What I Would Die For...

I’m not a particularly courageous man, not like some of my friends who are soldiers or sailors in the military, but after my accident in 2007, the idea of dying really doesn’t bother me as much as it used to, since I wasn’t upset about not being born, and in all likelihood, won’t get bent out of shape about being dead, as long as the process of getting there — going on each day of my life, the clock ticking inexorably away — is well-spent doing some real good in the world.

Once you’ve looked the Reaper in her bony eye-sockets for the first time, you get to thinking about things, even without involving the claims of religion, like who and what you would be willing to live and die for…

Would I be willing to die for my beliefs?

No.

The reason for this is simple: My beliefs, even the most rational, and even my knowledge at its most secure, are not certain. They all come with a margin of error appended. Any one of my beliefs can be wrong, and my best, most reliable, solid knowledge could be mistaken, and so dying for these would not be worth the sacrifice, no matter the conviction with which I hold them true. It would be wasted on something of little consequence to the world at large and of little consequence to me.

But I would die, as I live, for my friends, my loved ones, and anyone I come to care for — I’m sort of romantic that way — to me, friends are people who one should be willing to give one’s life for if necessary.

Would I kill for a friend?

I honestly don’t know. I don’t think I have it in me to take a human life…I lack a warrior’s disposition. The thought of actually killing a real person fills me with revulsion, and I think about it just long enough to flatly reject the notion.

Also, I cannot predict what my mental state, attitudes and beliefs will be at any future date, and I’m not interested in talking sh*t — it’s dishonest to me.

But I don’t see anything wrong with offering myself to save someone else, and I don’t care what anyone reads into that, as long as more lives are preserved than lost, since altruism, not the straw-person parody of it touted by followers of Ayn Rand, but real-world altruism, one of our noblest primate legacies from our early ancestors on the plains of Africa, has obvious evolutionary benefits in enhancing the long-term survival and reproductive success of social groups.

I would make a poor Conservative indeed, though that’s for a future post to address.

So I’m certainly willing to live for what I believe, and for what little I know, but dying for it just seems like such as waste when it could be wrong — I want to be as justifiably confident as I can about the real world, but something like my own limited knowledge is worth more adding to, not getting killed over, for there’s no logic in ending one’s life when certainty in matters of fact is elusive.

This is likely to be the only life I’ll get, so I’ll live it for what it’s worth, for myself and those I care for.

Namaste.

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