Dream in the Rock

What a drag it is getting old - Mick Jagger

I'm all better now -  the gruesome 24 has passed and my body seems to be functioning the better for it.

All other routines, diet, exercise, reading, writing, and gaming, are back to normal, whatever that is.

The Buddha taught that the cause of our suffering is our attachment, and held out that if we can end our attachments our suffering will stop.  One of our attachments, hard-wired into our DNA and carried down through millennia of evolution, is our attachment to life itself. Or at least living life in this body we find ourselves in.

So as we grow older and age and sickness take their toll, we suffer through a life of diminished capacities. Eyesight declines, joints ache, we lose hair in some places but find it growing in others, memories fade, our strength diminishes, we tire more quickly, and can you please repeat that a little bit louder?

That's old age and that's what we signed up for when we incarnated into these bodies. But at what point - bedridden, overmedicated, catheterized, and with feeding and oxygen tubes - does our attachment to being in this present body no longer make sense? When this vehicle in which we abide can no longer carry us, is it time to discorporate and leave that body? When is it time to cut your losses, roll the dice, and move on to the next life?

I'm not there yet, but I'm not exactly asking for a friend, either.