Death and Ataxia

       I am not particularly looking forward to death. 

       Many times in my life, actually, I have sincerely prayed that I do not die before a certain event happens. Mostly around things with a lot of hype, like the seventh Harry Potter book and the Lord of the Rings movies. Once upon a time I prayed that I would live long enough to see the Star Wars prequels, but now when I think of those I often have a change of heart.

 I probably should have been sufficiently warned by the Star Wars Christmas Special

What I'm saying is that unless I was someone really unfortunate, like the Elephant Man or Stephenie Meyer, I would never feel good about the possibility of being deceased.

            Or so I thought.

The thing is, I think all of us feel like there are certain situations where we're glad we'll be dead, because it saves us effort and energy in the now. For instance...

Global Warming 

 

Like many people, I watched An Inconvenient Truth in the most convenient way possible: in my centrally-heated home, on a flat-screen HDTV, with my car running in the driveway to keep the leather seats from getting cold.

The message of An Inconvenient Truth was impossible to avoid: each and every one of us will have to get our shit together and quit fucking up the planet or else a good chunk of us will be dead within the century. If things keep going the way they are, the atmospheric temperature will have risen about 6 degrees Celsius by 2100. That will cause all the acid-trip catastrophes from the Book of Revelations, including floods, draughts, and the extinction of multiple species.

After hearing this, I'm sure some of us were all, “We can change the world together!” Others probably thought, “Fuck that, I'll be one of the people that survives and fights in the ensuing zombie apocalypse.” But my personal feeling, which I'm sure is shared by others, was simply:

“Meh, at least I'll be dead by then.”

 

(Assuming cryogenic preservation hasn't happened yet)

How is that a good thing? I have to ask myself. Things would have to be pretty damn bad where death is the best alternative. But it's not just wanting to avoid a tough situation; it's also sheer laziness. I don't want to have to deal with the circumstances, but I also don't want to have to do anything to prevent them. Death is the ticket to a guilt-free, consumerist lifestyle.

If you have no conscience, the world is your oyster.

It's awful and selfish, I know, and on the outside I enjoy being passionate and opinionated and pretending that either of those things changes the world. On the inside, though, I'm just heaving a huge sigh of relief that I will be a moldering corpse under two miles of water rather than having to, you know, walk ten blocks to get a Big Mac.

 Speaking of which....

Fast Food

Fast food, without a doubt, is the most surefire way of killing yourself that doesn't have a surgeon general's warning on the back. Even if it did it would probably just say: “If you eat this, you'll be dead ten years earlier than normal. But seriously, would life even be worth living at that point?”

 

Just think of all the enemas you have to look forward to!

Mark Twain once said “Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.” I always whole-heartedly agreed with this, not least because I imaged an epic, 300-style battle going on in my intenstines. I ate whatever the hell I wanted, even if it made me sick. Partly this was due to the fact that my metabolism is on par with violently copulating rabbits, but mostly it was my previously-discussed inability to look farther into the future than the last bite of a sandwich.

Then I found out that my family suffers from a fun little genetic disease called Gluten Ataxia. One step better than Celiac disease, the consumption of wheat, rye and barley not only erodes the lining of your intestines, but gives you severe neuorological symptoms as you get older as well. Essentially, I am allergic to happiness and all things good in the world.

 Pictured here

The problem isn't that I have this disease, because it's pretty easy to avoid: don't eat gluten.

Easier said than done.

The problem is that I don't have any symptoms now. I could eat all the bread, fried chicken and cookie dough in the world and the only problem I'd have would be resisting the temptation to turn the whole thing into a sandwich and selling it to KFC. I don't have symptoms now and I probably won't until I'm in my forties. Which puts me in a horrifying situation: eat the best foods in life now and die early and painfully, or live a soulless, empty, gluten-free life for the next fifty years.

Heck, if I eat enough gluten, I won't even be around for the beginning stages of the end of the world. Global warming will, at best, give me a nice tan before my body just gives out. This really hasn't taught me to live a smarter, healthier life, in respect to myself or the planet. It's simply taught me that decisions can be indefinitely put off with the oddly satisfying thought, 

“Well, at least I won't have to live through that.”