In many of your points I agree with you, Nightside of Eden. I didn't put it together with this particular thread, but I'm glad you have.

WARNING

Certainly most people don't like that explanation, or wouldn't admit it if they do agree. It is part of my argument for doctor-assisted suicide. The massive waste of resources forced upon people who recognize that their quality of life at the end of their lives is going or gone horrifies me. I chalk it up to a combination of corporate greed and the Doctor-God complex. This point of view isn't popular either. I'm often told it's not even humane, an opinion shared by many who condemn me to hell for my pro-abortion stand. Fortunes are spent bringing genetically weak fetuses to the point of birth and greater fortunes to keep them alive from then on--even if they need hands-on care 24/7 & have the mentality of a 2-yr-old.

My husband's family suffered in general everything mine did, except he never mentioned bipolar (in the 70s, it was called manic-depression). Our daughter was a month premature, and died after eight months from what they called "crib death." Since her genetic pool would have been much like mine, I've always wondered whether I was just lucky to grow up in a world of less stress and pollution. It was my final year in graduate school and I was finishing my dissertation. I didn't have much money, and I was time-crunched so I didn't eat much of a variety or on a schedule & what I did eat was mostly prepared food. I nursed her the whole time, and what baby food she got was all processed. My husband had gone missing in Vietnam two weeks before her birth.

Maybe she never had a chance. Fate overpowered her. Survival of the fittest won out.

There are primarily two directions from which arguments against "survival of the fittest" come: religion & law enforcement. Both assume that the average person is selfish, greedy, mean, ignorant, and needs a "Father Knows Best" figure/institution in life to counsel/manage the person.


I don't expect anybody to agree with me. I've spent 68 years trying to figure out why I'm here and what my life is all about, & the working hypotheses I've come to live by are strictly personal and derived from the physical & mental life I've lived. I'm unique, as are my opinions and my beliefs. I'm not looking for a fight and I'm not looking to convert anyone, only add my experience to the discussion.

Anyone I've known in the Christian (including Catholic) faith learns or has the opportunity to learn what is expected of them--what is right, what is wrong. There are classes, there are inductions. They are given every chance to learn the rules and laws and tradition which are the basis of their religion. My father's family was Catholic, my mother's Protestant. I declared when I was eight that I didn't believe in God and refuse to go to anything even vaguely religious ... at 16 I went to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and saw the Milky Way for the first time--and knew that God Is. I was permitted to look through the telescope for the entire night, seeing binary star systems, galaxies so far away they might have changed enormously by the time the light reached us ... the rings of Saturn, "seas" on our moon and Mars. It was an awe-filled night unlike any other in my life. I've never doubted my belief in god since. Organized religions? I don't fit with them any more than they fit with me--but many are filled with grace & practice their chosen religion. That's good for them and for the rest of us.

Law enforcement contains one provision that cracks me up: Ignorance of the law is no excuse. That, to me, sums up the underlying premise of the legal profession: They hold all power and I am always wrong; I shall pay for something if they decide I am guilty. I am helpless because I am not one of the very few people in the world with the money and power to fight them. The governments I live under (town, county, state, & federal) and the courts (from the local traffic court on up to the federal Supreme Court), which do their best to control me ... "Red Light" tickets, limits galore on what I can do in and around my own condo, what I may build on my property. No felonies, but I've lost track of my arrests for civil disobedience, environmental protection, civil rights.

Both law enforcement and religion have their ways of punishing people they judge guilty (of something). Some of religion's punishment involves social stigmas or exclusion, others are set in the future ... in Christianity, it may be promises of hell or purgatory--a version of, "Just wait till your father gets home!" The law may punish me by taking away my money, my freedom, or my life. Both law enforcement and religion can frighten people into doing or not doing something, without their making any choice. They do or don't do something because they're afraid of doing otherwise.

I believe in personal free will. I believe actions, speech, and even thoughts have consequences. I also believe in evolution, and that god designed our physical world and included evolution so that Original Man could adapt as the physical world changed. The physical world is nothing but change, on the grand scheme matter converts to energy (e.g., wood burns, producing light and heat) and energy becomes matter (mostly theory, but in general the belief that heat and light energy from the sun changes an acorn into an oak). What astounds me the most is that god gave us a brain with the ability to be conscious of this world through the senses, to think about it, and try to figure it out. He also gave a self-consciousness, the ability to try to figure out ourselves.

I feel programmed to be a bipolar alcoholic, and I don't think there's anything I could've done to prevent it. My parents were opposites, coming from different worlds. Mom's family had come to the United States as early as the middle 1700s. They had always been without formal education--farmers or craftsman of some sort, living in small towns or even more often on farms or ranches. My maternal grandmother was the exception, coming from an educated and very well-off family that immigrated originally from Denmark and Scotland. My dad's family was mostly in Germany (or elsewhere in Europe), mid-level industrialists in large cities. None came to the United States untill the very end of the 1800s.

The genes that I've inherited reflect parents who were opposites in everything, different in many more ways than Catholics differ from Protestants. Maternally, I'm genetically programmed for cancer, heart disease, strokes, bipolar disorder, depression, dementia, and alcoholism. My paternal genes invite cancer, Alzheimer's, and addiction (alcohol, other drugs, prescribed meds, tobacco ... pretty much anything existing). This smash up of opposing lifestyles in my inherited genes has mysteriously produced four out of a possible four genetic markers for diabetes, which has never been suffered by anyone on either side of my family.

I have two 1st cousins and a 2nd cousin I've never met, a few distant in-laws (or ex-in laws), and some very distant "kissin' cousins," but the rest of both sides of my family are very distantly related and in Europe or elsewhere in the world. I don't know them. In my generation, most were only children (not on purpose). The entire generations of my parents and grandparents have died. Most of the women have not survived beyond their sixties, but the men live usually into their eighties and a few over a hundred. Even with Alzheimer's and other health issues, my dad lived to be 82.

I had a little asthma and allergies as a kid; when I moved out West after school, those went away and I was very healthy. I was an alcoholic and smoker, but became "clean and sober" via support groups. My health was excellent until two years ago, and my doctors tell me now that in two to three years I'll need to be in, at least, an ACLF (assisted-living). I not only a bipolar alcoholic, i also have Disintegrating discs in my neck and spine (which are collapsing & squeezing my spinal cord), Sjogren's disease, and early stage dementia (probably Alzheimer's). My quality of life diminishes with each passing month & will take a huge plunge if I am institutionalized.

One way of putting it would be that I am becoming less and less fit to survive. I am approaching death because my body (also brain) is getting to the point that it can no longer support my life in this world.

I seldom discuss these beliefs or my wishes with anyone except my health care surrogates, lawyer, and doctors. I had to choose these people based partly on their agreement with me (or at least acceptance of my belief) regarding death with dignity.

There are at least a few members here who understand me so well that one I call twin, another best friend, one daughter, two nieces--they and my two friends/healthcare surrogates here are my family. There's also the serendipitous blessing of coming across people I don't know but who say just the thing I need to hear. My pdoc referred me to PsychCentral and all of my closest contacts among the folks here save my life daily. These are the only people I can be honest with; others become very upset if I tell the truth--they think that I've lost my mind and one tried to have me committed.

I'm not suicidal now. I'm fine now, with my therapy cat Charlie and my volunteer work to keep me busy in retirement. If I would kill myself now, it would be suicide. Everyone I know would consider it wrong, unfortunate, and certainly not dignified.

I could probably live into my eighties or longer if I were willing to place my life in the control of scientific handling (including being the lab rat occasionally), doctors who act (and all too often are treated) as if they're god, better living through chemistry, and the goodwill of institutional staffs and management--and of course there's Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, Congress, the Supreme Court to worry about. I'm not taking that on.

Thanks to any who read this, and I'm open to discussing any of it--discussing, not defending. If any of this offends or triggers you, I'm sorry--now you know why I used the icons I have.

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