Historical September–October 2008 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Do you want to know when you are going to die? That question was posed last month and yours truly has not been a slug.
While you’ve been sleeping late on vacationing on the beach, Hawkeye has been an active reporter.
He has, I mean I have, asked this question of others. So before we go any further, dear reader, please take a moment and reflect, mirror or not: Do you want to know? I’ll return to that question in a bit. (Or is it a byte?) Long-standing readers of this column understand that it is written with one goal in mind: To solve life’s long-standing problems. No hubris here!
I mean, occasionally it may entertain, and often it will serve as a latter-day Farmer’s Almanac and offer microwave tips or strategies for how to remove fleas from your family dog.
But by and large, this monthly dude is an epistemological piece. I’ve been writing this column for over 30 years now. That’s not an exaggeration.
It began in the preReagan days when what’s-his-name was president and now, a score and a half of years later, it continues when what’s-his-name is president. Many things have changed but much remains the same. Gee, that sounds semi-presidential, at least like something we’d hear from what’shis-name. So here I am, a bit older and a lot balder, looking at the last third of my life. I’m at the age where friends come and go, some permanently.
I scan the obits daily and guess what: Some of the people listed there are younger than me.
But I’m not getting any younger. Artificial this and replaced that aside, the clock continues to tick and it ticks more loudly. (Or is that just my hearing aid being turned up?) Anyway, as noted, I’m working on the penultimate epistemological question: If you could know when your personal clock was striking midnight, would you want to have this knowledge? Inquiring minds want to know, and so does mine. Thus I zapped an email to friends and asked them what they thought.
The answers were interesting and insightful and sometimes poignant. Here’s what they had to say. DW: Interesting that you ask because we went on a car trip this weekend — 14 hours in the car — and I put this very question to the car.
My son answered instantly that if he couldn’t affect the future in any way, he didn’t want to see it or know about it and my husband concurred.
I said that I was very interested to see the future but I don’t want to know when I die.
I would be filled with too much dread and would certainly invest too much of my time and energy in trying to change it.
I also said that there was little I would change about my life if I were going to die in a year (though I would stop renovating the house and I would increase my life insurance) so I don’t feel like I need to do much to prepare to die. EM: I read the email yesterday and my immediate response was, no way would I want to know in advance.
It would like sort of like living with an end goal ahead. Everything I did would reflect my knowledge of WHEN I was headed out. Today I thought about it again. And still, I like the idea of living every day for itself. Goodness knows, I certainly don’t do this as often as I should, but when I do, I love it.
The whole part of living seems to be the LIVING, not the focus on the dying. I’m sure many people could know when their ending time is and plan their lives to be productive and wonderful.
But I prefer ignorant bliss (or whatever). CO: I would not want to know when I was going to die if it was possible to know in advance.
The only reason for knowing would be to make sure that you say all that you want to say and take care of all you want to take care of and do all you want to do prior to the last moment.
My intention is live in that manner, so that when I am surprised by my death, I will be serene in the knowledge that I have told everyone what I want them to know, that I have taken care of everything I want to take care of, and that I have done all that I wanted to do. RN: Good question. Despite the benefit of justifying my doing things I’ve always wanted to do before dying (the whole bucket list idea), I think I’d ditch the gypsy fortune teller.
I would not want to know when I’m going to die, just as I would not want to know my future or my fortune or anything else about my life I would apparently have no control over.
It would take all the fun and all of the discovery out of life. Also, I prefer to live my life as simply and unself-consciously as possible, and knowing when exactly I was going to croak would not only make me self-conscious but probably forced, desperate, and certainly unnatural. EB: While the costs and benefits seem obvious — worry and hopelessness versus the ability to plan, take care of loved ones to the extent possible, prioritize and do the things you most want to do given the time you know you have left — the answer totally eludes me. JB: Knowledge of death in general is part of the human condition. Without it we would not have the same sense of purpose, including strong obligations to those who live on in the future even after our own death.
In fact, knowledge of death in general and the lack of knowledge of death in particular is important to human freedom.
The openness of the future is something that we share with others and is part of what makes justice possible. At some point, however, in the aging process our individual futures no longer seem open, and that is good for us to know and experience in the death of others. Knowledge then is an important good but not given far in advance as a form of fate. So, I would not want to know anything more about my death in particular, and if someone or something forced such knowledge upon me it would be an unspeakable cruelty, a denial of my basic humanity and freedom. JC: I know that I wouldn’t want to know.
The only benefit I see would be the whole “living each day like it is your last” idea.
However, I see so many downsides: worry, living your life completely differently and many more. would definitely pass on this knowledge.
I asked my wife and she didn’t wait one second, and said no as well. SC: Absolutely not.
I fret over enough stuff.
I don’t need the added stress of figuring out who’s going to take care of all my responsibilities when I’m gone and planning my own funeral too. BH: I would not want to know. Although it sounds hokey and trite, we should all live as if our lives could end at any time, since as we know, people can die way too young and before their time. Knowing when it might actually end might make us live for our death as opposed to enjoying life.
There was a great story recently on the radio about a guy in his 20’s who had been told that he had less than a year to live and it then turned that he was misdiagnosed.
It was funny, touching, and poignant. LD: Interesting question which I have thought about in the past.
My short answer is no and my thought process goes something like this.
If I knew when, I would hopefully live my life more fully and more thoughtfully.
However, being human and fallible, I’d most likely obsess about my own death, trying to figure out a way to avoid the inevitable event. Not knowing allows me to still maintain the facade of immortality. Intellectually, I know I’ll die and I know this could occur at any time. Emotionally, it still seems like something lifetimes away. SW: Yes, of course!
I was taught to face death courageously and affirmatively!
After all, like Jake Blues, we are all on a mission from God! MD: Maybe six month’s notice.
But other than that, I don’t want to know. TB: I would absolutely want to know in advance when I was going to die, so I would avoid the time and location.
I can also assure you that my room service bill at the Bellagio and my American Express Platinum Card statement would have some very interesting entries on them! JJ: Definitely. That’s a normal fear that like David Halberstam and others we know that it would come quickly without any opportunity to prepare. Death is a natural part of life. I’d like to be able to merge myself into the rhythm of my own death. So dear reader, how are you feeling about this now? Do you want to know? Tick-tock, tick-tock, ticktock. Say, is that my imagination, or is it sounding a bit louder?
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, September–October 2008.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2008_09.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
