Chris Jepson: Be Good, B-GOD

As if size matters. No, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the size of the Boomer generation. It has been often observed that the Boomer generation is self-absorbed, narcissistic and prone to think that whatever they are doing is of great national significance. There is an element of truth to all three characterizations and I’ve “A Modest Proposal” (à la Jonathan Swift) that appeals to all three qualities. More on that in a minute.

As a 64-year-old, I have approximately 18 years left of life based on family history. I fully expect and desire those years. Anything more than 18 years is gravy, so to speak, providing I am lucid and mobile. I would be sorely disappointed if I came up short. Life (consciousness) is so sweet, and I want as much as I can gather of it before I exit.

I will be, if I die last among my siblings, the final person alive who will ever know what a supreme human being was my grandmother Edith. How this intrepid woman, Nana, so facilitated the dreams of my mother, Marybelle, that I am forever grateful to have been the fortunate recipient of her substantial investment (time, values, moral support and money) in her daughter. I am undeniably who I am, to an extent, because of Nana.

I recently saw a movie I didn’t want to see, titled “Temple Grandin.” Autism, as a subject, didn’t particularly interest me. I recommend this movie. In it, the protagonist, Temple Grandin, asks several times upon witnessing the death of livestock, “Where does it go?” Where does that light, that quintessential essence of life, go upon death? Here one second, nothing the next. This is arguably the most existential question we pose to ourselves (collectively/individually as human beings).

As a lifelong nonbeliever in a personal god, as an atheist, I’ve never relied on the mythology of religion to get me through the “dark parts” of what it exactly means to be a human being.

There is a profound disappointment that registers when we ask ourselves the Temple Grandin question of, “Where does it go?” A real hurdle in life is moving beyond, overcoming the disappointment of that lost consciousness, the permanent death of you. If any degree of acceptance is to ever enter one’s life, some sort of peaceful personal recognition of the human condition (temporary) is necessary.

Life (the relative brevity of human consciousness) may seem unfair. I mean, some turtles live hundreds of years and there’s a 2,000-year-old fungus in Oregon and we humans get, maybe 80 years!

Baby Boomers lived life differently from their ancestors. Boomers sought more control over their lives. They are more independent of thought, less reliant on tradition and suspicious of authority. I’ve a recommendation; a gift Boomers can give America: I call it the Boomer Gift of Death (B-GOD).

There are approximately 75 million Baby Boomers, if 10 percent of Boomers made the gift of death — to own their deaths as they lived their lives, to consciously plan one’s demise — billions upon billions of federal Medicare dollars could be wisely reallocated to programs benefitting younger generations of Americans.

I believe it preferable to die five minutes too soon than to be a burden to my children or society. Phenobarbital and whiskey make an appropriate final cocktail.

For many Boomers the question is not “Where does it go” rather, it is, “How do I go?” Consciously, intentionally and with dignity. Be good, B-GOD.

Jepson is a 27-year resident of central Florida. he’s fiscally conservative, socially liberal, likes art and embraces diversity of opinion. reach him at [email protected]