Alrighty, is everybody ready? Okay, so just follow the bouncing ball and… shi-dookie, it would appear that the bouncing ball is outdated and doesn’t bode well in printed copy. So just follow along as best you can. Watch me for the changes and try to keep up. And a 1, and a 2, and a… “Happy Birthday to me… happy birthday to me… happy birth…”
Ah screw it, my heart’s not in it and neither is yours. Especially you… the out of tune guy in the horn rims and Pink Floyd shirt. Just stop, this is not the proper way to ring in the 2nd ½.
“The second half of what?” you may be asking. Well, seeing as how this is the dawn of my 51st year trapped on the planet (My people will come for me eventually.) I’ll officially be entering the second half of a century.
“Woah-oh we’re halfway there, woah-oh Depends and grey hair. Grab my walker, help me down the stairs.” Of course, taking the current life expectancy ratio into account. The full completion of that sacred second half may be an unrealistic, unobtainable goal. In that reality stating that I’m embarking on the 3rd ¼ may be a more accurate assumption. Give or take a day or two, because you never know how long life lasts till you live it.
“I’m 15 for a moment, caught in between ten and 20. And I’m just dreaming, counting the ways to where you are. 15, there’s still time for you. Time to buy and time to lose. 15, there’s never a wish better than this. When you’ve only got a hundred years to live.” Lyrics excerpted from the song- “100 years”, by the pop group Five for Fighting circa 2004. Nope, sorry triple F, more like- “When you’ve only got 76.33 years to live” would be more accurate.
But what if you did have 100 years? What if you, hell everybody, were guaranteed 100 hundred years of life, exactly to the second? Born with a literal 100-year expiration date birthmark-tattooed onto you? A promissory 100-year warranty -auto accidents, terminal illnesses or ignorance pending.
Let’s go a step further, in this secured centurion state of existence. The maximum physical age your body would achieve would be half your years. So, when you’re 100, you’d look and feel like 50. Your roaring 20s, 30 somethings, and lordy 40s would stretch out to compensate for the 100-year time frame. The childhood and puberty time ratio would remain the same… for obvious reasons.
So now what? You’ll never truly grow physically infirmed by age, and you know how long you will live- life style and choices pending. Would you want to live so long? How would you live your life differently, if you knew exactly how long you had? Would you live it differently? How different would life in general be if the end were known well in advance?
Speaking of the end. Since we’re messing with life, let’s cut to the end. How should it end when your time is up? They say there is no dignity in death, so maybe we should take the indignity out of it.
As the clock ticks down and your century draws to a close. Your body pulls a slow fade into nonexistence. You wave goodbye and bid fond farewells as you quietly dissolve. No mess over your dead body and no funeral bill. Maybe you become ash. Ashes to ashes dust to dust and all that jazz. And everyone could take a handful of you home… or use the vacuum to clean you up. Or maybe, at the very end, you explode into a burst of glitter and confetti. Time it right and you could get proper revenge on someone you disliked in life. By dying in their living room. They’d never get you out of their carpet.
Sigh, if wishes were fishes the world would be an ocean and we’d all drown. We all age. We all grow old. And only a rare few see the turn of the century. Then… we die. Geez- “Happy Birthday to me” indeed!
We don’t know how long we’ve got. We can’t explode when we die. But we can make the best of being here till we do. I suppose that’ll have to suffice for now.
I welcome almost all questions, comments via Focus, or E-mail me at [email protected]. Hope to hear from ya, until then try and stay focused! See ya.
