mtbc | One's impact on the group

I heard a radio interview with a lady who was specifying her do not resuscitate conditions. Her reasoning for being accepting of death was that she did not want to be a burden and she already had children and grandchildren. It felt peculiar to hear her as it reminded me of attitudes within the Third Reich: women should have plenty of strong children and the chronically infirm should consider euthanasia. I suppose that the difference might be one of how strong the pressure is to conform to the ideology but I did find it curious to notice how the lady's more selfless thinking was twisted by the Nazis into something sinister.

I found the lady's thinking interesting also from the point of view of what it implied about what is worthwhile. After all, I think of my many healthy years of working and paying my taxes as earning myself some geriatric burdensomeness. I love and think well of my children but I do not have any strong sense of their being a principal means by which I bequeath to society a positive legacy: indeed, wanton procreation may draw the attention of Malthus' specter.