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.
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.
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
