If you ended back in camp you’d be welcomed. If you didn’t, that was your end. I found that remarkably comforting and peaceful.
However, social acceptance may lead to more egregious abuses: the issue gained a higher profile in early 2010, when an 80-year-old man escaped after discovering his intended fate and heard his family members discussing how they were going to "share" his lands, and took refuge in a relative's home.
People obsess over this risk. It—and religious opposition—are the reason it’s only an option for those who can travel to and hospice in Switzerland.
> social acceptance may lead to more egregious abuses
Do we have any evidence societies that have tolerated suicide had higher rates of murder? Switzerland doesn’t strike me as a hotbed of senior murder, for example.
What you call "comforting" is leaving a helpless prison in the wilderness to succumb to thirst, hunger or predators
I wish to remain so lucid when the time comes, that I can go sit under a tree and let myself go like that old dog. Perhaps I should leave a note.
That’s kind of what I want when I die too - I don’t think I want to be around other people when it happens. I want to have my final moments to face death on my own, without feeling like I have to perform for other people.
… that said, give me another 60 years to chew on it and maybe I’ll feel different.
A lot of motivation to be risk averse with my physical body in this life comes from a desire to make it to old age. Furthermore, I instantly understood why having children was good when I realized that they are your insurance that you’ll (usually) have someone to help comfort you on your deathbed who is themselves still lucid.
