Today's Question: Would you like to know the precise date of your death?
My first thought would be, "Why not?" It's not as if there's some possibility that I won't die, so there's no surprise there. And I don't think I'll be living for two hundred years or anything, so I already have my death narrowed down to a window of a few decades. The exact date is just narrower still.
But then I think, "Would it matter?" I suppose if I knew that I a lot less time than I thought I did I would have to make a few changes. There'd be a lot more flights to Vegas, certainly. But in the end it just might take the fun out of the whole thing.
So would I like to know the exact date of my death? Nah.
You?
3 comments:
While this is a difficult question and I see your point, I think that I might like to know. Knowing how much time I had left would have such a huge impact on what I do. While I assume that I will live to retirement and beyond, I have to prepare for that: savings, postponed trips, retirement funds, and so on. If I knew, however, that I was going to die at say 50, so much of my day to day would change.
I also think that people have a tendency to live with the self-deceptive idea of immortality, not really believing they are going to die - or that it is some far off event which does not bear true consideration. Hence, the popular "If I had known how little time I had left, I would have blah blah blah" type of comments. An exact date would make the death more concrete.
On the other hand, maybe it's crazy to know and it would take all of the fun out of living. Besides it's not possible. If one were to tell me that I was going to die on April 15, 2040, and I started taking more risks - more skydiving, less healthy eating and maybe some...errr...recreational illegalities, wouldn't I change my deathdate?
No, I don't want to know when -- or even how, for that matter.
I'm with Deborah on this one. No way, no how.
As we've discussed before, I'm learning that the risk, the unknown, the surprise, the fuzziness is a key part of life. Knowing the death date fundamentally alters it too much, I think.
Knowing the date would make it impossible, for me anyway, to avoid constantly looking at the clock ticking down. I know that the clock is ticking down anyway, but its shroud is important.
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