'And your date of death is ...'

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

In a recent interactive video, the English comedian Ricky Gervais was asked which of the following he'd prefer: to be told his death date and live longer or not to be told it but live a shorter life?

Death becomes us all. But would you like to know exactly when?

The person who posted the question didn't specify how much shorter of a life it would be so Gervais, whilst debating the merits of each possibility, suggested five years. I would have doubled that, to make it more impactful.

A grim choice

As unrealistic as the question is — although it does bring to mind the old joke about a doctor giving a man more time to live because he can't pay his bill — it, nonetheless, presents an interesting choice, if one imagines a choice was compulsory.

Gervais said it was an impossible question. Basically, choosing not to know, he would take (five) years off his life, something he might be aware of on his deathbed — if he got such a luxury when breathing his last that is. But electing to know would, he said, give him no comfort at all.

In contrast, I've often thought it would be nice to know when I'm going to die. In fact, the choice above makes it somewhat of a no-brainer for me.

By knowing when I'm going to die and in selecting that option I get more life years, well for one I can budget and plan better. If I were to discover that I've fewer years left than I'd thought, well then I could be less frugal than I am currently.  

In these pandemic times and all that has come with them — restricted movement, more uncertainty than normal, the feeling that we're going through dangerous societal changes — finding out that I'm going to be around less than I thought, well I'd actually take that as a positive right now.

'Rather than the quite impractical live-each-day-as-if-it's-your-last approach, it's better to try to add a sense of urgency to what you do.'

I'm all on for a long life as long as I'm active and fully with it — as with it as I've ever been that is — right up to my last days. The idea of spending years bed bound, suffering from dementia or the like doesn't appeal at this remove.

An urge to live

Flipping the consequences in the above choice, however, makes it far trickier for me. That is, if being told my death date resulted in a shorter life, say by ten years.

For example, imagine I had to make the choice today, aged 36. In my head, whenever I do think about this, I figure that I haven't even reached the halfway stage of my life, barring a fatal accident.

So, if by choosing to know when I'm going to die reduced my time on this planet by ten years and I got an answer of, say 40, I'd be in a state of shock, to say the least.

For one, it would mean that I was "originally" only going to live to 50, far fewer years than I'd envisaged. Secondly, and even worse, by opting to know, my life has been cut by 20 per cent and I've just been left with four years to live.

That is, I certainly hope, a most unlikely example. Of course, one never knows, though. And most of us have plenty of sad reminders of this.

In a more general sense, that we don't know when the Grim Reaper will come a-knocking, that it could be much sooner than we think, lends itself to the saying, 'Live each day as if it's your last.'

That's fine in theory. In practice, it's rather more difficult.

Altering such an approach slightly so as to make it less dramatic — and less damaging, as it potentially could be if and when you discover it's actually not your last day — is to look to add a sense of urgency to your life (as our "friend" Jordan Peterson explained in a recent podcast interview).

This should help one focus on more immediate issues, to work towards attainable goals and worry less about things that are a long way off, never mind reflecting too much on past mistakes or regrets. It's an outlook I'm trying to adopt, with some difficulty, in any case.  

Live in the moment (as best one can — the powers-that-be are making that more difficult these days) with a glance to the future whilst never losing sight of past lessons learnt. As simple as that, eh?
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

 

Swimming against the Big Tech tide

@wwaycorrigan
[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]
I recently wrote about how Big Nanny State has facilitated a tendency amongst some in society to forego growing up and taking responsibility. 'Leave everything up to me, little ones. Simply submit, follow the rules, however arbitrary many may seem, and off with you to enjoy your highly regulated lives.'

The QR-code revolution: Wrong Way is not a fan.

Virtual reality

Cosily tucked up with Big Nanny State in her warm global bed is Big Tech, monitoring everything from our sleeping patterns and what we eat for breakfast to our favourite pastimes and guilty pleasures. While this might appear a rather clandestine undertaking, the reality is, it isn't.

The virtual world that practically all in higher-income countries plus the middle classes elsewhere have signed up to with countless usernames and passwords means we have voluntarily — or at least it was voluntarily initially — invited Big Tech and its associates into our lives. And while some folk seem fairly blasé about this, there does appear to be pushback fomenting in other quarters.

The question is, shy of a system overthrow or a complete retreat from society, how does one go about living in the 21st Century whilst endorsing minimalist technological use?

Unless you're already a "made" man, woman or whatever you wish to call yourself these days, not having the likes of WhatsApp and/or an email account together with being connected to the internet 24/7, leaves you at a distinct disadvantage. And even if you are comfortably settled on Easy Street, this doesn't mean you can effortlessly free yourself from Big Tech's dominance.

Many services, from the world of finance to dining and everything else in between, now expect the user to be equipped with a smartphone — a device that tends to sap any modicum of intelligence from said user.

'In the pandemic pandemonium where each fellow human being is seen as a Grim Reaper, QR-code menus take away one potential area of contagion.'

All of this is supposedly being done in the name of convenience. Fair enough, if you can do everything from the comfort of your own home or wherever, there's something to be said for that. However, when it's done to the detriment of being able to actually sit down and talk to somebody face to face should the need arise, while I'm all against it.

A mine of information

Just one manifestation of this — something that, thankfully, rarely affects me in my modest existence in Colombia — is the switch to QR-code menus and suchlike in restaurants. Some people think this is a wonderful development.

For one, in the pandemic pandemonium where each fellow human being is seen as a Grim Reaper, it takes away one potential area of contagion: the handling of reused menus. It also cuts down on paper by reducing the need for said menus, therefore, so it goes, it's good for the environment.

Both of those "plus points" are true, but one's smartphone doesn't exactly run on fresh air, does it? Plus, outside of its component parts — including those lithium batteries, mined in ethically questionable ways, to say the least — it has to be recharged regularly.

Speaking of mining, in places where you actually order electronically, how much personal information is hammered out of us in the process? Another aspect to Big Tech's perpetual profiling.

In the realm of finance, so far my bank in Colombia, Banco Caja Social, hasn't forced me to go fully mobile. Indeed, in some regards, this particular institution is too archaic and overly bureaucratic. Nonetheless, when it comes to money, you can't be too careful all the same.

In contrast, the only bank I currently do business with in Ireland, Bank of Ireland UK in Belfast, more or less forced me recently to download its app in order to continue having access to my account. Come on guys, there are only so many apps a bog-standard smartphone can hold!

The net result of this 'move to mobile' is that it leaves us at the mercy of a faceless Big Tech. Technology is the master. To borrow, in a way, from Winston Churchill, 'Never has so much power been in the hands of so few, controlling so many.'

Call me, if you will, a contrarian conservative fearful of what amounts to nothing more than innocent and innovative change.

However, in a world where we are ceding more and more of whatever independence we had to faceless forces, I will do what I can to resist, at least for a little while longer. It will, most likely, be a futile exercise.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".