The right to die

On April 28, 2009, In Life Rant, By Andy

I’ve just finished watching a TV program on station Nederland Twee (Netherlands Two), about the assisted suicide of Craig Ewert, a 59 year old university professor who was a sufferer of ALS. The show was a poignant journalistic peice following the last period of time of his life, and finished with his death. The story was told in a very sensitive and low key manner, devoid of any form of sensationalism or dramatisation that is the staple of our mainstream news diet. Indeed, I found it to be a moving tribute to an intelligent man who wanted to choose for himself the manner of his own passing, rather than let nature run its course and reduce him to not much more than – in his words – a living tomb. At the end I found myself in tears, as I was very emotionally involved with his life and his death, and was thankful to him for letting me explore in a meaningful way just what death means to me as an individual. I think that’s really only how death can be explored, as an individual, because death is something deeply personal for all of us.

As I was reading some of the comments on the news articles concerning the show, I become angered at the petulant statements made by some people in the right to life, or ‘Care Not Killing’ camp, who apparently were angered by the show being televised at all. With one comment made, that this could actually give people ideas! To which I say, I hope it does!

I try not to go down the path of very politically sensitive discussions on my blog because I don’t want my blog to be a political discussion board, but I’m going to break my own guidelines on this issue and speak my peice. So here’s the fair warning label. If anyone has strong views on Euthanasia supporting the pro life position, or simply cannot take part in a discussion of this nature, leave now. From here on in, I’m going to discuss why I believe they are wrong, and the individual right to choice is morally right. Anyone who feels even slightly mentally challenged on this issue should seriously back out now.

It is in fact an appalling state of affairs when one individual can pass judgement and determine for another terminally sick individual the manner in which they will die. It is quite simply, wrong! Any society that proclaims to be civilised will have built into it a legal framework for allowing an individual to choose an assisted death to preserve dignity and end suffering when a natural death will do neither. The fact that there are individuals who have the audacity to proclaim that this is wrong, are in fact contributing to the suffering of those whose wish to opt for euthanasia. How dare they! The most basic of all human rights, is the right to live and the right to choice. As a person of sound mind and body, noone has the right to tell me how I should live. As long as I live my life within the bounds of the law of the society I choose to live in, I should be free to live to do as I want without interference from another. Similarly I should be allowed to choose the manner of my passing. There is no moral or legal argument that can be made that is sufficient to take that choice away from me. And should anyone dare to impose on me that it is “Gods law” that implicitly denies me my right to choose my end, then I would say it is a choice taken away from me by ignorant savages incapable of intelligent thought. Hence by the very extreme extent of their stupidity they should not be allowed to make decisions at all, let alone one that affects me in such a profound way.

So this is my stance on the issue itself. I make no apologies for the strong manner in which I present it, as it is a deeply philosophical topic that doesn’t deserve anything less than a strong opinion.

Concerning the show itself there were a lot of claims that this was a media stunt designed to promote the channel, and pull in ratings. Having seen the show, I completely disagree with this opinion. In an age of spoonfed sensationalistic drama TV, this program was quiet, sensitive and thoughtful. Most importantly it was made at the request of Craig and his wife. This was absolutely the opposite of Big Brother, which is the very definition of a media stunt that uses sensationalism to create a vortex of drama designed to capture audiences and ratings. Craig’s ending was emotional, but for those who chose to watch it, it made you reflect on your own life and consider what it is that ‘a good life’ means.

Perhaps the best summation of my feelings I found was from an article in the UK’s, The Guardian newspaper

Watching a man drink liquid through a pink straw, ask for apple juice and music, then close his eyes and lie back on his pillows is intense, moving and tragic. It should make us think and talk about death, as we did when we were children and asked our parents if we would ever die. Too many grown ups push away that question forever – dispensing with the memento mori, the reminder of mortality, that has been part of human culture for thousands of years.

As I finish this peice, it’s late, with the clock striking into the wee hours of the morning, and I feel a sense of happiness at the thought that I will wake up tomorrow with my good health and a new day of possibilities before me. I’ll cherish for a while that I still have time to live and chase dreams and I’ll hopefully appreciate for a little while longer that life is a gift and should not be wasted or taken for granted. For it doesn’t last forever and we all have to come to terms with, and face, our own ultimate end.

When I do, I hope do so with the same courage, dignity and calm that Craig Ewert did. Peace be with him.

Andy.

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Real magic; the realm of possibilities

On April 22, 2009, In Inspired Moment, By Andy

Recently – as in about 3 hours ago when I was on my trusty bicycle – I started wondering about whether there is any such thing as real magic in the world, and the power of belief in magic.

Back when I was a wee teenage lad I got hooked on Dungeons and Dragons (and subsequently AD&D when it was released), and part of the game involved picking a god to worship and converting others to his/her belief. As the game lore went, the more people who believed in said god, (or demi-god, or major diety) the more powerful they became, because of the power that belief generated. In the game if you were successful in converting enough people and did enough deeds for your god, you had a chance to be divinely rewarded with some item or bonus that was outrageously cool. Now while I never was actually bestowed any of these sacred gifts, it nevertheless motivated me to try on odd occassions in the hope that the dice would go my way on a roll.

I do wonder if it could be the same thing in the wider scope of existence. For instance, take Tolkien’s, The Lord of the Rings. It is arguably the most widely read fantasy novel ever published, and has amassed in its wake an army of fans that on some level believe in this world that was created. Take me as an example, while I am wholy accepting of the reality that I operate in on a day to day basis, during the times of my life when I am reading the novel TLOTR, I lose myself completely in its realm, and I come to think of the characters as real. So is the power of the book that it creates a belief that it _could_ exist. I know I’m not alone, and I’m not even close to being a hardcore fan. I don’t even have to describe one, because even people who haven’t met one have an idea of what your real hardcore Tolkien fanatics are like! (Crazy bastards!)

But what if all of this power of belief actually does mould reality? Before you say I’m crazy, I’m actually not. In a quasi scientific film that came out a while ago called, What the Bleep Do We Know, there was an experiment that some researchers did using water and peoples emotions. They showed that a water drop will actually change its shape when it is subjected to different types of human emotion. While I’m not going to go into that particular experiment here – and you can take it or leave it as you feel – it does at least offer the possibility that there is some force associated with our awareness. If you extrapolate that to a global scale, where you take millions, maybe billions of people who all share a common belief about something, doesn’t it stand to reason that reality would shape itself to that view?

If that were true however, why doesn’t Gandalf walk through the front door of my office, wave his staff and make all my work disappear, before giving me a ride on Shadowfax to Gondor for a few hot nights with some beer wenches? Cause that’s a reality I’d like to see happen. Well you know, I just don’t think it works that flagrantly. That’s a perverse violation of our existing reality, because in order to create TLOTR reality, this one would have be sundered! And sundering realities probably isn’t tolerated on some cosmic level because it upsets the order of things higher up. However, that doesn’t mean that TLOTR doesn’t exist, it just means it exists somewhere else, and we’d have to find a doorway to it.

Like with magic!

The scientific amongst you will say – magic is only a phenomenon of physics that is not yet understood. Once it is understood, it will  no longer be called magic, but a law (of physics). To which I would say, yes that is true, and it isn’t because magic is really a great paradox; it is really acheiving that which is impossible through belief. Which is something physics will never accomplish, because physics only deals with what is possible, not that which is impossible. Once you cross that line, it’s all magic, baby!

In essence then, magic is really the realm of all impossibilities made possible through the force of awareness, and will. You just have to believe in them enough.

But is it real?

Andy!

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The greatest mystery of my time; a music CD

On April 1, 2009, In Life Rant, By Andy

About four years ago now the postman delivered one of those little cardboard box packages designed to carry a couple of CD’s. There was no sender details written on the thing, only my name and my address in black pen on the front. Inside the box was this black disc in a clear plastic CD cover. The disc itself was one that started off its life blank, and was burned like a real music CD, with actual (raw) wav files on it, not stripped down compressed mp3’s or anything like that. There was nothing written on the disc; not the names of the tunes, not anything. I didn’t even know what it was until I put it in a computer, after scanning the hell out of it for general bastardware that turns computers into expensive boat anchors. When I got around to listening to the music I could tell someone had made it for me, because it was all awesome music that I just so lurved to listen to. So the question that begged answering was, who the fuck sent it?!

I was sure it was this one friend of mine, Pete. (Name has been changed to protect his privacy… unless his name is really Pete, in which case, you know his name). So I called up to thank him for the wicked tunes, and why didn’t he just put his name on it somewhere so I would know it was him.

There was a moment of silence on the phone. “You’re a real freak sometimes, McDowell. You know that”!

Okay, so it wasn’t Pete.

A couple more rounds of phone calls to people that I pinned as likely suspects turned up the same kind of responses. Good to know what my friends thought about me, but not really helpful to find out where this CD came from. It started to itch not knowing who sent it, and why. It wasn’t my birthday, or Christmas, I hadn’t broken up with someone, or got marriend, or come back  from a long holiday; none of the usual shit that we give presents to someone for. The itch turned into a burn, and for months I sent out emails to everyone I knew who could have sent that CD, and it turned up nothing. Either someone was lying, or none of these people actually sent the damn thing.

To this day I’ve never found out just where it came from. It remains the greatest mystery of my life; my own personal Mary Celeste. Every so often when I pick the CD up and turn it over in my hands new theories come to mind about its origin, but now they’re starting to take on bizarre edged fantasy twists. Maybe it was delivered by a future me that had travelled back in time to give me the CD to start me on a journey of obsession that would lead me to somewhere I’m meant to be in the future to get to the time machine so I can go back in time to give myself the CD – but the CD was never made by me, it was made by another entity to start the cycle for a purpose that can’t be understood by me yet. Okay, granted it’s not very original, but it would make for a cool story… because it’s goddamn true!

It’s good to have mysteries in our lives I reckon. Something that we can ponder on that will defy conventional understanding so you can stretch your mind and push back the boundary of what’s possible. It’s these kind of things which lead us to the true heart of imagination and creativity. And quite possibly drive you a bit mad in the process!

Andy.

 
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