Departures

It was a strange thought - which little oblong bubble I chose to fill with ink would decide, very literally, whether I lived or died. I guess technically it would decide how long I’d live and when I’d die, since we all die eventually.

3. I feel that I am not especially in control of my life.

* Strongly disagree

* Moderately disagree

* Slightly disagree

* Slightly agree

* Moderately agree

* Strongly agree

I’ve always felt too smart for these tests. Since I feel that I know which answers will push a diagnosis in a particular direction, I have to make an additional choice - Do I want to be diagnosed with whatever the test is intended to determine? I’m then thrown into a much deeper and more difficult conundrum. What consequences does that have for my life? A new drug? More time on some standardized test? Or some limitation on my life that I’d like to avoid? In this particular case, I knew that I wanted to die, or at least the option to die, so the obvious answer for this question, if my goal is to receive the “death cocktail”, is that I don’t feel especially in control. So the answer to question #3 is option F; Strongly Agree. But then again, maybe I should just be honest; surrender and answer with gut instinct instead of calculation and meta awareness. What do I really feel? Does everyone go through this rigamarole? Maybe I’m not smarter than anyone, just less trusting, or more neurotic?

Even if I decide that I want to be honest and hear what the test has to say about me, I need to decide how to answer a complex multivariate question about the uncertainties of life on an impossibly oversimplified scale from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. Am I in control of my life? That’s the thrust of the question, but for some reason, the author of this study decided to word it in the negative. Why this a shuffling maneuver? Is it written intentionally to throw me into this loop? Is the author of this test sufficiently smarter than me to manipulate me against my will even while I think I’m operating on a level above the testers? I hoped so. I wanted it to say something real about me rather than simply function as a bureaucratic gatekeeper.

Am I in control of my life? This is a philosophical question about the nature of self and of freewill. Intellectually, no, I don’t feel I have no control over my life. Causes proceed effects and I’m not in any semblance of control over the causes, neither am I in particular control over my mostly-instinctual response to whatever life throws at me. Neither nature nor nurture are of my own making. Emotionally, I’m somewhere in-between. It feels like I have something like freewill but even if my individual actions and choices are free, it certainly doesn’t feel like I can really control the direction of my life. I can’t seem to reliably achieve my goals or obtain my desires without a solid heaping of luck and good circumstance. Life, at its best, is uncertain, at its worst, it can kick you around, throw you curve balls, or kick you in the nuts.

So no, I don’t feel especially in control of my life, or, phrased in the correct answer to the unnecessarily convoluted question with the equally vexing answer options: I strongly agree that I feel that I am not especially in control of my life. Since this answer aligns perfectly with the outcome I know I’m looking for anyway, I decided to stop the internal bloviation and just fill in the bubble.

I’ll take option F please. Thanks.

—

Despite the picture I hoped my results would paint for the people on the Compassionate Departure Committee, I was actually quite content and happy about my life. I hadn’t attained the most grandiose of my hopes as a young person, but I would venture to guess that few have. I had always fancied myself a cut above the rest. This was unsurprising considering 65% of Americans consider themselves to be “above average” on a variety of metrics including general intelligence. Rarely is a statistic that self-referential and comedic. Still, even knowing this human tendency, I had always felt that I was part of the 15.8% (per the standard deviation) of the population who was correct in their assessment of their own above average ability.

I hadn’t won any awards and didn’t have any letters in front of my name that signified academic achievement but I had built a nice life for myself. I had traveled more than most, which was not really an accomplishment worth bragging about since more than half of the American populace has never obtained a passport. I had good relationships with my family and friends. I didn’t have as many truly close friends as I would have liked but it wasn’t something that caused me anxiety or issues. In fact, I rarely had anxiety. I wasn’t immune from the occasional ‘shame spiral’ after having drank heavily the night before or consumed too much cannabis but generally, I was stable in my satisfaction and with myself.

You’re probably asking yourself why did I wanted to die? It was a reasonable question and one I continually asked myself. Occasionally I even felt guilty about it. Plenty of people with much more challenging lives than mine chose every day to stick around. Yet, the more I thought about it, the more it felt like not just what I wanted to do, but what I should do. Our beautiful planet was actively being choked to death by the sheer amount of people. My departure would be a relief to the world. It would mean less burden on an overtaxed system and more resource for others to enjoy. Plus, since my family was doing well financially, they would probably donate the Compassionate Departure Incentive check to charity which seemed like a good thing.

Honestly, even though all those thoughts have passed through my head and are probably true, the real reason is because, on some level, i’m just lazy. Life is hard, even for someone as privileged as myself, and it seems like this would be easier to opt out… and if it’s better for the world anyway… why not?

It was a strange feeling waiting for the results of my Life Satisfaction Survey. I tried hard not to think about it but, come on! Think of the last time you waited to hear back after a job interview, or after submitting college applications. Those are certainly potentially life altering moments, but they aren’t literal life and death. When I finally got the email from the St. Augustine Hospital: Compassionate Care Department, I couldn’t get myself to open it at first. When I finally clicked the email open, I almost flinched away from the keyboard as I hit the down arrow key. My eyes skipped the entire thing and scrolled right down to the tiny little word… ‘approved’. My fist instinct was elation, as if I’d aced a test or been selected for a dream job. It was an ego boost; I’d won. It took awhile for the cognitive dissonance to set it.

There were preparations to think about. Since the Healthy Compassion Bill passed, an entire culture, even a cottage industry, had formed around Compassionate Departure - people didn’t use the term suicide anymore. People spent thousands, sometimes even tens of thousands, of dollars on their death parties. It was almost like a wedding or a quinceanera. It was a social contest. The final great pissing contest. Online services began popping up. ENSURE YOUR ONLINE LEGACY. BE REMEMBERED WELL. These services would clean up bad reviews, erase embarrassing photos, and construct memorial pages.

I’d always thought the whole concept was idiotic but now, faced with the thing, I found myself scrolling through options. I wondered which online memorial page best represented the life I’d lived. The more I scrolled and shopped, the more I seemed to actually care. I knew I was being manipulated by marketing but I couldn’t stop wondering If I had to pick one photo that would be my ‘profile photo’ for the rest of eternity, would it be silly or serious? There are parts of me that want to be remembered as fun-loving but another part that would prefer to be represented as serious and thoughtful. Maybe I should buy the multi page version? What font should I use?

--

“Have you thought about what your death party is going to look like?” Bethany leaned over almost putting her head on my shoulder and whispered.

I had told a few people in passing that I was going to take the Life Satisfaction Survey. I think I thought it was edgy and, in hindsight, I certainly think I was angling for attention by over-sharing. I was ashamed of my motives as soon as it came out of my mouth but word spread quickly and it didn’t take long to forget my shame and begin basking in the attention. Especially when Bethany was leaning over, her hot breath glancing my neck as she whispered. I wasn’t afraid of girls or some kind of virgin weirdo, but I also wasn’t exactly a smooth talker. My head was filled with stinging regretful moments where I said the absolute wrong thing and sabotaged my chances with girls.

“I haven’t thought much about it yet.” I whispered back, a little self conscious about talking over the presenting speaker and honestly not having given it much thought.

“You should throw a theme party!”

“Yeah, maybe.”

I honestly couldn’t imagine myself throwing a theme party. I had a hard time imagining myself throwing any kind of party. Would people even show up? If I’m honest with myself, the fear of no one showing up has kept me from ever throwing any kind of party.

“I might just do something small.” I whispered back, mostly just to keep the conversation going.

“No way! It’s your death party! You need to throw a rager!” She emphasized ‘death’ and was loud enough that our co-workers around us turned around.

I must have given some impression that I would be out of my depth.

“I’ll help you. I love throwing parties!” She seemed genuinely excited, “Seriously, swing by my hotel room later and we’ll come up with some ideas.”

She pressed a piece of paper onto my palm with her number, Room 632 and a smiley face.

—

It took some self-cajoling, and a few drinks from the minibar, to get myself to text.

Hey. This is Phil. You gave me your number earlier.

BETH: Hm… I gave my number out a lot this week...

…

BETH: I’m fucking with you Phil. You going to come up to the room or what?

As nervous as I was, it all felt effortless, unforced, easy, and beautiful. We poured a drink but before we had taken more than a couple of sips, her arms were around my neck and then she was on top of me on the bed. It was equal parts thrilling and comfortable. We both finished together. She rolled over and disappeared into the bathroom. She left the door open. Her voice poured out of the adjacent room along with the warm yellow light that spilled onto the foot of the bed.

“So, Phil,” She paused for dramatic effect, “Why is it you want to die?”

I was a little stunned by the forwardness. We hadn’t yet exchanged many words in our short relationship, if you could call it that.

“Well.” I hesitated, knowing I didn’t quite know yet myself, “It just seems like the right thing to do.”

“No mountain of debt you’re trying to escape? No suffocating guilt over some horrible atrocity you committed?”

“No. Things are actually going pretty well for me.”

“Come on! There has to be some skeleton lurking in your closet that prompted a decision like this.”

“Not really.”

She sauntered back into the room. Her subtle curves glowed as the warm light wrapped around her smooth olive skin. She launched herself onto the bed next to me. The mattress bounced briefly and recovered leaving her at rest inches from my face.

“Interesting…” She pinched her chin in a mock contemplative pose, “Then why? And you have to give me a better answer than ‘it seemed like the right thing to do’. What does that even mean?”

“It means there are too many people on this planet. We’re destroying the beautiful gift we’ve been given. My life is ok, but it’s not worth causing others to suffer.”

“Oh, so you’re an environmentalist.”

“I mean. I bring my own bags to the grocery store. I don’t eat animal based meat. But I’m not bombing ski lodges or trying to sink commercial fishing vessels.”

“And you think you’re being alive causes others to suffer?”

“I think I’m a drop in the bucket of deforestation, climate change, commercialization, pollution and I know those things cause people to suffer.”

“So why don’t you dedicate your life to fixing those things instead of just ending it.”

“I don’t know. I guess I just feel like I’ll never make a big enough difference to actually change anything. Even our president, with all her great intentions, can barely get a useful piece of legislation across the finish line.”

She gave a little shrug conceding the point. “Don’t you have anyone that would miss you?”

“Yeah, I mean, my parents are both around and obviously they’d be sad. But I think they’d understand and respect my decision.”

“They’d be sad?! Just a little sad? Like if the restaurant was out of the dish they like?” She gestured an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Why don’t you call them right now and tell them about what you’re planning.”

“Ok. You’re right. They probably wouldn’t support it. But it would be out of selfish reasons.”

“Isn’t pretty much everything we do out of selfish reasons? Does that make them bad reasons?”

“That’s part of why I want to do this. It’s one decision that’s actually for others. Something that feels like real selflessness”

“Ok,” She rolled her eyes again and then rolled over straddling me, “Well, for now, why don’t you do a few more selfless things for me. Just make sure you don’t enjoy it.”

—

Over the next few weeks we barely spent a moment apart. I shifted my flight home from the conference so I could give her a ride home for the airport. We did our best to avoid the subject of Compassionate Departure. We got to know each other in the usual ways. She was from a small town in Ohio. Her parents split up when she was young. She had a normal childhood. We both loved Bob Dylan. She loved a bunch of movies I hated. She felt as semi-satisfied and ambivalent about her job at Oracle as I did - neither of us knew anyone that was overly enthusiastic about corporate insurance.

Occasionally, especially when Beth had more a couple adult beverages or smoked a joint, the topic of Departure would come up.

“Are you ever worried that this is just the newest incarnation of eugenics?”

“I’ve heard that. Seems valid but doesn’t really apply to me personally.”

“Aren’t you the ‘vote with your dollars and actions’ guy?”

“Yeah, but.”

“But what? You’re supporting it aren’t you? How does it not apply?”

“Well, I do support it. We have too many people taking up too many resources. The world would be better for everyone if there were a few less mouths to feed, a few less people filling our trash barges, and a few less transport vehicles filling our cities.”

“You don’t think there’s any merit to the idea that it’s all just a convenient way to get rid of the poor, of immigrants, of black and brown people?”

“I guess. But…”

“Do you think that it’s a coincidence that people less likely to ‘feel they’re in control’ of their lives or ‘report high life satisfaction’ are the people that have had a boot on their necks for a thousand years?” She was getting fired up.

“I do.” I did genuinely worry about the fairness of it all, “But do you think we should go back to the old days when the most fundamental freedom, the choice to exist or not, was determined by the government!? Suicide used to be illegal!”

“Don’t say that word.”

“So you agree we should continue to lift the stigma on Departures?” I was half picking a fight and half defending a belief, “Don’t you think it’s better this way? Both for the people suffering who want a way out and for the people left here with that much more space and resource?”

“Shit… I don’t know.” She paused for a moment earnestly lingering on the thought, “I guess. But I also think it feels like an easy way to sweep the disadvantaged into the waste bin of society. And the CD check feels disgusting. It puts a monetary value on human life. It makes poor people need to consider if their loved ones are worth more to them than that fucking check.”

“That part definitely feels fucked up.” I conceded, still not realizing what the argument was actually about.

“So why are you going to support something you think is fucked up. That’s not the person I fell in…” She stopped herself mid sentence.

We had never exchanged those words with each other. The air froze between us, viscus and heavy. Awkward silence past a certain point in a relationship carries an extra level of pain. We held in a moment of suspended animation before I finally pushed through the moment, arms extended. I pulled her in close to my chest, my fingers slid under the taut strands of her ponytail, the wetness of her tears soaked through my shirt as she heaved in my arms.

Finally she looked up, eyes red, face puffy, “I don’t want to let you go.”

I felt my own wet cheeks but said nothing and pushed her head back into my body and squeezed tight.

—

The time came for my final follow up appointment to the Compassionate Care Department. I went through the motions. Everyone involved seemed to be just checking the boxes. The trend had leaned towards facilitating as many departures as possible. There were still plenty of opposition groups. Every month it seemed there was new protest but the idea has already passed some imaginary threshold. People accepted it. Once it passed into law, it made the transformation from something that could be to something that is. Human’s are remarkably adaptable creatures; often to our own detriment. Ideas are foisted upon us and unless they’re blocked before they can ben enacted, they just become part of the humming background - something we accept as inevitable. The same thing in our brains that allows individuals to survive a famine or a concentration camp also allowed well-intentioned citizens to abide a holocaust in their backyard.

I left the clinic with a small metal lockbox that contained the cocktail. It was lighter than I would have imagined. It was hard to imbue it with the weight and import of its contents. When I got home I took each of the three tiny white pills and placed them in a heart shaped gold locket that my mother had given me. I felt it’s shape in my clenched fist. I tried to think of it as a portal to another world, or at least out of this one, but it remained an inert metal shape in my hand. It filled me with a vague sadness.

I didn’t tell Beth about the appointment. She had to drop by her sister’s house after work and wouldn’t be home till after dark. I decided I had time to make it to the top of a nearby hike before sunset. Beth and I had a joke about always leaving a note when we went on benign errands. It was a reference to the common refrain, good advice, about leaving a note before heading out on a dangerous wilderness adventure, but when applied to heading to purchase food at the local mart it made us chuckle.

I scratched the note onto the back of an old shopping list and left it on the counter,

“I didn’t want you to be able to say I didn’t leave a note. I’m sorry I didn’t say those three words back to you the other night. I love you.”

Sitting atop a rock outcropping, watching the setting sun approach the tree’d horizon in the valley opposite me, I closed my eyes and let the cooling breeze touch my face. I pulled the locket from my pocket and turned it in my palm. I let my mind become a blank canvas. As they always do, thoughts crept back in uninvited and kidnapped my attention. I wondered if I really believed that our growing population was a cause of suffering. I did.

Was there any way that more people, more conscious minds, even if they were perfectly happy, add up to something better? What did better even mean? I guess three happy people are in some sense better than one. Did that scale? Were 8 billion and one happy people better than 8 billion? What if that last person made even one of those 8 billion a little less happy?

What if that last one tipped some scale that made one single of that 8 billion person suffer? Suffering is certainly more acutely felt than whatever we mean by ‘happiness’ or ‘well-being’. And to the one suffering, the math is truly irrelevant. A person can certainly care about others, maybe even feel something like real empathy, but can that ever rival their own personal suffering? I didn’t think so. A stubbed toe feels more urgent and real to us than a billion people starving halfway around the globe. I decided that since we can each only inhabit our own mind, and since the contents of our mind is quite literally everything to us, our entire universe, that a single person’s suffering is as important as 8 billion other people’s contentment or even happiness.

I turned the locket in my hand again. My fingers involuntarily traced its edges and grooves as I thought. Was I the direct cause of anyone else’s suffering? I didn’t know. I did know that if I took the cocktail I certainly would be for the few people in my life. I rolled it in my hand and traced the smooth edges with my fingers as I felt its weight.