When the music's over

Welcome to this week's Reno News & Review.

I can get some weird shit going in my head sometimes. Last night, I was wondering whether it's better to live by one's nature or to die.

Two things sent my mind in this direction. First, a friend called me on my Alzheimer's suicide threat from that 23andme story we published the other week. He's got it, and he says the meds will keep him going for a long time.

The other thing is that two of our cats came up missing. We suspect the worst: Coyotes. We live on the rim of a canyon.

First, I'm quite willing to say I'd manage Alzheimer's for as long as I could with medications. Still, I have no moral compunctions against suicide, but I do have moral compunctions against being a burden to my family. To me, the idea that the state could consider it a crime to end one's own life is proof of how free we human beings really are. But I have this idea that death is not as certain for us as it was 50 years ago. We live in an age of wonders, and it won't be long until we're replacing organs with organs grown from our own stem cells or downloading our psyches into hard-drives with hands. I have every intention of living to be 300 and then making a decision.

So, if I was a cat, would I rather have lived one year coming and going as a free creature or never have enjoyed a blue sky? I knew those cats a year ago before they gained the freedom of a cat door, and I can tell you they were much happier climbing trees and laying on the deck rail than they ever were pissing in a basement. In my life, it's the danger that has always added spice, and I know someday, it's the physical universe that's going to transmute my energy. But if I was a cat, would I forsake the outdoor life I've lived for incarceration and a longer life?

I don't think so. I'm with Socrates on this one. If there's nothing coming after, then life is not even a dream. But if there is something to come, what cowards are we to hide from it?