I’m a lucky guy. Found out by using simple math.
1) I have a psychiatric diagnosis. According to statistics this takes 20 years off my life expectancy.
2) I’m an alcoholic. According to statistics this takes 24 years off my life expectancy.
3) I’m a smoker. According to statistics this takes 20 years off my life expectancy.
The average life expectancy in Denmark is 79,8 years. Let’s round up to 80.
Now, do the math yourself.
Yes, result is, I should have died at 16.
I am today 46 years of age.
I totally rule in the beating death game!
The Fish Tank 
Live long and prosper! 😛
lol As we say in Serbia, there is no death until the day of the death. Maybe not the best translation, but you know what I mean 😀
Happy birthday Martin!
It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
“Yogi” Berra
On top of this I have actually been very close to dying a couple of times. One time I was clinically dead for six minutes, and was put in a coma for three days. Woke up again, though. Guess there weren’t any vacancy in the afterlife at the time.
Suits me fine. I like living.
Add to this the odds of the particular sperm that went into making you meeting the ovum… why aren’t we buying Lotto cards again?
Reckon it takes more than lucky sperm to win the lottery… Wait… Now, I have self-inflicted weird mental images again…
Well “Happy Birthday!!” mate.
I am in a similar situation… non-smoker but other issues that take dozens of years off life expectancy. On top of that I do not come from a line of ‘Long-Lifers’. Now well into my 60’s, I look at it this way, we’ve screwed up some actuarial statistician 😉 !!
Congrats.
Same to you!
Time to start bottling your blood, methinks.
I know this is probably the weirdest conversation to have but… Hey, you’ve died for longer than all my deaths put together. I’ve already met someone else who died on the fourth of July before, so if that’s your day then maybe the afterlife does indeed close then. 😀
In the late nineties I wrote a short story about a dude who had a genetic condition that slowed down his aging process, and therfore had lived for almost seven hundred years, 60 percent of his life serving as a professional soldier on the battlefields of medieval Europe. He was not immortal, just aging very slowly. He explained the irony of him still being alive, though he had lived a life of extreme danger, by “I suppose the Devil don’t want me to stir up his fire”.
But then again, who wants to live forever?
Yeah, now you got that song in your head.
Has anyone ever complained about getting a non-bicycle related Queen song stuck on their heads?
Keep this up, and soon everybody will have a Queen’s Greatest Playlist looping in their heads.
Come to think of it, if you hear a certain song in your moment of death, will it keep looping in your head for eternity? If so, please don’t let it be anything by Meghan Trainor.
I would like to read that. Any chance of posting it? Even in Danish, I might use Google translate, with all its flaws it will give me enough to get reading 🙂
I’m afraid it’s long gone. I haven’t got any copies of it. And the magazine in which it was published doesn’t exist any more. It’s almost twenty years ago. A lot of water has run under the bridge since then. And many a piece of paper washed with it.
It’s one of a handful of short stories I wrote that I consider re-writing at some time, though. That particular one is pretty easy re-written since it’s made in the concept of dialogue only, interview style.
That’s the thing about statistics… they’re bull shit 😀
As you know, I used to be a newspaper man, and if there’s one thing you learn in that trade it’s how to deal with statistics. Some would say, staistics are numbers and therefore facts. True enoguh, but like every fact, you can interpret these numbers in as many ways and on as many levels as you choose. I’ve always said that numbers are like colours. It depends on how you put them together.
True enough. And of course they are numbers only from a small selection of a much bigger thing.
Exactly. And to compare them (which actually is the primary purpose of statistics) is like a game. You can compare any number to any other number, combine them infinitely. Like comparing the number of murders in Denmark with the numbers of murdes in say Nigeria. That’s really like comparing apples with bananas (sorry for the twisted but still quite elegant pun). Nigeria and Denmark does not compare in any way, except they are countries in the world with people in them. Still, some would do that, to justify their own course.
Numbers are neutral. But neutral things are the most dangerous of all things.
You may find my opinion unacceptable or strange , but I am afraid to live a long time, And seeing the suffering of my grandmother who became 90 years old, especially in the miserable conditions of this war ,I think it’s not a bad thing if i die at age 60 at least will not need to help from any one.
I understand your sentiments very well, Rania. Even though I live in a country where there haven’t been any sort of hardship for a very long time, growing old is not any romance. Yes, we have what is normally known as social welfare in Denmark, but that actually means that old people get left alone. If you can support yourself, you can’t expect any help. That’s the down-side of the Scandinavian welfare model, I’m afraid. Welfare does not mean well fair.
Fortunately the men of my family usually grow very old without getting any ailments to speak of. My dad died of a common pneumonia at age 88. He had a pacemaker for the last ten years of his life, but that’s it. And he was a smoker and also liked a cup of ale once and again.
One of the things I mean to say with this post is, that I am prepared. I mean this sincerely and honestly. I’ve smelled the breath of Death (as we say in the North) enough times to know that next time he comes around will probably be the last.
I have actually been lucky. And I appreciate this.
“One of the things I mean to say with this post is, that I am prepared. I mean this sincerely and honestly.” great view it gave a bit of comfort and reassurance, ya my friend no one escapes his promised day (:
so this means I shouldn’t have been born?
I for one am grateful that I was born before abortion got legalized. In Denmarlk it happened four years after my birth.
ROFLMAO! My Mom was Catholic. I was never in any danger… Well, never in that sort of danger at least. 😛