Should 'old people' stay at home, not go away on holiday, not clog the available facilities at the sea side, not fill the space when a younger more energetic pairing with their kids would so easily appreciate and find benefit.
Being old is a schizophrenic process. Part memory, part reflection, part reality, it's a process of slowly letting go and trying to find new resolutions which are more age appropriate.
Perhaps staying at home more, content with your own company is the safe answer. Of course there is a silence in a
house if you live on your own. It can be a comforting silence a solace
from all the noise of the world around. If you want noise you can
turn on the TV or the radio, tune into music or watch a game of sport.
The subtle difference between living with others or on your own is that
you are in control. Of course some people like the turbulence of having
others crashing about, inflicting their world
on yours sometime destroying the peace you desire with a claim to your time, can we go shopping is a perfect antidote to the match you so wanted to watch.
As human beings we compartmentalise our feelings. I was listening to a report on the progress of a bill through
parliament to remove the last vestiges of any sort of qualification
regarding a women's right to abort a fetus growing inside her. The
spinning
of the concept that the fetus is not a child is clearly a convenient
stretch of anyone's imagination, allowing the wholesale harvesting of
unborn potential life on such a scale that our heartfelt unhappiness at
seeing thousands of children being killed in
conflicts around the world or in traffic accidents at home pales in comparison to the many thousands of potential children who are killed each year in our abortion clinics.
In or struggle to ensure the rights that women have to control their bodies we miss completely the rights of the unborn child.
And so our schizophrenia, our double dealing, our inability to call a spade a spade continues to distort our quest as a species to do the 'right thing' since what is right is different for each one of us.
If the young unborn child has no rights why should a person suffering acute dementia have rights. Do they garner the rights through being born when we know the act of birth is only a process.
In the far north where the Laplander's continue to spend their
entire lives following the herds of reindeer as they migrate in search
of food, when the old person in the group loses the ability to keep up
with the herd he / she is left behind to die of
starvation. A harsh decision but one predicated on the survival of the group.
Perhaps it is time, if we have found it in our souls to be so relaxed at killing our unborn young we should consider the euthanasia of our old and crippled.
Who knows how far this will go to healing the 'black hole' in our financial affairs and since our 'black hearts' can find solace in disguising facts with a political convenience I would suggest Parliament is the ideal place to start the debate.
)
No comments:
Post a Comment