“Who by water
Who by fire
Who by crazy Uncle Meyer?”

Yes; yes, I do–provided in decent health and prosperity. As long as there’s a book unread that I want to read, I’ll want to live.

I want to be Lazarus Long.

G-d determines the material situation of a person’s life – but not whether one shall be good or evil. That depends entirely on personal choices and desires.

Very sad, very true. I could never be a doctor or a nurse.
I did spend the last four months of my mother’s life with her, watching her die of lung cancer (slowly from the cancer, and then quickly of radiation pneumonia). It wasn’t pleasant, but not so bad as it could have been if she had lingered.

Did you see this comment at the post?

Doug S. says:
July 21, 2013 at 7:49 am
I Googled the title of the post. It’s from a Leonard Cohen song, which itself comes from an old Jewish prayer traditionally said on Yom Kippur.

It’s not just the nature of our present world.. it’s that the way that we on average age and die under present conditions of modernity has little to recommend it. Mind you I doubt the Bubonic Plague or the Sweating Sickness had much to recommend them except that they were speedy. Still, Celerity FTW.

I wonder if TPTB have given much thought to the fact that there’ll soon be an aging population of Gulf War II and Afghanistan Veterans with health issues who have seen at first hand the Islamic Approach? Hasn’t yet been tried by folks with an IQ above room temperature, except for too little too late in the Pacific Theatre way back. Hard to say. It’s not really the Western Way. But then again it has been under battlefield conditions when there’s unit esprit-de-corps (Obama Pronunciation Optional). I just don’t know.

Although there were the Very Bad Spanish who learned a few things in North Africa.

!Viva la muerta!

There’s also the Marine Corps version from the Battle of Belleau Wood in June 1918: “On June 6 the Marines suffered heavy casualties while attacking the German positions in and near the forest. In one of the many skirmishes that made up the battle, Gunnery Sergeant Ernest A. Janson forced twelve Germans to retreat. He became the first Marine during the Great War to win the Medal of Honor. Later that afternoon Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Daly urged his comrades forward with another memorable phrase:

‘Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?'”

http://www.americanrealities.com/home-page/-come-on-you-sons-of-bitches-do-you-want-to-live-forever

Kind of an odd reference for the topic, but I think I get your point about not wanting to live forever in the kind of world that’s trending these day.

I knew the original quote, but not the film’s version.

“Der Titel ist eine Anspielung auf ein Zitat von Friedrich dem Großen. Dieser soll während der Schlacht bei Kolin, die Preußen gegen Österreich verlor, seinen fliehenden Soldaten im Zorn zugerufen haben: „Ihr verfluchten Racker, wollt ihr denn ewig leben?“[1]”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad:_Dogs,_Do_You_Want_to_Live_Forever%3F

Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever? (German: Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben) is a 1959 West German film, directed by Frank Wisbar and based on the eponymous novel by Fritz Wöss. The movie revolves around the Battle of Stalingrad. The title is drawn from Friedrich the Great’s words when he saw his soldiers fleeing at Kolin: “You cursed rascals, do you want to live forever?[1]”

The Prussian king’s attitude is of the same vintage as this:
Comte de Lassale, the famous “Hussar General” of the French army said, “Any hussar who is not dead by the age of 30 is a blackguard.”

https://www.rbth.com/history/327840-why-were-hussars-considered-imperial