Life is not one of my addictions.

Addiction is defined in Webster's Ninth (the dictionary I have at hand) as "the quality and state of being addicted" and "compulsive physiological need for a habit-forming drug (as heroin)".

I think this is short-sighted.

An addiction to anything means that you percieve it as something you absolutely need in your life. Of course you may be addicted to drugs or alcohol, but that's just the start.
You may be addicted to love (I think there's a song about that), to being needed. You may be addicted to that adrenaline rush you get from climbing ice-faces or free-falling out of planes or kayaking white-water rapids. Or you may be addicted to social events or certain kinds of music or movies or even foods: I've known people who have told me they couldn't live without sushi or steaks or seafood fresh from the ocean. You may be addicted to your audio/video equipment. (Sad, yes, but true.)

I've always been the addictive type, in the dictionary sense, meaning that I was susceptible to the influence of various drugs. Most I resisted, despite their pull. I still struggle with some. But the point is that addiction takes many forms, and most of us deal with it to one degree or other in our lives. There are just things and people and substances that some of us have trouble resisting even when we know they're not good for us.

There are positive addictions, by the way, but they all have their downsides. As I said, you may get addicted to the social life, to being with other people, but you may feel lost, even miserable, when left alone. You can get addicted to exercise, but if you take it too far, you can end up tread-milling yourself into anorexia or even heart failure. Or you can get addicted to a special diet that promises you better health but that, in the end, deprives you of protein or other important nutrients. You can bcome addicted to family -- to having all your relatives and children near, with you at the center -- but there's always the chance that a child or niece or cousin will veer off-course and cause you much heartache.

Which brings me to my point: I'm not addicted to life.

I'm sure this sounds strange, as we all want to live as long as we can, right?

Yes and no.

I've seen my own mother live to be 98, soon to be 99, and I'm not sure I want to live that long. Her mind is sound, but her body has let her down. She can barely get out of a chair and doesn't dare set foot outside her house for fear of falling. Her muscle tone is gone so that the skin hangs from her arms like ill-fitting curtains. She's trapped inside her house and her brain.

But dread of old age isn't the only reason I'm not in favor of "any life is better than no life".

There's a philosophical view, too. I saw lots of smart young men die in Viet Nam, some not even 20 years old, and had a best friend die in a car wreck at 25, leaving behind a wife and child and promising future. Life and death are so random that my own existence on this planet can't be considered "the be all and end all", except to me. I can't believe that the number of years I spend here matters much in the long run. As the poet Dylan Thomas wrote, "After the first death, there is no other." If anyone dies, especially young, then my own survival is just luck.

We all die. It's a given. Whether we live ten years of a hundred, we're all gone sooner or later. (And if you think about it in cosmic or geologic time, any lifespan, however long, is a gnat's wink.)

To be addicted to life means that you are afraid of dying -- afraid of thinking that all the people you've loved and all the things you've done (or not done) and all the places you've seen will be wiped out the instant the sheet is pulled over your head. But it also means that you're afraid you, too, will be obliterated. Like you never existed. It was all you knew, and now it's gone -- and so are you!

It's a natural way to think. But it's also the only way he have to think. We're limited in our mental powers, just as we're limited in our time on this earth. Biology claims us all in the end. There is no escape. It happened to Lincoln as well as to Hitler, to your grandma and mine, too.

Many if not most of us fall back on what we call "faith" -- usually meaning a hope that we will be awakened again in some afterlife, where we'll be re-united with those important to us in this life (and maybe, in the bargain, be better looking and richer, too). But we know, if we're honest, that it's wishful thinking. We don't have any proof that it will happen or that it's ever happened.

I think there is a deeper faith that can sustain us and make our last days more bearable: faith in the mysterious system that created us -- and yes, that will extinguish us. Faith that, somehow, it all makes sense in a way we can't begin to understand.

It's the way things are, the way things have always been and always will be. It's what is.

So why not just accept it? Don't hurry it, but don't fear it. Make plans for it. Take care of your loved ones. Be sure friends know you appreciate them. Clean out your office, for God's sake!

By all means love life, live it to the fullest, milk it for whatever you can, but just don't get addicted to it. In the end, you'll have to give it up. Maybe tomorrow, maybe fifty years from now. But the time will come, and it's up to you how cool you are with that.

Amen and good luck.