Just Blame Me

I’m going to take a break from my usual Marooners’ Rock wrap-up posts to call attention to a totally different blog and post. A few weeks ago, Stuart Schneiderman over at his Had Enough Therapy? Blog, had a really long and excellent post called “The War Against Death”, which forms a discussion about Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book Natural Causes. The entire article is well worth reading, but one quotation from an article by Deanna Pai in New York Magazine, plus Schneiderman’s analysis really jumped out at me.

Pai says “But Ehrenreich’s analysis of our approach to death will resonate with anyone who’s ever had a serious illness, and she’s particularly incisive about the world’s collective need to know how others died so one can avoid making that same mistake, whatever it is. ‘Did she smoke? Drink excessively? Eat too much fat and not enough fiber? Can she, in other words, be blamed for her own death?’ she writes.”

Schneiderman adds “Can we blame her for her death? A sobering thought, to say the least. In a world where psycho professionals are beating the drums for non-judgmentalism, here we see the new accepted way of judging people. We do not judge them for their degenerate and decadent behaviors. We do not judge them for their bad manners. But, we happily pile on to the man with cancer because he ate too many fatty foods and did not eat enough fiber.

Blaming others for their deaths tells the living that they are better, that they have better, healthier habits. Does this allow them to believe that they have a say in when and how they die? I am hardly persuaded that it’s all about control. The term has become the psycho cliché du jour.”

What jumped out at in particular was the idea of people blaming others for bringing about their own demise. Here’s the thing. I love riding my motorcycle, and have no intention to quit until physically unable. I plan to get back in the cockpit and never stop committing aviation unless some physical limitations kick in. I’ll run until my body gives out (even though I still kind of hate it). Any one of those things could punch my ticket, as they have for countless people before me.

Much as I’d prefer a quiet, peaceful end in my hundreds, surrounded by three or four generations of family, it’s not something that everyone gets. I’m sure Crossfield, LeFon, Campbell, Salom, and all those others would have preferred that too, but that’s not what happened. I'm still not going to stop

I’ve talked about risks before, and risk mitigation, and the idea that risk can be managed, but never totally avoided. Call me a fatalist, but I take the view that when God calls me home, there’s no way around it. If that happens while I’m astride a snorting, angry Harley, or already cruising with the angels in a Cessna or a Mustang II, well, that’s just the way it’ll be. No doubt there will be some mental blaming by those who don’t know – “Oh, he shouldn’t have been doing that, it's too risky.” They’ll never understand the thrill of being alive that comes from melding with the road in a perfect turn, or slipping in a perfect landing at the end of a practice flight. 

Any of these things might kill me. But I’d also be dead if I stopped.