The dilemma I have had a fun and interesting
life. At times I have been enormously successful and surrounded by
friends, money to do what I want and good times. At others I have been
poor, alone and barely able to cope. I have a PhD from one of the
world’s great universities and yet frequently feel like a total idiot. I
have known
intense love and also intense loneliness. Now, at the age of
50, I look behind me and see a life that is not without its good and
decent moments, but going forward I look forward to its ending. If I
stop taking the medication I am on, it will probably take about three
years. Is this stupid? Should I bow out from life when it has nothing
more to offer?
Mariella replies How would you know? It’s exactly at
the point when you decide there’s nothing left – when reasons to live
evade you and the pull of terminal oblivion is as compelling as gravity –
that a white rabbit pops out of a hat. It may not be brandishing a full
bouquet of your desires, it could just be a few daisies ripped from
someone else’s lawn, but there’s usually enough in such unprecedented
moments to kick-start the momentum towards happier days. How would you
feel if two years into giving up your medication (I presume past the
point of no return), you finally found your real passion, whether for a
person or a project? You’ll never know for sure and there’s every chance
that the future holds something for you, so it’s a big leap to take
without very careful consideration.
You’re asking me whether it’s OK to give up. That’s a very large
responsibility to heap on the shoulders of a total stranger and there
are plenty of people and organisations much better equipped to talk to
you about such impulses (try your doctor, or call the Samaritans
on 08457 90 90 90). However I’m working on the premise that you are
exploring the prospect on a more tentative, conversational level and if
so I’m happy to discuss. It’s the biggest choice you’ll ever make and I
definitely can’t make it for you. Instead, you’re going to have to base
it on nothing more reliable than your emotional state, and we all know
what a roller coaster our emotions represent.
That’s
not to say that there are endless reasons to be cheerful or that if
your heart is set on a prearranged departure you haven’t got every right
to choose your poison (as they still say in Putin’s Russia). You’ve
written to the wrong person if you want a lecture on how stretching life
out until the end is simply “your duty”. I was among the many
disappointed when politicians recently voted with a big majority against
the “assisted dying bill”.
Isn’t it a basic human right to decide when you’ve had enough? Forcing
someone to stay alive, through a web of tubes, or the strong arm of the
law, seems to me inhuman. That said, I can see the other side. Once
taking your own life becomes acceptable in cases of terminal illness or
grave pain, there will be those who wouldn’t say no to giving some of
their relatives, or even incapacitated strangers, a helping hand.
Euthanasia has a lot more sinister a ring to it than “assisted death”,
but if you halted progress on every advance that human beings could
twist to abuse others, forward momentum would definitely be a thing of
the past.
I’m gathering from your letter that you have lived a rich and full
life, which to all intents and purposes you’ve enjoyed. Far from giving
you more reason to end it now, it suggests to me that you might as well
keep going. It’s not as if you’ve given it your best shot: you’re only
half way round the track in terms of potential lifespan. You mention
pills, so I’m also presuming that you have a life-threatening or
certainly impairing illness. Yet you suggest that whatever your
condition, your medication has it under control.
I know nothing, with certainty, about death, except that it will come
to us all. As Clive James, the wonderfully funny bibliophile and media
master told me recently, battling to squeeze out more time in defiance
of his incurable cancer: “We’re all terminally ill”! As an atheist
(again I’m guessing but presuming you rank among our number), I have
extremely low expectations of the rest of eternity. That seems to me a
very good reason not to rush into it. Life is a known quantity with ups
and downs, happiness and sadness, textured, often surprising and
liberally scattered with really sensational moments. Do you seriously
think you’ve had your allotted share? I wouldn’t be so sure.
Legally
you may have no right to end your life, but there’s an increasing
fraternity determined to make that an individual choice rather than a
crime. I’m not sure how far we’ll get if people like you, presently on
the fence, start choosing eternal oblivion just because you imagine your
best days are behind you. If you believe in a world where things are
connected, even if simply as part of the food chain, then you have to
believe that we each have a purpose.
None of us is indispensable, but each of us is totally unique, and as
such until your last breath your contribution to this world is
essential. Death, I’d argue, unless each day is merely suffering,
actually has very little to offer when you compare it to the myriad
possibilities of life.
