Given the alternative, I find myself quite ready to die

Photo by Myriam Zilles on UnsplashI would like to live to one hundred. That’s the goal. Maybe a few years more, if I can. That gives me roughly seventy years from where I stand now, which is a pretty generous amount of time by any historical measure. Most of my ancestors, going back as far as anyone has bothered to record, would have considered seventy years from birth to death to be an absurd bounty.Well, I want those years. I am perfectly happy to be aware that the wonderful evening I’ve been having will end, and I’d prefer it end later rather than sooner.But at the same time, I find myself curiously at peace with the idea that the evening will come to an end, no matter what I do. I want a long life, but I don’t want an endless one.Death seems to me a natural feature of the landscape. Like winter and the tide. You can rail against the tide if you want; you can build seawalls, pumps, and elaborate machines to hold back the water. But the tide is inevitable. It comes, and it goes, and…