is also known, and in doing so to express my own opinion on the matter.

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TO be sure we all want to live a long life, the longer the better, as our lifespan is finite and we are a long time dead! And we also want to enjoy good health and live life to the full. This is normal and understandable. But what if a point is reached in our lives when, although we are still alive, our health has completely gone and our enjoyment of life is but a distant memory? What if there is no further effective treatment for our condition, no cure, no remedy, and the likeliest prospect is that we will deteriorate over time, either gradually or rapidly? What if the only treatment available is that of just keeping us alive, in varying degrees of vegetative existence, thereby prolonging our suffering and our distress until inevitably the moment comes, be it weeks, months or years away, when we finally succumb to the inevitable?

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WHAT is it about those who oppose euthanasia that they feel they must officiously strive to keep others alive, often against their express will, even where they are barely breathing, and where they can only be sustained if linked up to some sort of machine, tube-fed and given round-the-clock medical and nursing care? Is it because there is a shortage of people in the world? Is it because they themselves are not in that wretched state and are happy to pontificate and decide the fate of others? Is it because quality of life means nothing to them and they feel it is enough just to breathe even where this is only possible by means of a respirator? Is the mere fact that one exists, regardless of one's physical and mental condition, sufficient to hang on to life at all costs? Or does it all come down to religion in the end? Do they see euthanasia or assisted suicide as a sin against God, a mortal transgression which will consign the victim or perpetrator to the everlasting fires of hell?

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IN all honesty, I fail to see how the anti-euthanasiaists can adequately justify their stance. And this is not because I do not respect their opinion or do not think that they should be allowed to choose, as far as possible, the manner of their exit from their world. It is because this issue is a very personal one and is interwoven with a whole set of beliefs and convictions peculiar to each person and that they have no moral right to impose their beliefs and practices on others. It is because one's life is exactly that: one's life and no-one else's. This means that not only should people have the freedom to lead the lives they want to (providing of course they are not harming others) but also the freedom to end their lives when they have lost every faculty that gives any meaning to such life, when they are gravely ill, in considerable pain and anguish and when there is no reasonable prospect of their recovering or at least improving to a point where life is worth living.

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We all surely agree that life is precious, that it should be respected and preserved, but at the same time we must just as surely make an effort to understand the terrible plight of someone who has lost all those faculties that make life a good and positive thing and not a protracted nightmarish experience empty of all joy and full of pain and dread and an almost certain cruel end. It seems to me a very selfish and narrow-minded stance to insist that we know best what's good for someone going through such torment and that they should seek to stay alive and indeed that those around them, including their loved ones, should strive to keep them alive whatever the cost, the heartache and the suffering, even if it means going against the wishes of the sufferer. We cannot appoint ourselves, or even expect the law to do this on our behalf, supreme arbiters and regulators of the lives of others simply because we would not take the same course of action as someone else in similar circumstances. We have no right to impose what we see as right and just for ourselves on others in such a subjective and personal matter.

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We should not have to resort to going abroad to countries with a more liberal and synpathetic regime in order to have a quick, quiet and painless death or to be assisted by another person to the same end. And mothers who, suffering the unspeakable anguish and torment of watching their child wasting away under the onslaught of an incurable and progressive disease or a condition which, although not fatal (at least in the short-term), condemns the victim to a lifetime of pain, incapacity, misery and despair, should not be hauled up before the courts to be convicted of having committed a crime and be sentenced to a prison term for having done nothing worse than free their dearly loved child from a living nightmare and a fate literally worse than death! This is surely not morally right. And it is about time that the law was brought into line with the dictates of a higher principle than that which would have us desperately, frenetically and dementedly clinging on to life as a mere reflex reaction or cultural precept or inflicting this on someone in our charge. After all, when all's said and done, and sooner or later, we will ALL, every single one of us, die one day, no-one lives forever. It is just that some people are more fortunate than others and are blessed with a fuller and longer and more enriching life than others but their life too must come to an end one day. They should just be grateful that they were spared the horrible fate of those who are driven to consider euthanasia as a way out of their intolerably painful, wretched and demeaning existence.

The End of the World?

Before you start making fun of this little fellah with the shocked expression, just read on and view the pictures and you will understand why he has reason to go beady-eyed and flat-eared! In fact, he's probably even shitted himself from fright but there's no way of knowing that from the photo. I'm sure he can't believe he's been spared so far, given that the kids haven't, and he'll be wondering what his next move should be if he is to stand any chance of survival in a dying crumbling world. You might think why bother? If the world is decaying and dying after some apocalyptic catastrophe, why not just lie down and die with it? Why string it out and struggle on in an increasingly hostile environment? Well maybe he won't bother. Maybe, unable to flush himself down the toilet, he'll ransack the family medicine cupboard, take an overdose and exit quietly.

The reality is that it's odds on that one day we, homo sapiens (hahah), will have screwed up so badly that we will finally have rendered our planet incapable of supporting us and that it will have gone so far down the path of non-viability that it will just implode on us, as it were, and put in motion our slow but sure eradication as a species from this Earth that we have so scarred with our unholy activities. This is assuming of course that we have not already wiped ourselves out by some mad mutually destructive orgy of violence. I'm here essentially referring to a slower process of decline and destruction that comes about by tampering with the forces of nature that have nurtured and sustained all animal and plant life, including us unholy malefactors, for millions of years.

It is surely obvious to all thinking men and women that the only creature on this planet which does not exist in harmony with its environment is mankind. Only humans feel the need to alter their surroundings, and massively so, and to create an artificial habitat that satisfies their 'creature comforts'. Only humans seem ill-adapted to their world. All other creatures appear to be pefectly adapted to their environment, living in harmony with nature and at one with it. Only mankind, through some mysterious course of evolution, has seen fit to develop body coverings that not only protect him in practical terms from the weather but apparently have become indispensable to preserve his modesty, i.e. hide his intimate parts, from the gaze of his fellow men. After all, in many tropical countries where temperatures are often asphyxiatingly high, the most comfortable condition is nudity, but of course this is no longer an option (at least not in public), as our bits and pieces, mostly down below, would then be on view to others. The fact that we have the same bits and pieces as everyone else does not seem to carry any weight. The other person, except of course in an intimate relationship and behind closed doors, must not see our naughty parts because, well, they may not have naughty parts and be shocked to see that we have!

Come to think of it, our horrified little pussy above may have seen these two speciments in the altogether and been traumatised for life! Before you know it, he too will be rushing off to get himself some fig leaves to cover his naughty bits. Though me may have to be content with sycamore leaves, fig-trees being rather thin on the ground in this part of the world. Or better still, some modern equivalent of leaves that's reusable and long-lasting.

Anyway, I digress, and we must get back to the point of this sorry tale. And one hell of a sorry tale it is! In fact, speaking of hell, will our much-deserved end be as portrayed in the last of our images here? Are we destined to roast in one vast fiery inferno and our unhallowed ashes blown to the four corners of the planet in preparation for a brave new world free of mankind and his destructive ways? Will our greenhouse gases and the rest of our pollutants stoke the flames of our self-annihilation and rid the long-suffering Earth of us and our pestilential ways? If this is to be our fate, then we will have more than earned it. We will not be able to plead innocence or perhaps even beg forgiveness. Our end will relieve the planet of a human plague that has over-exploited and criminally abused its resources for long enough and that has caused untold harm to the other animals that share this planet, to the plant life, to the land, seas, and atmosphere that make up Mother Earth. Our mass death will not be mourned, our passing will not be lamented. Quite the contrary, it will finally be 'good riddance!' to the most destructive creature ever known on this planet... Us! Cheerful chappie, aren't I?

Are these the searing flames that will finally cleanse the

Earth of mankind and his works and create a new world

where the balance of nature has been restored?

Or am I one sick individual who needs

psychiatric treatment?!

Apologies All Round!

Today the art of the public apology for sins committed, be they great or not so great, has become big business. It's cool, you might say, and everyone's into it, but most especially those in government and in high positions in our society. The apology goes out on television, is broadcast on the radio, published in the papers and posted on the internet to millions, if not billions, of apology-hungry people nationwide and globally. The apology is glaringly public, the contrition a necessary evil, and the shame, though optional, is highly recommended if the apology is to have maximum impact.

A president gives a speech making a public apology for long-standing injustices committed by his or an earlier administration (even though he may not have been born at the time), a prime minister issues a statement apologising for not foreseeing the disastrous consequences of a certain social or economic policy, the governor of the state bank says sorry for having misread the prevailing financial mood and failed abysmally to act to protect depositors' savings, the state chancellor apologises for a brutal genocide practised by a barbaric wartime regime (again perhaps before he and his ministers were born), a military general says sorry for having unthinkingly made insensitive remarks about the death of civilians through the careless actions of his men, captains of industry say sorry for their short-sightedness and the ruination of the commercial enterprises in their charge, chief executives of national banks say sorry for having been reckless and brought the banking system into disrepute and to its knees, police chiefs issue a contrite apology for having bungled an investigation that resulted in the death of one or more innocent people, social services say sorry for having failed through neglect or oversight to prevent the death of an abused child, and so on and so forth.

Everyone is on the apologies bandwagon in this day and age as a quick-fix solution. Apologies are made to native peoples for their unjust treatment at the hands of the colonising nation centuries ago or to the relatives of persons wrongly convicted and executed many years back. Posthumous pardons are granted to those previously considered to be brutal murderers or enemies of the state in an earlier time. Apologies are issued and accepted, be it resentfully, and everyone gets a warm tingly feeling that the decent thing has been done and goodness has triumphed over evil. Amazing what curative powers a simple apology has!

I may have burnt your house down and/or destroyed your business and/or robbed you of all your money and possessions and/or raped and murdered your wife and/or kidnapped and killed your children, but at least I have the decency to apologise for it. Not everyone would do that. I may have ruined your life, blown away your family, upended your world, robbed you of a future, cheated you of happiness, but heyyyy... I'm big enough to say sorry, so come on, man, be fair!

Apologies fly around in all directions, from the exalted few on high downwards to the hoi polloi at the bottom, from lowly functionaries upwards to government ministers, from officials across to their peers (and of course the greater the status of the apology-giver the more it is relished by the public). The apologies market is looking healthy and the apologists are jostling for position to let the world know how sorry they are for some transgression they or others were found to have committed in this or in another lifetime, today or hundreds of years ago. They are all pretty decent apologies, some decidedly better than others, but probably the ones most to be admired and marvelled at are those of the bankers and the captains of industry. Having been caught red-handed with their hand in the till and with their apologies still fresh on their lips they slope away with shedfuls of 6-to-7-figure payouts, bonuses, redundancy payments and pensions to compensate them for having had to resign their position. They scurry away into the shadows relying on the public's short memory and looking forward to spending their princely compensation packages well away from the public eye. After all, they have earned the astronomical sums paid to them, havent't they? Did they not say they were sorry for making a mess of everything and ruining the lives of so many who depended on them? Surely that is enough?

What is it about our society today that everyone is expected to apologise for their misdeeds in exchange for being sent off with a mild scolding? And the worst part about it is that we oblige those in high office to apologise for the wrongdoings of others long gone and long dead, thus making the apology all but worthless since it comes from those with no involvement in the offence. We have simply grown accustomed to receiving apologies from those who govern and control our lives. But is an apology meant to take the place of legal sanctions? And is it just the highly-placed who can say sorry and get away with wrongdoing and gross negligence or can the common man do the same thing? It would seem not. There would appear to be one rule for industrial and financial potentates and another for Joe Bloggs in his council flat.

But what happens when mere spoken apologies are no longer enough? Will we require offenders to don sackcloth and ashes next? Will we need to see wailing, beating of breasts and gnashing of teeth? Perhaps some self-flagellation? Will we have spectacles held of high officials and company heads presenting their apologies in the form of dramatised apologias? Will we pay for tickets to see heads of state and other leaders apologising for past, present and future mistakes and screw-ups? The possibilities are enormous and I can just see the potential for the merchandising industry to cash in on this with DVDs of industrial magnates and political leaders offering their abject apologies to the public, and with t-shirts and mugs etc inscribed with the apologies of the same high-ranking decision-makers. And more importantly will all this compensate us for the fact that in many cases the wrongdoers will get off scott-free in return for having apologised, be it ever so cynically?

Oh well, whatever the future outcome of all this, if you can't beat them, join them, as they say, and accordingly I offer up my own apologies, and I can only hope you will accept them...

Memories in an Attic

The other day, on going up into the attic (or loft) to put away the Christmas things for another year, I decided that, since I was up there, I might as well see if I could put some order into the piles of assorted objects lying around higgledy-piggledy and growing every year. The main constituents of the mounds of clutter ranged around were clothes, books, magazines, mattresses, black vinyl records, CDs/DVDs, newspapers, school text and exercise books, the inevitable old trunk, a disused water tank, the indispensable outgrown doll's house, as well as old Xmas trees and a variety of other bits and pieces. There was even an old-style school desk, the sort with a lid that lifts up to reveal storage space for your books and things and with a hole in the top right-hand corner where an inkwell used to go. Now they don't make children's school desks like that anymore, do they?

As I stood there, looking around at the sea of clutter, feeling slightly lost and wondering where I should begin, I started thinking of all the years' living that all those articles represented. The items discarded over some 18 years were scattered around the loft, each piece the custodian of a memory, and if they could but speak there would be so much to tell, some of which was doubtless now forgotten. And to think that everything was wanted at some time, had its use, served its purpose, played its role. Now it all lay around in the darkness of the attic unwanted, unused, abandoned. And yet for some reason or other it was not thrown out like a lot of other stuff. It was not seen to be so much junk that should be discarded forever. At least not at the time or since. But now, as I surveyed the clutter, there would have to be some casualties in the general tidying up that I was undertaking. If nothing else, space dictated that there should be.

An attic full of stored objects and bric-a-brac is a storehouse of memories and reminiscences. It is a repository of objects that once were part of one's life but are now consigned to the oblivion of an out-of-the-way corner of the house where they are gradually forgotten. As the years go by and more objects join the ones already stored there, the time-span increases and eventually encompasses a complete lifetime of one or more people. It is a treasure trove of historical artefacts that tell a story, a story of the human lives that were lived out in that house. In many ways, the attic is a sad and forlorn place, the past always is, because it is something that can never be recovered. And it is made all the sadder if some of the stored articles are associated with someone who is no longer with us. They now gain an added force, as 'stand-ins' for the departed person. They may belong to children who have long since left home, a parent or grandparent who has passed on, or a partner who has left us. Each article there tells a story and represents a moment or period in the life of a person who had something to do with the house.

I finally got down to sorting through some bags, plastic sacks and boxes, trying to put things in some order, reduce the number of containers, and discard what was really useless and had no historical or sentimental significance for anyone. It was not easy, I can assure you, and it was not long before I was feeling too tired to go on. There had been some progress but not very much and it was only some time later that I realised I had earned myself a bad back for my pains! Nevertheless, I will have to go up to the loft again some time to sort through more stuff and will have to make the same trip several times over before things are in a satisfactory state. But there's no use rushing it - you just end up making things worse. A little at a time and properly is best.

Objects stored over the years in an attic, loft, cellar, or other place of storage take on greater significance as they grow older and one day assume historical importance in addition to their personal and sentimental significance. Probably the most fascinating objects are those that have outlived the person to whom they used to belong, as now they constitute an invaluable source of information about that person, probably more information than that person would have been willing to disclose were he still alive.

Contemplating the heaps of paraphernalia strewn around an attic brings it home to one that when we leave this world we leave with nothing. Everything but everything is left behind. No matter how earnestly and frenetically we strove during life to acquire and accumulate things, as our possessions no matter how cherished are not part of us, they must all remain behind when we make that final trip to wherever we end up after death. We come into this world with nothing and we leave it with nothing. The attic is a good witness to that and an eloquent testament to the vanity of us human beings who so prize possessions that our whole lives are devoted to their acquisition.

I descended the ladder, folded it up and closed the trapdoor to the attic and to all those memories conjured up by simply contemplating the profusion of objects amassed and stored over many years. I was experiencing emotional overload and needed to rest up with a nice hot cup of tea!

The Mobile Phone (cellphone) and Us

The mobile phone (or cellphone)... now that's a subject and a half! It is today's great totem and a very emotive issue. The mobile phone delights and enrages at the same time. Some people love it and others hate it. Some swear by it and others swear at it. Yet neither can live without it! Or can they?

Well, I am old enough to recall a time when there was no such thing as a mobile phone, when the only phones one had was the landline connected to a socket in the wall or the public phone in a telephone booth. When you were out and about, you were beyond contact unless you chose to use a public phone, whether in a street-located phone booth or in some other location, like a train station for instance. Otherwise, when you were out you were out. Now when you are out you are in, so to speak. You may be in a bank or post office queue, at the pharmacy, in the shopping mall, at the barber's, in a railway station, at the park, or even in a public convenience doing what comes naturally, but none of these is an adequate excuse for not answering the phone when it goes off (I say 'goes off' because few mobile phones nowadays actually ring - they usually start blasting away with some maddening tune or other). And of course every phone call must be answered on pain of failing to save the world if the call is left till later. All calls now are a matter of life and death and must be attended no matter where one is and with whom one is. You may be, say, in a restaurant chatting with a friend, but that won't stop you from breaking off your chat to answer a call that may drag on and on whilst your companion patiently waits for you to come off the blasted phone and give them some attention!

But of course the mobile phone has long ceased to be just a phone... it's become a watch, a calendar, a camera, a calculator, a messaging device, a computer, a music player, a games console, ... and I understand it has also been used as a trigger to detonate a terrorist bomb! It is our constant companion and our link with friends and family. It is also the West's answer to worry beads... now we can fiddle around with our phone when we want to kill time. In short, it is truly a most versatile gadget and comparable to the motor car and the computer in terms of its coverage and utility. The cellphone is one of the twentieth century's greatest success stories and it is still going from strength to strength. And there is already at least one generation of people who neither know nor can conceive of any other world than one with the mobile phone. In the relatively short time that the mobile phone has been with us it has already shaped and coloured our world to such an extent that our way of living has been left changed forever and many of us seem to organise our lives around the mobile phone!

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And of course every new and good thing gives rise to new problems and undesirable consequences. In the case of the mobile phone, it has become so intrusive in our lives that our privacy has been seriously curtailed. As already touched upon above, we can no longer plead unavailability on the grounds that we were out when a call came. After all, is a mobile phone not portable?* And if we protest that we forgot our phone at home, we are regarded as simply lying or as having done it deliberately to avoid calls. We have left ourselves with very little room for manoevre.

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Another problem stems from the very popularity of the mobile phone. With many millions of phones in circulation and with constant upgrades, millions of mobile phones are discarded in the course of a year. All have to be treated and disposed of in some manner or other, whether to be destroyed or recycled. Some are just dumped or binned. But all will end up somewhere and in some form.

The other principal problem created by the widespread use of the mobile phone is the common tendency to use it even when out driving on the public highway. We've all seen drivers with one hand to their ear, holding up their phone, chatting away with a caller, leaving them with just one hand to drive the car. What's more serious than that is the divided concentration which necessarily occurs when a driver has also to conduct a phone conversation as well as drive. This inevitably results in reduced alertness, slower reactions, less accurate driving, and consequently in an increased risk of accident on the road, with all the concomitant dangers of that. And this goes on even though it may be illegal and therefore punishable by law.

Finally, there can be no doubt that a great many people are literally addicted to their mobile phone. It has to be with them every waking moment of their day and in some cases by their bedside when they are asleep. They are constantly using it (even when there's no real need for it), playing with it, fiddling with it and pawing it, presumably to derive comfort and security from it. It has become a sort of mascot, talisman or magic wand for them. This being so, one can imagine the effect on them should they mislay or even lose their trusty telecommunications friend. It is a state not far removed from utter despair and the loss of the will to live!

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And now the inevitable question: Do you recognise yourself in the above description? Are you wedded to your mobile phone? Are you afflicted by a condition known as "cellphonitis" whereby your phone has almost turned into a life support machine for you? Is the company of your cellphone more important to you than the company of human beings? Are you in a state of complete cellphone dependency? Do you break out into a cold sweat at the very idea of losing your phone? Is your worst nightmare the possibility of forgetting your mobile phone at home and being caught out and about without it? If the answer to one or more of these questions is 'yes', then your relationship with your phone is an unhealthy one and you should seek help. Find a good psychiatrist and get treated for cellphonitis!

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* Strictly speaking, a mobile phone is not 'mobile', this is a misnomer, it is 'portable', and this is what it was called when it first came out. A car or a train, for example, is mobile, a phone has to be carried and so is not mobile in the true sense of this word.

The Final Years

The long dark night of winter presses hard,

cold hard days give way to colder nights

that freeze the limbs and stiffen the bones

in this unkind time of the northern year.

Lord, this chill is unlike any that went before,

and now at my age it is one that unsettles me;

I have seen good times aplenty in my halcyon days,

and I know this coming age will not spare us.

Senhor, tem misericordia de nós...

This winter has outdone its rival seasons,

taken Nature hostage, given it tooth and claw;

the cold and wind to prime and pierce us,

the sleet and ice and snow to unmake us.

Lord, are these the wilderness years foretold,

the barren time of otherworld temptation?

is this the moment when we must be parted,

when our lean souls are driven out from us?

Senhor, tem piedade de nós...

I feel the icy sting of a cold wind, oh Lord

as it sweeps across these stony desolate places,

in these stormy times of unfolding prophecies.

I fear the finality of what must come to pass,

of the union of life and death in this end of days.

Senhor, mal aguento este frio...

Life's About-Turns

Funny how life is. One moment everything is going your way and you think you have it all sewn up... health, job, love, relationships, popularity, worldly success, in short you’re riding the crest of a wave, you’re unbeatable and indestructible; and the next, that same wave is engulfing you and your world and everything begins to unravel and come apart around you... your health begins to flag, you lose your job or work becomes scarce, you split up with your significant other, friends drift away, family rows break out, and you can see your life going down the pan. Funny how life is, eh?

The thing is that life itself is very precarious and our happiness actually hangs by a thread. It does not take much to change our fortunes, whether for the better or for the worse. The magnitude of the change required to take us from success to failure in life may be likened to the magnitude of the change required in climatic temperatures to bring natural disasters upon humanity: tiny. And it is when we are at our strongest that we may suffer the biggest setback and the heaviest fall. When we stand at the pinnacle of achievement and are the happy recipients of the best that life has to offer, there is only one way to go if we should slip or misfortune strike us: down.

So as we go into a new year it would be well for all of us to bear in mind that fortunes can change at a drop of a hat in spite of our best efforts to keep on an even keel and avoid stormy seas. Even more importantly, we should not be so intoxicated by short-lived success as to believe in our own immortality. The great and the good have come and gone over the centuries, never to return, and are but a blip in the passage of time. The most successful, the wealthiest, the most celebrated, the most adored and feted man or woman, will grow old, feeble, and die one day... that is, if illness or accident does not claim him first. In this we are all equal before God, Nature, the Giver of Life and Death.

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The comments I make here are not meant to be taken as a counsel of despair, nor as a sermon of righteousness, but as an acknowledgment of the way things are, and, this said, I now wish everyone a very happy and prosperous...

New Year

Carry on blogging, folks!