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Life Arts    H1'ed 5/23/22

Allegiance to nature while living in a techno-sphere: A health care directive

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Allegiance to nature while living in a techno-sphere: A health care directive

by Katie Singer

After a friend died a few months ago without a will and I learned that two thirds of U.S. Americans die without one1I updated mine and my health care directive for the first time in twenty years.

What's changed in twenty years? Well. Computers' presence in every aspect of our lives has increased. Many of us recognize that we live beyond our economic means. We also live beyond our ecological means: we take from the Earth faster than it can replenish; we waste faster than the Earth can absorb our waste. And yet, we still dream that our electrified, computerized society can continue without consequences to ecosystems and public health.

Keeping sheltered, fed and solvent now requires more money, computer savvy, patience with robots (conflict resolution skills with robots?) than many of us have. Survival requires skills in growing vegetables, self-help health care and conflict resolution"that many of us never learned.

Still, to the best of my ability, I aim to live in concert with nature, and to live and die within my ecological and financial means.

Birth in New York City

Was I born to a bio-region or a techno-region?

My mother gave birth to me in 1960, in a fluorescent-lit New York City hospital with an epidural that kept her unconscious for my arrival. While she recovered, nurses gave me a rubber-tipped bottle filled with soymilk I could not digest.

For a U.S. American born in the first generation after World War II, my birth was nothing special. For any mammal, separating the mother and baby during the infant's first hours practically guarantees that the mother will reject her offspring.

My mother and I adored each other. But before I turned twenty, we had a rift that we could not repair. From the time of our schism, I dedicated myself to healing our relationship. More widely, this has meant studying nature's cycles and my relationship to nature.

My health care directive comes out of this dedication.

My health care directive

I consider death an ordinary, natural part of every life.

In the event that I become unconscious or otherwise extremely ill and unable to make decisions for myself, I want to be among people who honor my body's processes, including death. I do not want my life or dying manipulated by technology. I do not want any attempts made to extend my life by machinery or pharmaceuticals.

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Katie Singer writes about nature and technology in Letters to Greta. She spoke about the Internet's footprint in 2018, at the United Nations' Forum on Science, Technology & Innovation, and, in 2019, on a panel with the climatologist Dr. (more...)
 

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