after a long break

A tele-show inspired this thought process and it was just not possible for me to not to blog it.

The concept (I think) of the show was to express that the road to death need not be riddled with so much of guilt. On one side you have the person who is dying, who feels guilty that he/she is leaving their loved ones behind. And on the other side is the family or 'loved ones' or caregivers who feel guilty that they did not or are not doing a good job.

I guess we are still at arms with the concept of death. In this whole struggle of staying alive and staying healthy, we seem to forget that death can be liberating and an end to the suffering. It is very different from suicide or euthanasia. Suicide or taking one's life is an emotional outcome/end-point, whereas the graceful acceptance of death is more physiological. The human body or for that matter any living body is programmed to die, this program is written (accepted by a school of thought) at the time of procreation. And some feel that this manuscript is modified by environmental influences, and some feel that the complete script is written during a 'lifetime'. Whenever this script is engraved into our DNA, it sets in progress of set of events which will eventually lead to the path of death.

Modern medicine today, is able to intervene in this spiral to death, but only to the extent where it is still reversible, but once we reach that 'point of no return', there is really nothing one can do. And it is after this point that we need to understand that it is more graceful and palatable to ensue the right comfort measures. It does sound as if one is not fighting for life and thus is un-natural, but one forgets that death is a concept of nature, and it is an unsaid law of nature which we have so far failed to accept and understand.

Maybe it is the fear of death combined with the fear of the unknown that spurs such a emotional outrage towards the concept of death. But the real question is: does it have to be so negative and so painful. Does one always have to feel sorry when the person dying has lived a very productive life? Does one have to feel sorry when there is an end to pain and suffering? Why cannot it be a celebration of life? Is death not the beginning of a new life? Which can be better and which can be more productive.