Existential crisis - please Help!

Don't be ridiculous. The only certain way you can hasten your own death in the USA is to do it while you're still perfectly sane and healthy. Shoot yourself (which requires owning a gun, statistically decreasing the safety of your family and the entire country), jump off a cliff (we have an instinct to avoid that so it's a difficult decision to carry out), fill your car with carbon monoxide (not easy to do right), overdose on drugs (difficult to learn just how much is an overdose), hang yourself (unless you're a professional hangman you won't get the knot or the drop distance right and you'll be in acute pain for as long as 20 minutes).

People jump in front of trains, but geeze who wants to leave the poor engineer with that image in his dreams every night? Many of them can't ever go back to work so you're punishing his entire family.

As for the helium balloon, this is a very recent discovery which, due to our culture's antipathy toward the issue, has not been widely publicized. I doubt that even 5% of the population is aware of it.

So I'm faced with the dilemma that, in order to ensure that I never become one of those pathetic vegetables whose gardeners are sucking up the estate I want to go to a couple of worthy charities and a few good friends, I have to pick a date when I'm still completely healthy, and commit suicide.

I have to roll the dice and decide to either forgo some uncountable number of years of a happy, productive life, or wait and suffer a considerable number of months of a so-called "life" without dignity while my loved ones watch me wither away and my estate is confiscated by bureaucrats and lawyers.

Thanks a lot, Wynn. It's you and people like you who leave me with this pathetic choice. And you wonder why I don't like you? Your religiously-inspired attitude toward death, multiplied by the billions of other people out there who are either religious or, like you, have religion-based attitudes, has a tangible negative impact on my life because of the laws this type of culture creates.

Yes, I have the helium secret, but I'm sure that once it becomes more widely known, they'll start regulating the sale of helium.

 

At this age (70 in a couple of months) and with no known major health issues, my life expectancy is about 15 years: a 50/50 chance of dying before my 85th birthday. This means that every year I have about a 3.5 percent probability of dying. A little lower now, a little more in 2028, but high enough to start taking it seriously now.

You just love woo-woo, don't you? How about the peace of mind of my loved ones? How are they supposed to react when they walk into my room and I don't know who they are? When they realize that I'm no longer capable of appreciating music or the reassuring presence of my dog, the two most important things in my life? Even the poor dog will be stressed--why is Poppa acting so weird? What has your woo-woo got to bring peace of mind to them?

How about the peace of mind of my heirs? How are they supposed to react when their college tuition, or the down payment on their house, or just their Greek Island cruise, evaporates into the coffers of the nursing home industry? What has your woo-woo got to bring peace of mind to them? Peace of mind ain't worth diddly squat when your daughter asks you why Uncle Fraggle broke his promise of sending her to college. Or to the people who run the local no-kill animal shelter when the bequest I promised them goes into the pockets of a banker and a lawyer and they have to shut the place down.

But the whole blame and responsibility does in fact belong to you and your kind! Where do you people come up with the right to establish institutions that impose your morality on other people, so long as we're not doing you any harm with our own morality?

Why is it any of your goddamned business how I choose to end my life, so long as the people who care about me are supportive of my choice and will, in fact benefit by the conservation of my financial resources?

What possible excuse can you offer to explain why you nannies and busybodies get to lobby your government to pass laws that deprive me and my loved ones of that right?

I don't try to outlaw whatever plans you and your fellow travelers have for your end-of-life issues. Why can't you treat me with the same respect?

And you wonder why I don't respect you??? You people are causing me a great deal of trouble.

As I said, yes, if I'm lucky I, personally, may be able to avail myself of the helium balloon. But if I survive to reach that actuarial midway point of 85, then as I also said, I'm sure that because of you and your cronies, the government will have found a way to stop me by then.

So take your woo-woo and shove it.

 

I didn't need the translation, I'm from Los Angeles. Is that supposed to be relevant to this discussion? Are you accusing me of letting my reason slumber?

You're certainly an expert at reasoning. But it's the precocious reasoning of the debate team: take any position on any issue and prove that you're right, just to show how clever you are. Is there any sincerity in anything you say? Do you actually have any positions on any of the issues you argue, or do you just like to argue because it makes you feel alive?

My reason isn't sleeping and I'm not imagining monsters. These monsters are real. They want to constrain my end-of-life options so as to cause the most indignity to me and the greatest sorrow and financial harm to those I leave behind.

And yes, a good number of these monsters, almost certainly the majority, are Christians, even if you're not.

Perhaps it's finally dawning on you why I rationally despise religion, and the people who take it seriously.

 

Even if they were atheists and were not engaging in worship, virtually every culture on earth, in every era, recognizes the right of the living to pay their respects to the dead in peace. This is part of the contract each generation makes with its predecessor and its successor, helping to maintain the continuity of civilization: We'll do this for you, and we know that someone else will do it for us.

I have often commented that this specific proscription is unnecessary, since the proscribed action is already covered by the laws against FRAUD.

The perpetrator lies to the theatergoers (telling them there is a fire when there is none) . . . .
On order to manipulate them into doing something they would otherwise not do (running for the door in the dark) . . . .
Which results in financial or other benefit to him (the entertainment value) . . . .
While resulting in financial or other loss to them (ruining their day, wasting their time, perhaps even losing the money they spent on their tickets, or even needing medical attention for the stress, or for the injuries which often occur in these situations.​

I see this as a textbook case of fraud, so no special law is needed to deal with a particular instance of it.

If this was the local chapter of the KKK, the Nazi Party, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, NAMBLA, a rock band doing performance art, etc., the cops would be there in two minutes and haul their assess off to jail.

I don't know about everybody else, but I'm sick to death of religion, especially Christianity, being treated as though it is something more than just one more group of wackos with an irrational idea and an agenda that requires everyone else to accommodate them--or in the specific case of Christianity, to give up their own way of life and join them.