So my father-in-law passed away from dementia recently so I've been thinking about this a lot. Some family members could not be arsed (to borrow a phrase) to really care for him over the last several years, and from their viewpoint he was a burden. Some could, though, and to them he wasn't a burden, but a way to express their love. And looking back his long decline of course had a negative effect on a lot of people, but I don't know if it would have been any less negative had he put a bullet in his brain 5 years ago.
My dad is going through the same thing right now with Lewy Body Dementia and it's terrible. I've seen enough to know that if it shows up in me, I'm outta here. It might be hard on my family, but I'm not going to endure years of decline where most days I'm terrified from hallucinations which leads to violent outbursts directed at the people trying to help me.
Well, for one thing, "adds value" on HN is a pretty loaded term that comes down to "making money for someone else". You're basically saying that when you can't pull any harder, you'll line up behind Boxer at the glue factory so the pigs get one last cent out of your hide.
But lets assume a more charitable definition of 'adds value', then when does that end? I'd argue 'never', but I've also lost a parent and an in-law this year, so maybe that's still a little close for me.
What you perceive as the value you contribute to the world is the most important way of calculating self worth, is it not? If you felt like you contributed no value any more and were simply a resource drain you certainly would have a low self worth.
Really, a huge part of my quality of life is knowing that I'm doing stuff that makes the world better in various ways-- offsetting some of the ways I make it worse and the resources I use. When I am not able to do this anymore--- what's the point?
George Eastman (founder of Kodak) left the following note explaining his decision to take his own life (at the age of 77, after several years of failing health and chronic pain).
