When the Lights are Going Out......
A child is born today and given the right environment, nutrition and all the good things that life has to offer, may live until 80, 90 or 100. New born is new born, but long-live, meaning, death is far down the road for the new born.
When someone retires, at 60, 62, or 65, they are joining the near dead, those lining up to die soon. Unavoidable as death is to taxes, death is an unavoidable biological process. What must we do, just wait to die? Unfortunately, death is everywhere and come too early to some people. UN staffs working in difficult duty stations that are in either famine or war are well aware of the near dead, not retirees, but innocent children and young mothers and fathers. Therefore, death is everywhere, but people do not want to die other than in fanaticism.
Each passing day means that death is nearer. Must I make such an obvious statement to you? Realistically, many of us operate like death will never come, but as each person retires and they confront with legal reminders of wills and other final arrangements, it is a reminder that death is down the line, another activity, the final one.
Which brings us to the fact, that a typical UN retiree has 25-30 years left, of which, about 20 years can be active with some luck and the remainder not so active with some better luck. Which means is that it is advantageous to the individual retiree to live life to the fullest for the next 20 years after retirement. If you have to travel, do not postpone it, do it while you are still active on your two feet. Do what you have to do now, but do not postpone it, since we do not know what else can happen, as we grow older. Let us work out the math for that.
When you are ten years old, you expect to have an active life of 70 years (80-10). If you life span is 90 years then at ten years of age you have lived 11.1% of your life-span and 12.5% of your active life. In each of these cases, at 10 years of age, you have 88.9% life span left and 87.5% of your active life left; they are close. However, at 62 years of age, you have 31% life span left and 22.5% active life left. Now the numbers look a bit astonishing. Moreover, 10 years down the road, when you are 72 and a little less active than 62, you have 20% life span left and 10% active life left. Nevertheless, 10 years was not so long ago, you would think. Therefore, at 72 you may have lived 80% of your life span and 90% of your active life.
Well, what was the purpose of this write-up? To remind ourselves, that as each day passes, we are getting closer to our final destination. Soon, we will join the dead. This means, that as we grow older we must make big changes in our life, evaluate how we have lived, and what we can do to make the very best, give to society the very best, of what balance life remains on planet earth.
Christians believe that dead souls will rest and one day there will be a resurrection and a division of good and evil people, the good going to heaven and the evil going to hell, and something called purgatory for those who have a chance of making it to heaven later. Some other faiths have similar beliefs as Christians do and yet other religions believe in rebirth. Which means is that most all religions believe that life is continuous in some form or another. Therefore, there seems little need to fear death.
I marvel at the universe. When I awake at early dawn to see the sunrise, I see how it brightens the dark earth and give us light. In addition, the sunset and the darkening of the earth at night with illumination from the moon and the stars is another unfathomable mystery. Oh, yes, scientists can say how it happens, but they do not know the way in which machinery assembled to make these events happen. Powerless people are too busy to observe these any more and forget that some great scientist and engineer made this great universe. Some scientists think it was just there and it evolved. Is it not mysterious that no two people look a like? With billions on planet earth no two people looking alike is another great mystery. What a great scientist that created this powerful universe. The galaxy full of moons and stars, uncountable distances away and beyond the reach of humankind is even a more alarming mystery. The power of nature, the earthquakes, the tsunamis, the cyclones, all unstoppable by humankind, is another mystery and raises such questions as to why they must happen and damage and hurt us. The mystery of the universe makes us big shots look like we are so very insignificant.
There are at least two things worth doing in remaining years. One is being nice to people when they are alive instead of making egalitarian speeches about how good they were when they are dead and gone. When Jesus said, "help thy neighbor as thyself" or "if you did a good deed to this of my brethren thou has done it unto me", are powerful phrases in leading a good life. Much of that beautification speech on the dead is not very sincere and the dead person knows nothing. The other good thing to do is for each of us to draft our own obituary and name a reader. At least, you also can have the final say on what you want to say of yourself. I know a friend who planned his entire funeral, even selected the hymns that must be sung. He certainly did a great job at it, Edward, I remember you well.
Some people have gone to great lengths not to die. They fund research to promote longevity or never die. Some rich folks are even writing wills to themselves and putting all their wealth in trust with themselves as beneficiaries as their dead bodies stay frozen in the hope that medical science can revive them in the future. These people are afraid of death. The bottom line, is that death is certain, and the older we are the shorter the time left.
Human beings by their knowledge of behavior on earth know about their history, the good deeds and the bad deeds. But they only have a preconception of what might happen after they are dead. The hope is for a better life than the patch of ground they stand on. People also want miracles on earth, for which they travel to extensive places on pilgrimage to hope for miracles. I tell my Christian friends. If you have $5,000 to spend, would God appreciate you more for a pilgrimage to his holy land or if you would take that money and help a poor person. Of course, if you can do both, good and well, but what if that stream of expense is all you can afford? Or, how much more can you do with an additional $5,000 and forgo the pilgrimage. One Christian one said to me, there was only one good man in this world, and he was nailed to the cross, and that was Jesus.
PS: The other day I was asking my friend how many years his pet dog has left. Well, he said, this dog has a life span of 15 years and now he is 13 years old. I then gave Luke the math. When you go on a one month vacation and leave the pet alone you are away from him for 4% of his life-time. When the pet was one year old, that figure would have been a mere one-half percent. But when Luke now takes a one-month vacation, he is away eight times greater than if the dog was one year old.
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