mind vs body

Would you rather lose your physical or mental faculties in old age? I get the sense (though I have no real evidence) that most people would opt for the former. Of course people express sadness at seeing somebody’s body fail them, but it seems that witnessing someone’s mind deteriorate (I’m talking about the Alzheimer’s type of deterioration, not psychotic deterioration such as schizophrenia) is seen by many as the greater tragedy. People seem to take heart in the idea that, although somebody is bedridden and decrepit, they remain mentally sharp. I’ve heard comments along the lines of “… but she’s still sharp as a tack!” much more frequently than the converse, “…but he’s sprightly for an 80-year-old!”

I think that, in many ways, I’d rather lose my mind. There seems to me something intolerably sad about being fully aware of one’s own decline from a physically active being into a lump of flesh and bone that can’t do much other than think. I’m talking here about serious deterioration – the sort that requires constant care, not just the natural and gradual waning of one’s physical abilities with time. I’m sure it’s frustrating to not be able to run as far as fast as one did when younger but, as long as I could get around on my own OK, I think I’d cope. Being unable to dress or feed myself, and being horribly, painfully aware of this, would be, I think, unspeakably awful (though I’m not discounting the idea that I or anyone else may be able to come up with ways to cope with it).

Take, then, the loss of mind. From my own encounters (admittedly very limited, i.e. my paternal grandfather…sample size n=1 is, I admit, hardly compelling – but what is a blog for if not wild conjecture based on slim anecdotal evidence?) with true mental deterioration (through Alzheimer’s in this case), this seems – at least for the person undergoing the decline – the less traumatic of the two conditions. In the throes of his Alzheimer’s, my grandfather seemed as happy as ever. It was the people around him who noticed and were saddened by his increasingly addled brain, not him. Certainly he didn’t get to participate in intellectual pursuits (by which I mean anything as simple as rational conversation) on the same level as somebody of sounder mind, but – precisely because of his apparent lack of self awareness – he seemed oblivious to his “problems” and more or less content (though I confess that, at this time, I was not terribly close to him and saw him only rarely, so my observations should probably be taken with a pinch of salt).

I get the feeling that being mentally astute enough to fully comprehend one’s own spiral into a physical abyss would be a bit like watching a slow-motion car crash without any ability to intervene. I also suspect I’m the type of person that might be prone to lamenting my former abilities (as moderate as they are). I think I’d rather be happy and oblivious (though I’m not assuming for a second that all elderly people dementia-suffering elderly people are pictures of ignorant bliss... “He’s so wacky now! I envy him!”). And this is a very selfish thesis, considering only my feelings and not those of the friends and family who are cognisant of the descent into senility (though I doubt it’s all beer and skittles for anyone having to look after and witness a degenerating loved one, whether the degeneration is in mind or body).

Which all leads me to make two footnotes:

1. Maybe my inability to see tragedy and despair in losing one’s mind merely suggests that I’m not the book-smarts type.
2. At some point, I want to come back to the “pursuit of happiness” question – specifically the divide between what seem to be the goals that many people and governments strive for versus the goals that would stand a better chance of bringing happiness and contentment* (this ties in with the earlier WC discussion on community). Partly this is economic growth (whether personal or national or anywhere in between) at all costs and over and above any other sort of “growth”. But that’s for later – I bet all four of you who ever read this can’t wait…

* “Happiness and contentment” here are assumed to entail, at the very least, no harm to others.