Old age is not natural.

@bijouxbroussard Why do you say that?

@sree251 Because I appreciate having access to modern medicines and other advances that have allowed me to live longer than some of my ancestors.

@bijouxbroussard Whatever for? Life is for the young and viable. It's about bursting into life in the spring, and the joy of butterflies flitting about in the summer sun. Fall is the time to reel it in and fade out before the arrival of winter.

@sree251 I’m sorry if you’re finding that to be so, but I’m happy to be here, and I’m still making a difference. The only reason to want an exit would be if my health became unmanageable. As long as I feel good and am taking care of myself, I see continuing to draw breath as a privilege.
Because once it’s over, it will really be over. And hopefully I’ll have no regrets.

@bijouxbroussard Finding what to be so? I am not saying that all old people should die. There are people who are old and healthy and enjoying their lives immensely. As long as I am healthy and lucid, I would like to live as old as Prince Philip with all the queen's horses and queen's men.

@sree251 Good. That perspective was not coming through.

@bijouxbroussard Yes, but how many people are physically and financially viable at 90? You lose vision to cataracts by 60 or 70 when you become half blind. I would like to see Prince Philips medical records. Look, a good time to decommission the body is when it is past it's prime.

@sree251 Not many, but some are. Didn’t we agree that the point is whether or not one is still healthy and vital ? And that’s not the same age for everyone. Some people are done by 45, others still raring to go at 73. Self-care and genetics.

Incidentally, cataract surgery made me glasses-free after having worn them since age 7. It’s basically the same process as lasik.

@bijouxbroussard You would be dead by 7 in a natural world if you could not see. Why would that be tragic? 4.5 babies are born every second.

@sree251 You illustrate my initial point—"´natural’ is overrated"! Because of modern advances I was able to see clearly with the use of glasses and as an older person my eyes were corrected. I’m grateful for these things.

@bijouxbroussard I know you are grateful, from a personal standpoint. My topic is about the human condition in which the individual has no relevance.

@sree251 Well, I gave my perspective as an individual, because you asked for a clarification. To attempt to speak for humankind would be, well, [b]arrogant[/b], to say the least. 🤨

@bijouxbroussard I am humankind. The individual perspective is not natural. It is an endemic disease called selfishness. It is the self that is afraid to die and has need to keep the body alive regardless.

@sree251 You are one human being.
And I repeat, "natural" is overrated. But then, a certain amount of selfishness is [b]very[/b] natural—it can be observed in children and in non-human animals. We generally only train children to moderate that selfishness so that they can get along in the larger society. Otherwise, selfishness is part of the survival instinct. Not pretty, but true.

@bijouxbroussard Selfishness is not part of nature. No one struts his stuff in the forest. As for children, they are not selfish at all. A kid scarfing down a whole cake is natural. My dog did that one time. He climbed up the table and went thru a bag of donuts I brought home from the farmers' market for breakfast. Our training of children is part of the evil of selfishness that has built a massive war machine for killing people in the defense of our way of life.

@sree251 Selfishness, taking what one wants or needs, even if it’s at another’s expense, is very much a part of nature. The child you described was not sharing the cake, nor was your dog sharing the donuts. They took what they wanted. Again, you illustrated my point rather than your own.

@bijouxbroussard Well, we do have different perspectives of selfishness. All animals need food. Even trees also. Are trees selfish then? This is not an argument to defend a point of view. Now, that would be selfish in my opinion. We are discussing, examining, like two researchers collaborating in a project to find out what the hell is wrong with us.

@sree251 Lol ! Do trees deprive other organisms of life in order to stay fed ? If so, then the answer would be, "yes".

I think if we really want to see what we are naturally, it makes sense to watch the behavior of children, before they begin emulating us and learning what our society will require of them.

And to see what is truly "natural" (that is, of nature) we should watch how animals behave, especially the ones humans haven’t domesticated. Their behavior has no political agenda—at least not in the way we understand it.
And it isn’t intrinsically good or bad—it just [b]is[/b].

@bijouxbroussard Children emulate us from the moment we drum into them what's what. We mold them in our own likeness. Have you seen an American in an international airport abroad? I can pick him out before he opens his mouth to speak.

@sree251 [quote] it makes sense to watch the behavior of children, BEFORE they begin emulating us and learning what our society will require of them. [/quote]

@bijouxbroussard You don't get it, do you? There is no "BEFORE". In the beginning at birth, there was nothing. Then, dad and mom say, "let there be light", and there was light. The rest is a horror of a human being created in their likeness.

@sree251 You assume that if someone disagrees with you, it’s because they don’t understand ? That’s not always the case. It [b]is[/b] possible to just see the world differently. 🤨

@bijouxbroussard Sorry, I don't mean to be obnoxious in a two-way conversation and speaking down to you. The baby is a blank sheet of paper until that mom and dad start scrawling on it. We are the expression of our culture that drives our consciousness. The baby is an unformmated hard drive.