Will to Live

Thank you kindly Gina5009, reading between the lines of your post, I can see your very good intent, and it does warm my heart.
I was born perfect - being hit by cars has made my body as useful as a broken toy, and a broken toy could well be classified as ‘junk’; and going a little further, I live in reality, thusly my reality is I live in an incapacitated, broken body, ergo, junk 🙂.
The relationship I have with God is a totally different story: if considering God and myself, God knows my past present and future, and henceforth He would know my feelings and that I would be coming to the point of realising I live in a very defective body, and don’t like it at all. Now that isn’t to say that God would punish me or be otherwise adverse to me, because God is known for His everlasting love and compassion for His children, right? 😇
And I’d like to kindly let you know, with all respect, that if I hadn’t been a fighter and determined to survive, I wouldn’t be here today. A person cannot get through over 500 concussions prior to the age of 12, multiple assaults, multiple injuries, being hit by one car then under another one in the oncoming lanes, a court battle that took everything I had, and still sit and chat calmly with people, then there’s a difference of fundamental understanding on what overcoming adversity with grace and humility is. Wording how I feel doesn’t equate that my socks have fallen down, or that I am not doing anything with the lessons I have learned; I am a national advocate with govt and peak bodies in Australia, working to support the vulnerable in society (homeless, disabled, impoverished, etc), and I stand firm and strong with my advocacy, speaking to these government departmental ministers, secretaries, and CEO’s with equality as well as stark brevity about changes required to uphold human rights.
I worked very hard to obtain my Bachelor at university, and have paid off everything I own along with my education off of my own hard work.
The reason I have nobody new in my life is because the person I got to know after my husband left me for another bed was because he died of a sudden heart attack and I could not save him. This hurt. I do not want to have someone near me emotionally, because I want to spare them any pain from watching me on my worst days unable to move, sometimes screaming in pain (I cannot take painkillers or other neuroleptic meds due to allergies and breathing palsy), and I do not want to see that pain in their eyes, which lingers longer than the moment, eventually becoming all I ever see in their face.
I also have very low immunity, and as a person with the entire responsibility of my disabled self and my house and finances, I must take precautions to not get sick with contagious illnesses, otherwise how would I manage? To this end, I stay away from incidental social situations and environments. To keep myself well enough to manage.
Plus, the last people I had in my life only wanted to take from me, and I have had much stolen, removed, and predated, and I have no time for fraud and deceit. Better I’m alone.
Each person to their own, as my beloved grandmother used to kindly and quietly say.
I appreciate your sentiment, however I gently say, it is misplaced 🙂
I am 50. I have travelled half the world. I have and continue to achieve great things. That won’t change how I feel.
I wish you many more years 🌺🙂

I'm glad to see your second post as it sheds light on the questions one might have had on reading the first.
But I find it an especially hard luck that all your attempts at connecting (however limited they may have been) ended up with some extremely ill-wishing encounters.
Yet I still do not understand if you have either never wanted because your 'plate is already full' with what keeps you busy pursuing what seems to be a very rewarding experience even as the pain and the sense of limited control over your physical and emotional states is hard, or you do not think it is worthwhile to have 'friend' over phone or internet to offset any health danger to your health with in-person situations?
Meetups, for example cover a wide range of topics, but from my recent experience of some twenty years, deep friendships are still not possible even when people have been meeting weekly in-person. I, for one, though would enjoy talking over phone to someone who is also interested in stuff (news, hobbies, ideas...) even when there is no possibility, or an understanding that it'll be only limited to interest via virtual connection. Just wondering!
In any event, I can't believe your level of will to 'live life' that you are capable of exacting from a life that you are destined with. Being 80, I do fuss about how I'll live my soon-to-be a compromised life with right 'dignity.' I don't think much is available in this regard, only about living in retirement homes, which I feel now averse to. Some way to end one's life in the company of friends? Like Socrates's? Too many deaths are alone -- often in hospitals. Isn't there a better way?

I’m a loner; that’s my nature and my character. I much prefer to be without the company of others, which brings me peace and wholehearted contentment. Think of someone who has always been questioned, queried, categorised, assumed-to-be something that others expect for their own gratification, etc, and think of how that person - tired and exasperated with judgements, instructions, suggestions, hints, and at times coercion, would naturally prefer to keep their own company.
Frivolous or shallow attachments for the sake of, do not interest me in the slightest - hence, why I choose not to conform to that expectation.
I hoped my previous post may shed some light into the significance of not having anyone I used to know in my life, however it seem it didn’t shed enough light on to my person to satisfy curiosity and questions about my perceived need or want (which to be clear, aren’t what I want or need).
The more I get pushed towards the social convention of being around people by assumptions/preconceived notions/social conventions, the more I say to myself “ah, yes; better to take yet another step back from what is a force trying to drive you in a direction you absolutely do not want to go - and you’re being significantly misunderstood in what you actually want for your own self, as every other person is entitled, which is personal freedom to live and exist as one pleases; especially when doing no harm to anyone else, including not telling them how they should be living their lives”.
I mean no offence, however I wonder the motives of others who question the private lives of people who live differently to themselves, and I wonder how it is justified or reconciled as being ok to do so?
Quid pro quo: why doesn’t any given person live alone? Why do people seem to be so needy of each other and assume everyone is the same? Why doesn’t everyone want to have privacy like me? Why is the tedium that social conventions instil, are accepted as the norm when they do not suit everyone?
These assumed “attempts at connection (however limited they may have been)…” you’ve claimed… I have no idea whom you may be referring to, considering I have connections throughout the globe, so it seems illogical to make assumptions based on what is not known about me, in the instance this statement may indeed be an assumption of my life.
And if you’re assuming that I’ve had some “extremely ill-wishing encounters” that would also be a stretch of the imaginary kind, considering that the ‘encounters’ that I seek out (and aren’t forced upon me in situations of no choice) are thoroughly enjoyable, meaningful, and enriching. I just choose not to have people close to me, as part of my life, because I do not want to put them through the pain of seeing me unwell. Not such a bad thing. It means I care for people beyond myself and my needs.
And having experienced being ripped off and predated due to a brain injury, I prefer my freedom with nobody around so I can maintain autonomy (people often try to get legal rights over people like me, so not having them simplifies things enormously, and greatly outweighs any perceived benefit of having people around - like a breath of fresh air).
People aren’t into my hobbies, often telling me I’m too different to discuss things with because I don’t like the usual things, however if you’d like to discuss how I rebuilt the engine (with particular emphasis on the techniques used to reinstall the valve springs into the head, and getting the pistons into the block without scratching the newly machined bore, as well as the importance of piston/valve clearances when installing big end crank and thrust bearings) on my own car that I still drive today, then please, go right ahead - I’m all ears. Or, how fast I’ve ridden on my SV650S around a racetrack called Eastern Creek, located in Western Sydney, and my best lap time is just over 2 minutes - all on a street legal (not modified for racing) bike, just for fun, doing 210km/hr on the main straight, wishing I could squeeze another 100km/hr out of the damn thing 🙂
Or how I stole my friends ultralight plane for fun one day, just to go for a fly, and put it back in his hangar without him noticing (only to be caught years later, and having to confess), and the ways in which I figured out how to fly it without him being there. Or truck driving in foreign countries where the locals carry guns and like to inspect your cargo (the nice way of putting it). I don’t relate to gingerbread houses, makeup, and weekend bbqs, unfortunately.
And as for Socrates, I guess I would prefer not to be put on trial, sentenced to death, and drink hemlock surrounded by people, seemingly to resign himself to a fate I cannot relate to - that sounds pretty awful.
I’d much prefer to be alone. In fact, my Will stipulates it. No one, not one person, to be in attendance. No wake, no gathering, no fanfare. I do not want it, I do not believe in it for myself (however I have paid humble respect to those who have passed and I have been to their final goodbyes, following and upholding their wishes to the last). This is my wish, when the time comes. As others have their ways, I have mine - neither is to be judged 🙂

Exactly. I fully relate. Quality of life is far more important to me than quantity of life. I will not cling to this world with a fighting grip. I pray I move on as your Father did. I'm spiritually ready to move on anytime. My life is in God's Hands and I pray He finishes what work He wants completed within me and through me ASAP so I can enter my eternal destiny. But, like you and others, I live out each day to the best of my ability. Like you, I ponder the purpose of it at some points, for myself and others I see as you described. I had 2 infirmed relatives. They were so in love their whole lives that even when infirmed by very old age, they were happy together. They still held hands when they could. They died in a shared Nursing home room only days apart, from 'old age. ' Sometimes, love supercedes everything else. But that's not my story.
It's been very satisfying to connect with you and your honesty. Thank you.

Perhaps we do not insist on living as much as life itself is the imperative. Social, medical, religious, political conventions insist we keep on living because we frown upon or forbid taking our own lives. Success doesn't guarantee freedom from disability or from discouragement or worse. We humans impose on life expectations and when life delivers things we don't expect, we blame or complain rather than accept the mystery of being alive. Just the musings of an old, disabled man who can't explain why he's still happy - ish.

I enjoyed your description of happy-ish.
I realized a long time ago that my two choices weren't to either fight death with every weapon of modern medicine or to kill myself. There is a huge gray area, and that is for me! Right now I do the obvious things for my health but no routine screens or testing and no extreme cancer treatments. Once I start to inevitably decline my hope is to get into hospice ASAP because of the pain control and also the family support. Here again I'll do what I can to be able to stand and communicate, but feel free to cut back on food and meds. My state allows medically assistance in dying, and although I support that I'm not sure I'd use it. My religion really isn't in favor of it, and I think it can be hard on the family. However, it makes a good back up, just knowing weeks of pain can be avoided if not controllable. I'm kind of a process oriented person, and so my preference is to go with that flow which is another way of saying things are in G-d's hands. I survived giving birth to my daughter naturally, so I figure I can die the same way. I'm a sociable person, so want my nearest & dearest around me. But I also realize anything can happen, and I've told my fam and left them a note--please don't worry if I end up dying in the hospital, or things get bumpy. My "wishes" are just suggestions ad I am sure we can all manage together.

Mir123. Well expressed.

I just finished reading this thread of shared struggles and also encouragement. You all are just what I needed today. I'm 76 and try to find gratitude in my heart every day. I'm trusting God totally on this journey and today He brought me to you all and the blessing of your candid insight. A welcomed distraction from my chronic pain.
Thank you!

I am so sorry for you and anyone else with severe chronic pain. I have chronic pain but it is of the two to three level with just an occasional pinprick to a five or six. It's just enough to make me try to understand what it's like to have six and seven and eight and nine grade pain continually. I had a friend dying of cancer who still had great pain on, as I understand it, liquid morphine. I can only try to understand what you are going through. My prayers to you. Be strong.

Exactly my views and intentions. You stated things so very well too. Thank you for sharing.