Evolution is not about ‘survival of the fittest’.
Evolution is about the demise of the unfit.
Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is, 2001
Well, it actually makes a lot of sense.
Being healthy is relative.
On having a diagnostic hanging over your head.
Here’s another way of looking at things.
Functional versus dysfunctional.
For as long as one is functional, that person is not a burden for anybody. Regardless of any diagnostic.
Even a dysfunctional person can be useful for those around them. Even if that person is completely dependent on those taking care of them. A good word spoken at the right moment makes wonders.
So yes, I would also love to die ‘healthy’. As in trying to do my best to be useful.
At least, to be as light a burden as possible.
On the other hand, health is yet another virtual thing. ‘Virtual’ as in man made…
Until not so long ago, ’cause of death’ for people over a certain age was always ‘old age’.
No longer. No matter how old the deceased, the body is transported to a medical facility and the particular cause of death is forensically determined.
It makes perfect sense. Scientifically speaking. There is no such thing as too much data, specially when it comes to something as precious to us as human life.
And it raises a ‘somewhat’ unreasonable kind of hope. That sometime, somehow, all causes of death will be mitigated. Diagnosed and treated.
That life will become ‘longer’. That we, humans, will live if not forever… then until an accident will happen to shorten our destiny.
Can you imagine something like that?
People living for 3 or 4 hundreds of years?
No retirement.
No risk taken.
No change…
nicichiarasa 