You'd have to balance the benefit of being able to accomplish any number of goals before your expiration date with the decreased quality of life you'd experience fretting about it as the date grew closer. I'd rather not. I'd like to operate under the illusion that I'll always have one more day for as long as possible and just focus on not taking the days I do have for granted in the meantime. But if I somehow did know the date, I'd certainly not squander the benefits knowing would give me, and do my best to meet my end satisfied and cheerful.
Unless theadvancedapes is right and "old age" can be cured or curtailed, death as it stands is an inevitability but most of us seem to carry on as though it is not. Just a matter of degrees, right? There are some things I would do differently if I knew death was at hand, I ought to remedy such things now. I just watched Scorsese's documentary on George Harrison: "Satisfied and cheerful" sounds good to me. From the accounts I've read that is how George finally went out. if I knew the end was near I would hold my wife and daughter and not let go till the lights went out.But if I somehow did know the date, I'd certainly not squander the benefits knowing would give me, and do my best to meet my end satisfied and cheerful.
-George Harrison's widow talks of Harrison spending his life preparing for death through meditation. He wanted to be present for death and to be able to go peacefully toward it. She said that even when he was being stabbed in 1999, he attempted to prepare mentally and spiritually for death. That takes some major discipline to go in to a meditative state while being attacked. Luckily for George Olivia had no thoughts of meditation as she whacked the intruder with a golf club.
It strikes me that if Harrison had in fact gone out that way a) people would be talking about some sort of Beatles assassination curse because people are boring, and b) his legacy would be a lot different.Luckily for George Olivia had no thoughts of meditation as she whacked the intruder with a golf club.
I agree about his legacy. George wrote some fantastic music, couple that with his intense spirituality and you'd have a pretty strong symbol for peace. Like with John, the clash of extreme violence with a person that represented extreme peace is difficult to wrap your head around. His son Dhani suggests that the incident took years off of his life. At the time he was battling cancer. The event so scared his wife that she erected razor wire around the whole of their estate but was forced to take it down when it began injuring neighborhood cats.
I just read something extremely sad and somewhat relevant, courtesy of r/beatles, that I'll be posting in just a second.