What's Your Number?

No, not the number of people you've slept with. That was the subject of the marginally entertaining Anna Faris/Chris Evans movie that came out a few years ago. The number I'm interested in is, if you knew when you were going to die, how small would the span of remaining time have to be before you freaked out? 

I've been thinking more about that advent calendar from XKCD. Now obviously, we all "know" we're going to die. We know it's going to happen "someday." But "someday" generally feels far enough away that we don't really feel the need to worry about it. 

But what if "someday" became tomorrow? Would you be freaked out that you were dying tomorrow, or would you have passed through the freakout stage and made it to the peace with the universe stage? So maybe tomorrow is too short. So how about next month?

If you knew you had thirty days to live would that seem enough like "someday" to make worrying seem pointless? Or would it seem a small enough span that you'd be in your zen state, at one with the universe and ready to go (just as soon as you finished binge watching nine seasons of Friends or whatever)? What about six months? Or nine? Or a year?

For obvious reasons, I'm curious about this question. When the oncologist told me the pills weren't really working, I started doing the math in my head: how long til Antarctica? New Zealand? Budapest seemed close enough to be a done deal, but those other trips seemed far enough away to become worrisome. All the movies the movie studios are so busily trying to get me, and the rest of my 14- to 25-year-old-brethren,* excited about similarly started to seem awfully far away. 

But then the oncologist started using words like years, where I was expecting months, and my reactions changed. It started to feel like it was premature to worry about dying. So, at least for me, it seems time measured in years can be treated as the equivalent of "someday" (i.e., basically never), while time measured in months warrants a major freak out.

But I do wonder if that will change when I reach the point that the doctors start describing my time remaining with the word months. Will there actually be a freak out? And if so, how long will it last before the zen-like one with the universe phase starts? Or will I be so tired of dealing with it that I'll just go straight to zen?

It makes me wonder how people on death row deal with it, and if the potential delays, due to appeals or a governor's clemency or whatever, make it better or worse. Would it be better to know for sure that you'll die on Tuesday, or to know that you'll probably die on Tuesday unless the court accepts the appeal or the governor does something, which could happen, but we won't really know until the last minute? 

When the inevitable is coming, is hope that you'll escape it a good thing or bad?

And now it occurs to me that one might wonder why I wonder why it is I can't sleep. These are not really the thoughts a healthy, well-adjusted person takes to bed.

Of course, by now it's pretty clear that I'm neither healthy, nor well-adjusted.

Sweet dreams...


* When it comes to movie going, I never really made it past the seventh grade.