Euthanasia?
Update: 27.10.08
I decided to add another reason. Thanks for raising that point, Shank (:
Well, I have the same birthday as 鳳飛飛
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%B3%B3%E9%A3%9B%E9%A3%9B
My sister went to search for people who have the same birthdays as me, and there were a bunch of unknown X-es, and that's the only one we all could recognize. I'm rather much tickled.
I was quarrelling with my sister over whether euthanasia should be allowed or not.
She was behind legalizing euthanasia in Singapore, while I was simply averse to the iFea.
I remember our little debate and what it evolved into, and how heated it was(not very). It's good to have opposing views before blogging, because it makes me think.
Here's the gist of it:
One reason is that if the person seeking death is going through unbearable pain, then he/she might as well end his/her life because, well, the pain can't be described, what they have to go through can't be conveyed by mere words, and seeking the end of the torture is all that they want, or could wish for. The main point is that these peoples' days are numbered.
For people like me, I don't know of the pain these people are going through, the helplessness they feel as they lie on their beds incapable of motion, the sense of uselessness as they can only watch as their families worry over them.
But I feel that we owe our lives to our parents, and that we should let our lives run its course, even in sickness. I feel that living our lives till the very end is what we owe our parents. Ending our lives earlier is a form of betrayal to our parents. That's what I feel.
I don't really have a substantial argument against euthanasia. I just feel that ending lives prematurely isn't a prerogative we have. As 霍元甲 said in 霍元甲, 活着从来不是一个人的事.
When we grow old, when we are ailing, we still have our relatives. They are still living. As long as they have yet to give up on me, I don't have the rights to give up on myself, to stop living.
I have yet to experience the harshness of such diseases, and perhaps all this is just talk. Perhaps I'd succumb to the temptations of euthanasia in time to come, but for now, I stand my ground. Of course, I wouldn't want to experience those diseases.
But being alive, that's wonderful. I feel that life is wonderful. To quote Miss Chow's video(which made me tear), 'Sorrow makes us human'. Pain is a form of sorrow, right?
I love being human. I love the emotions I experience everyday. I love many things about life. You may see me as a noobshit, as someone who has yet to experience what I have in store for me, but I.. Never mind.
I'm digressing.
The point is, living or dying doesn't simply affect a person.
If I were to have only 6months to live, I'd live everyday to the fullest. Maybe I'd still play Runescape, but that just makes my life more complete. I guess. But I wouldn't consider euthanasia, because 6months is a very short time. How many 6 months does a normal human living in Singapore have to live? 140+ 6months. Having only a last '6 months' is already a huge discount, so why kill yourself? There's so much more to experience, there's so much more to do.
Another point is that pain and fear makes people consider the option of euthanasia.
For people like me, once again, I must stress that I don't know what pain they suffer, or how petrified these people going through the pain are of the pain that the disease might bring.
But I feel that fear and pain should not stop one from living. I mean, living is a gamble in its own right. You can get knocked down while you walk down a road. You can get struck by flower pots while walking under flats. A lot of things can happen. Why aren't you fearful of those?
So why should you be fearful of the disease that eats away at your life? I think I sound like a noob, but I think that diseases is a part of life.
生，老，病，死。
I've known that since young. I've already known what life has in store for me. I know that I'd age and I'd contract diseases(most probably venereal ones), and I'd die.
But would you stop having sex because you fear STIs? So why would you want to stop living? OK bad example, never mind.
Bottomline: Pain and fear should not stop a human from living the full course of his/her life.
I remember reading in the newspapers that a mother in an European country(I think) chose to resort to euthanasia because she feared the pain that her cancer or something could bring to her. She didn't want to live anymore.
Her son made a diary which documented the days preceding her date with Death.
He sounded a bit bitter that she chose that way. I don't know, but I won't want to leave Earth looking like a coward.
Well, let me sidetrack. I have this friend, who has rather much of a crush. And he does things with his crush which are very intimate, like hugging, holding hands, studying together all the time, blah blah blah. Then whenever I see his handphone, it's spammed with her name.
I kept telling him, tell her that you like her lah. Then he always 'No larh, what if she doesn't like me?'
I got rather pissed off because, well, it's quite apparent that she likes him too. As opposed to many other different cases of people with pure balls, I got pissed off. What's holding him back from maximising the potential he has?
No link.
Anyway, a third reason is that the people seeking euthanasia are seeking to 'preserve their dignity'. This was brought up by my sister.
Well, that depends on the definition of 'dignity', which can be rather subjective. For some, dignity is the way they look, the way they die. Perhaps some people want to say 'Ha, I defeated my illness by not letting it kill me because I chose euthanasia.' Maybe some thinks along the lines of 'I don't want to die in an ailing vessel, I don't want to look to bad when I die, I don't want all my weaknesses and fragility of my body to appear'.
I don't know lah, but for me, my definition of dignity would be to give pure respect to the body. I mean, if the body is still willing to serve as a vessel for my soul(although I'm rather much of an atheist), I should fulfil my body's wishes. I think that ending my life earlier would be an insult to the body. I think that dignity would be to never give up, to live on in spite of the toll the ailing body has on the mind.
That's dignity for me. Or at least respect for the things that were provided when we were born.
A battered sword is more of a relic than one that has never seen battle. Doesn't really make much sense, but whatever.
The fourth reason: They don't want to implicate their family. Well, what I feel is that the family members want to be implicated.
Maybe they don't even think of the ailing parent as an implication. I mean, choy lah, touch wood, but if your mother is suffering from a terminal illness and has only a few months left to live, would you rather she live through everyday?
I mean, OK, she might feel like she's destroying your life by chalking up huge hospital bills, but I think that you'd live to regret it for the rest of your life if you aren't even given the chance to give your mother all that you could in her last days.
In the Money No Enough 2, the children didn't want their mother to die either. Although they were suffering from financial troubles and knew that their mother would die anyway, they still didn't want to give up.
Why, even though they knew she couldn't be safe? But whyyy?
Because they love her.
And love for her made everything worth it.
My tuition teacher was telling the class about his friend, who had a father getting his life eaten away by cancer. The cancer ate away the son's money, too.
So my tuition teacher was thinking 'Maybe they should've just given up and let him die.' Yet he carried on with 'But if it was my father dying, I'd also pump in all the money I could. It's my father leh.'
I guess that love is irrational. Which reminds me of yet another story. I think it was a Chinese comprehension from many years back.
It was about a father and his 2 sons. They went up the mountains to collect some shit, and after collecting the shit, they got stuck on the mountains because of blizzard, a powerful move that I use my Abomasnow to spam. 5 PP only, though.
Anyway, so this trio was stuck up the mountains, and their father suffered from a frostbite. He told the sons to strip him of his clothings(not incest), and wear them and carry on with their descend from the mountain. Sounds rational, right?
But no, the elder son took off his own clothings and made his father wear it. Then he carried him down the mountain.
Awhile later, the elder son suffered from frost bite. Duh. So he told the younger brother to go down. The younger brother didn't, too. Then blah blah blah blah blah and the trio died.
They left their family with a devastating loss of 3 breadwinners. Is the term even 'breadwinner'? I forgot.
So the dilemma? If you were one of the brothers, would you be rational enough to give up and go, and live with the guilt of having pangseh-ed your father, or die and leave the people alive straggling? Can you say for sure that you would give up on your family members if you were in such a situation?
The guilt you would end up living with is immense. Implication? It's something worth dying for. Irrational? Yes.
Love cannot be explained.
Well, I've never been humbled by any great disease, nor do I wish to experience any of those, nor do I wish to witness anyone experiencing shit like that. I'm not envious of the person who has to contemplate between dying painfully or dying quickly.
But I maintain my humble opinion. It might not hold, because I'm typing in the comforts of my home, and in the pink of health, and I have a lot of youth within me still.
Anyway, I was muted on Runescape for saying 'Shet'. It isn't really banned, but Jagex takes it as an offence anyway. So I guess it's sort of my fault.
That's not a problem. I'm OK with being reported for typing expletives.
I'm not OK with people in the clan reporting me though. Someone must be really desperate to become a player moderator, and I'm not envious of that someone's moral values. Or maybe someone doesn't like me, but anything goes.
I'm not going to whine about it because getting a black mark isn't really anything to make noise over.
Let's talk about opinions.
There are many people who buay song me because of my attention-seeking fetish. You know, my Final Countdown stint and my normal flamboyant character.
But I've always known that there are many people out there with different opinions of what I did.
I remember some classmates who said that they admired me for the balls I have. Well, of course I'd be glad for having that. Then there are the other people who literally said bad things about me behind my back. I remember walking up the stairs with a bunch of sec 4s behind me and they were discussing about 'The final countdown bastard'. Well, I can't say that I wasn't disturbed.
Everything everyone does can be a topic for discussion. The hairstyle, face, spectacles, weight, actions, blah blah blah, all of them could become stuff for people to talk about.
There are so many differing opinions in the world. I find it tiring to try to change everyone's opinion of me. I think everyone would find it tiring, too.
So why even bother to try? Why bother trying to change someone's opinion of you? You're going to waste your time and seriously, there's not much of a point in doing that anyway. Oh, wow, you changed someone's opinion of you, from sucky to less sucky.
Big deal. It's not like the opinions of someone could kill you or something along those lines. Whatever detrimental thing that person says about you isn't going to affect you in anyway, because you have a life of your own and you need not bother with what others have to say about you.
Well, I've been ridiculed for like half my life(since 7), and I'm rather much used to this. I attribute this to my name, which sounds like Molester.
I can't help but feel like living up to expectations, but unfortunately, much though I want to be a sex fiend, I can't. Well anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I'm already rather much used to this kind of shit.
I can't say that it's confidence, it's more of immunity to all the shit the world can throw at me. I'm not saying that I'm getting more shit than others, I'm just saying that it's just a matter of getting used to it. Something that everyone can achieve.
You can get suan-ed by your friends and family, you can get attacked by random people for random stuff, you can blah blah blah.
What matters is that the victim doesn't get too affected. There are stuff to worry over, and random detrimental comments which doesn't really make sense isn't part of the spectrum.
Here are some nice songs:
The MV is rather eerie. And abstract. Watching Eason's MVs always leaves me with big question marks.
I like the song anyway.
And lyrics which chilled me, from a song quite long back, 时光机:
真的痛总是来得很轻盈 没声音
从背后慢慢缓缓抱着我 就像你
By Mayday. Not Jay Chou. I don't like Jay Chou much, but never mind.
-- 10/26/2008 02:11:00 PM
