By José Dominiguez, April 25, 2019 — Discussing with a friend who was focused on how some terminal patients, mostly from cancer, have the choice to face cancer with no chemotherapy but retaining their conscience clear and functioning, or admit the treatment is detrimental to their physical and mental control. In the first case, life will be shorter, in the last option, life can be granted for more time. The big difference is that the treatment can impoverish life and consciousness may be fading. There are some persons that prefer no treatment. The question raised is does more chronological life compensate for an impoverished existence?
This discussion connected me with the death of Socrates, the famous philosopher was sentenced to death by poisoning. In the IV century B.C. on his final day, he had to take the poison at sunset. A friend told him: “Socrates, it is not necessary to drink the poison at the time, you can spare a few more hours and nobody is going to notice it.” But Socrates said more or less: “All my life I have been prepared to death and now at my last moment I’m not going to have doubts…2 or 3 hours do not change the way I have lived and I do not need 2 or 3 hours to be in peace with my conscience and drank the poison.” Are we prepared to die or do we need more time to really live?
