The subprime mortgage debacle and economic morass made hilarious by the simple telling of the truth. I laughed at this until my sides were hurting and tears rolled down my cheeks and I recommend you watch this with a libation of some kind to take the edge off the wickedly sublime social satire of the Brits.
shut up, he explained
I just downloaded for the iPhone an app called “i-Die” that uses an actuarial table to determine how much time one has left before hitting the statistical wall. It says my life is 75% over and I have 7,400 days left until 80, my expected expiration date considering only my birthdate and gender. Tempus Fugit. Doing a little math of my own, every day is 0.000178 of my life if I live to 75, which, considering two packs of cigarets a day for 40 years, may well be closer to the mark. Age 75 would also mean I only have 5,600 days left. Considering that some significant portion of those days are likely to be days of being feeble, old and in respiratory distress, maybe I have 5,000 “good” days left, maybe less. I’m sorry to say this “out loud”, but I do not at this time intend to spend those days of trouble at the end of my life willingly. Rather, I’ll take myself out in the most humane way available to me. My attitude about that is really pretty simple: if I were my own pet, a dog or a cat, and I loved that pet and it was sick, hurting and no longer able to live according to its nature, I would not prolong the agony and would put the animal to sleep. I see nothing whatsoever that prevents me from having the same attitude about my own life. Wait! There’s More!, as the infomercials say. Death, dying and expiration dates is not what this puts in my mind. What it really makes me think about is how to spend the days I have left. It’s about living and living well in the time I have. Like the song says, what to leave in and what to leave out. I can still choose 5,000 days of joy or 5,000 days of fatalism or 5,000 days of balls to the walls frenetic activity or I can choose leisure and spend my 5K days lounging around. That’s enough time to love, gain wisdom and serenity. I can still go to Europe for an extended stay. I can still enjoy my friends and beautiful works of art and plenty of time to become the novelist I dream I may some day be. In 15 years, my grandchildren will be graduated from high school and maybe even college. Maybe they’ll marry and I’ll have great-grandchildren. So many surprising things still to come. Hold off on that obituary, if you please, I may well have some additions.
