My Death

If I'm So Smart, How Come I'm Not Rich Redux

I have become obsessed with thinking about my death.

It’s not that there’s anything majorly wrong with me. I’ve got a lot of little things, sure, but none of them (even if added up together) are going to kill me. Even the fact that I have been smoking for 50 years hasn’t killed me yet - I do a physical every year and (knock wood) my chest x-ray is good, my heart and blood pressure are good.

(Aside: in a previous job, there was this health nut who kept telling me I should stop smoking. I’d ask why. He’d say because I would live longer. I’d ask why I would want that. He didn’t have an answer.)

As I approach my 70th birthday, I often think about three people whom I considered best friends who died way too soon. Two of them died suddenly, the third after a protracted battle with cancer. Another very close friend is currently grappling with a very serious illness.

My father was 75 years old when he died. He suffered from emphysema for many years and while we think he died due a mistake a nurse made in the hospital, I don’t know how much longer he would have lasted beyond that. (His brother, who was ten years older, died at 76.)

On the other hand, my mother lived to 95, and most of the women on her side of the family enjoyed similar longevity. My mother probably had another few years left but when she broke her hip (she rolled out of bed one night while sleeping) and the doctor told her it would be months until she could walk again, she basically gave up. I tried to keep her going by asking, “Don’t you want to watch Hillary take the oath of office?” When election night rolled around and Trump was declared the winner, that was it. She stopped eating and wasted away and was gone two weeks later.

I’m astonished that I’m in the shape I’m in, considering the lifestyle I’ve led. Then again, while my life may seem extreme to some people (and perhaps it was), I did most of my vices in moderation (or at least it seemed moderate to me). There were periods when I was younger that maybe I did my share of drugs. There was a few years back in the 00’s when someone looking at me might have thought I was an alcoholic. But those “phases” are over.

Even so, I probably spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how much time I may or may not have left.

I’m reminded of the times when I would visit my mother, one or two times per year, and each time I left, she would start crying and I knew it was because each time I left, she thought maybe it would be the last time she would ever see me. (As it turns out, it didn’t happen that way. We moved her to the Philippines to live with us until she passed away.)

The connection is that now I think the way she did. When I left my wife at the end of last year to return to the US, I wondered if it might be the last time we’re together.

I think I’m relatively healthy for my age. I think I have a few years left - but my friends who passed away suddenly surely thought the same. One friend - we used to sit in bars in Wanchai almost every day and almost every day we’d return to the subject of how much time we thought we had left. He was 62, he would tell me that his parents died at 75 and how if he made it to 75 that would be enough for him. But he didn’t make it past 62.

So now, me, I’m closing in on 70. I’m still working (partly I enjoy it, partly I need the money), I’m working on somewhat bleeding edge IT projects for one of the largest companies in the world and they’re telling me they consider me to be “mission critical.” I know that doesn’t happen to many people and I’m filled with gratitude that I can still do this.

But the flip side is - I’m 70 years old and still going on business trips, still trudging through airports in Austin, Seattle, Germany, China - is that a good thing or is it sad? Maybe different people might see it either way. (Last month, one night in a bar in Beijing, chatting with some much younger ex-pats, one of them couldn’t help himself, he finally asked me why the hell I’m still working at my age. My response was that I still enjoy it and that I don’t know what the fuck I would do with myself if I stopped.)

Every little twinge, every little ache or pain, I find myself thinking, “Is this it?” I rent an apartment for a year - will I live long enough to complete the lease? I lease a car for two years - will I live long enough to complete that lease? (Will I still be able to drive two years from now?) I buy crap - how will my wife deal with it when I’m dead? And so on.

With that in mind …

Those of you who have followed me for a long time may remember a lengthy series I published about 10 years ago. I called it, “If I’m So Smart, How Come I’m Not Rich.” It was kind of an autobiography but I left out the salacious parts that first attracted people to my blog 20 years ago. Even though it’s not much more than a first draft, it’s fairly sizable - 28,000 words. I don’t think I ever properly connected the dots back to the title and I ended with something of a cliffhanger. (“So recognizing the need to change, I’ve put the the wheels in motion. I’m both nervous and excited by what’s coming next. I’ll tell you about it soon.”)

I am thinking it’s time for a rewrite and an update. It’s something that I’m planning on working on over the course of the next few days/weeks/months.

The one thing I’m uncertain about is how to publish it. I’d like to put it behind a paywall, but since I haven’t done diddly squat to promote this page, I have less than 100 followers to date. I’m guessing that at best 5% of you might pay to access the content, and why should I go to all that effort if only 5 people are going to read it?

Or I could keep it free for everyone to access and put up one of those “contribute” buttons on the page, but if 5% of you kick a couple of bucks my way, maybe that equals out to one nice meal on a Sunday. It hardly seems worth it.

I’ll likely kick off the rewriting and editing process this weekend and continue to think about how I will make this content available - suggestions are always welcome, of course.