10-10-22: this is the sort of topic that probably incites many of the emotions and feelings that abortion does, and whatever your opinion might be of it, 'euthanasia'... euthanasia is the decision to eliminate one own's individual's life, whereas abortion is the decision to eliminate another individual's life/potential... anyways, a young twenty-two year old woman chose to end her life assisted by physicians after unsuccessfully trying twice on her own, the decision revolved around the amount of grief that she wasn't able to resolve/control well on her own, she was initially traumatized as a witness to a terrorist bombing in an airport, she had a very hard time, and never fully recovered from that event/trigger... a psychopath can contrive/order/execute the bombing and never empathize, and even applaud their actions, other folks on the opposite end of the spectrum are severely impacted by the psycho's actions... i don't know what to think about euthanasia really, in the US some folks can waive their rights to certain life-saving procedures after considering their mortality (my mom had a dnr, and i was her healthcare-proxy, she passed/transitioned this year), some states even allow doctors to assist in actually euthanasia (i think it's anesthetics followed by poison)... i don't really know how to place a value on a life, it's not reflected in life insurance, and not by an accountant, it's God's value really... i know that i should have been dead many times over the course of my fifty-something years, but somehow still going about my business, and getting along with life, trying to make sense of it, trying to use it wisely and not just to live comfortably, trying to teach the next generation lessons learned, and certain theories--but i don't know what to think of the abortion and euthanasia arguments, and who and why is death and life is prescribed--given to--or, taken away... i sort of wished that i could have helped that young lady get off of the 'anti' drugs that she was on (which clearly weren't doing her a lot of good) and helped her understand some different aspects of life that a young twenty-something probably hasn't grasped yet, just like i sort of wish that i could help a young mom considering abortion to see other options a bit more clearly... but, life and death, and who decides/dictates them and why, well, they usually come down to something between them and their maker...

... nothing between birth and death have guarantees, you can make some choices/calculations to try to be healthy, but accidents happen, injuries, sickness, attacks, those sorts of things also happen... folks that debate/grieve life and death are on to a great subject/topic/debate, it's a big-boy and big-girl topic for sure... some folks are exposed to untimely death at young ages, and learn the reality and inevitability of mortality at young ages... life = 1, and death = 0 isn't always a simple/easiest equation, i like to think it is, but 'nature, the universe, humanity, God' doesn't guarantee anyone any amount of built-in years, there are averages for certain regions and lifestyles and diets and lineages, etc., but odds and statistics don't dictate reality, or support equality or fairness, odds don't guarantee who gets to live, and for how long... grieving and accepting things/wild-cards and unexpected variables, and things that we can't control, and some of life's shit-sandwiches that happen to come in mega-large sizes sometimes, wait... hold on... do the harsh traumas and huge obstacles/challenges that we might be subjected to, do they leave you stuck in time, stuck in neutral and medicating and scratching your head, and trying to make sense of some harsh new sense of the illusion of fairness, or do they make you appreciate and remember folks that we lost, do they make you want to redeem shitty events, and move forward with a new determination, to not only survive, but to have the audacity of even thriving under your new circumstances and understandings... i don't know how certain triggers/stimuli trigger/effect 'genetic-predispositions/flaws', or how mental health is established/understood and treated, but the girl in the article did experience the trauma at sixteen, and symptoms continued and progressed into her early twenties, which is when she finally chose to die, that's not an uncommon age for certain physio-psycho conditions to really manifest, so her age and complexity of the trigger/event isn't terribly unexpected, it's not high-percentage, but it's not unheard of either, unfortunately... i don't even know how to value/de-value human life, and some of the factors/variables behind life and death decisions... i know that life happens to most individuals whether we try or not, and then there is an unknown amount of time/life that happens, and death generally happens whether humans plan it or not, and that the only thing that's guaranteed in life is death, death is the only certainty... i don't know what to think on this morbid subject really, but i sort of feel for the young belgian lady that chose death instead of fighting for survival and remembering and redeeming a real shitty event, but you don't think of surviving and redeeming shit-storms really, especially when some folks are in a new shit-storms, nothing makes sense really, and there is no sense of bearing... don't know why i'm even writing about this really... it shouldn't be a difficult topic, or formula to understand, maybe it is easy to understand, but who can place a value on life, is it a simple matter of life=1 (good/positive) and death=0 (negative/bad)... anyhow, glad to stir the hornet's nest... thinking about it makes me wonder if God ever lets people see what 'might have been', if folks made the choice to chose life over death, wonder if God shows us what we could have done with our potential, and how the aborted baby may have positively impacted the world, or how the suicide victim--despite nasty experiences and limitations--still had remaining utility and potential to get back in the zone and positively impact the world... i don't know if those conversations with God really go, or if they ever happen at all... but i don't know how to put an accurate value on life, i don't even know my own value, or my real utility and potential really, so it's hard to place or judge another person's, isn't it... what is equality, anyways? is everyone's life/value really 'equal', probably not, we probably all start with the equal ability to positively effect humanity in our individual capacity, but how we utilize our intelligence and free-will and gifts and resources changes the course of direction/focus, how we self-configure/adapt to our environments/stimuli and reality changes our trajectory... forgiveness and the ability to change course, and to begin life with a new mindset seems to be value-added in God's eyes, at least that's what i've come to understand, but who can place a value on someone's actual life or death, i don't know if there is a math formula that places a monetary value, or a potential versus actual utility non-monetary value... just a few things i've been thinking about lately... different things have different value to different people, i'm not sure how God determines value, but there are scriptures that talk about that sort of stuff, maybe i'll read some today, if nothing but to satisfy some of my questions. -- ct

10-11-22: sort of picking-up from yesterday's post... who has the formula to place an accurate value on an individual/person's life... some folks are rewarded by doing things that other people appreciate, they earn someone--or a group of folks--appreciation/celebration, others are sentenced to die for their actions, some folks die immediately--in real life situations--at the hands of people because of their misdeeds/actions/sins (street justice)... not everyone who does good and valuable things gets rewarded, they usually just their regular pay-check for it, most normal folks do good things all of the time, because 'good' is to be expected, it's what's 'normal'... and not everyone who sins is caught, or punished for it (as far as they know), most folks will push boundaries at some points, and we find-out quick enough if we over-stepped acceptable words/actions/deeds, and the self-correct/adjust to continue to live/survive/evolve/grow, pushing past obvious acceptable limits repetitively is abnormal... there are ten pretty simple commandments that a majority of people are fooled into thinking that they shouldn't be taught to everyone, they give you a bunch of examples of crossing over boundaries, and then a few ideas of things that are good and normal... somehow, ethics that are obvious usually come from religious principles, yet i know seemingly good/normal folks that are fooled to believe that there is to be nooo part of some simple religious teachings in public schools, they appreciate activist state-sponsored 'grooming', yet they think abnormal sex behavior and practices, and anti-American and Christian propaganda hatred and shame should be taught to public school k-6 children...
 ... i got a bit side-tracked there, but it should be obvious why it's worth mentioning, at least for normal folks it is... back to my question, who knows how to put a value on a human life, and what's their equation look like, i want to see what history/events/tables they pull from, as well as the query/logic variables/operators... show me your algorithm, what sort of history and qualifiers do they use... i have to know this much, someday i might, but i'm not holding my breath... but, if you found-out the magic formula as to why-death, and why-life, and purpose, and potential, and value, and utility, and decent use of free-will... if you found out that value, would it change your perspective/thinking/lifestyle/convictions, would it change you when you had his new insight/epiphany, would it change your thoughts/words/actions, or would you just look back down at your phone/computer/device, and carry-on with your routine...
 ... is there some insight that you have about fairness, and fairness-versus-logic or, predicted/assumed/modeled interruption, 'bad-computing' if you like... someone could only be a bad weather-forecaster for so long before people figure out that your ability to process information along with your observation abilities are quite poor, so they watch the other channel for the weather report... ask some of the financial gurus about their unbiased assessment of the future looks like, and a lottt of those folks have good track of history, smart use of variables/operators, and predict when history is seemingly getting ready to repeat itself, 'indicators' or something like that, some smart folks can go beyond canned computer models, they connect different dots that computer models miss, even if they don't have all of the relevant history that some models consider... some folks are the opposite, they think their computer model/predictor is the only thing that's right/correct/perfect, and might even die of dehydration while sitting on a raft holding an umbrella in the middle of a desert, it worked-out for Noah and his family though, depending on how literal your interpretation of scripture is... anyways... who knows the perfect formula to calculate the value of individual human life, does God ever sort of 'shake his head' at death dictated by humans, and think 'that's a shame that they let that one go to waste'?... i don't know how this stuff really goes, i don't know what to think of these matters sometimes really... but, i am of the opinion that--no matter what someone has done in the past--they still have the possibility of doing some good until they take their last breath, it's never too late to do something good for both man, and, even if you never 'served God', God too..

 ... if you want to thoroughly dissect any individual, and to have witnessed every moment of their life, you can pick out things that helped you to understand good and bad, you'd probably find some baby in the bathwater of everyone really, you could teach kids about good and bad based on many points in time from that individual's unique history, you could also figure-out if they were on a trajectory of doing good, or on a downward spiral when their pulse actually ended, i don't know if there is a bar-chart/graft to decide an 'overall' value... or that show's you the capacity/resources/potential of a person, and then shows you how those (and other attributes) were utilized and sorted-out by their actions/use of all resources, and use of creative free-will contributed to a over-par, par, or sub-par type of life value... i don't how you place an accurate value on anyone's life, and their actions/reactions to it... it's said that God understands our value, our value toward Him and humanity, what we've done with the resources and intelligence that we have, i don't how that works, and so i don't really know what 'equality' or 'fairness' really mean either, i know what they are supposed to mean, but the only way that we everyone is truly equal as individuals is that we are all 'less than' God, and we all come with free-will, and we all have the ability to seek truth and reality, to self-correct, to self-actualize, and work for the benefit of both God and mankind... maybe not always, or all of time, but we all have the capacity to understand good and bad... where people choose to put their attention, time, resources is a decent litmus of living in reality, and using our gift of life for just ourselves, but in somehow serving others in their success too, even some very rich--but also scumbags--know to give back some of their resources to help others (even if the 'others' are sumbags too), they still see some benefit for helping others, or future generations, even if their perceptions are skewed, they know their is sustainability in contributing somehow to the common-good, even scumbags understand some aspects of the second most important commandment, they just might have a warped perspective of morality/ethics... so the clear/precise/actual value of an individual, and their life is an interesting topic for me... i don't know what the equation looks like, but better to work on the side of-God for-man is a personal philosophy that even i can remember, what your unique talents, intelligence, resources are, and how you use them to honor God is as individual and unique as you are. -- ct

10-12-22: i'm just writing to write, and because i have a little free-time, and the perfect cup of coffee, but to jump back into this/these topics, i won't be a judge into the topics above, life and death decisions--such as abortion and euthanasia--aren't practices that i endorse, but i won't judge the individual that made those decisions, i don't care for the practices, but they exist, and seem logical to some folks, and/yet reprehensible to others, i won't judge those who made decisions that effect death, death is the only certainty in life, everything in between is a gift of life and possibilities... i don't know if you can actually put a value on human life, tell that to someone grieving and they'll have a million reasons why their loved-one was priceless--but sometimes you are non-mission essential/critical--and other folks have a devaluation of life, having to properly define the word 'life' and then considering a 'quality of life' factor, and whether life or death is even fair or tolerable any longer, there must be a million different considerations that come into-play really, i lean toward the life=good model, and can empathize for folks that don't seem the same logic in my simple equation... i think it's impossible to put a value on life, there are far too many factors... but i consider some religious scriptures that talks about distinctions that God makes, considering judgement, and who was impossible to deal with, and those who sort of 'got it', judgement seems like a huge equation, and so do 'value', the word 'equality' is a myth, not every individual will ever-ever-ever have the same resources and under the same conditions, life doesn't offer that to anyone ever, over-coming hurdles and obstacles and sometimes very weird experiences and even painful events is everyone's challenges, healthy evolution requires as much, consider it a cross-to-bare... i think there is an underestimated potential and utility until we take our last breath, but i don't really know what to think on the subjects really... but, it seems like death is the only guarantee in life, and how you value life, and what you do with the free-ill that it comes with it might be a part of some big equation, it's my opinion that life offers more than some folks like to consider, exercising your gifts/resources/potential to help others is a great way to discover some of that existing potential, at least that's what some of the pro's say... i feel for the young lady that chose euthanasia recently, as much as i feel for a young mother making life and death decisions, i won't judge them, but feel some empathy and a bit of sadness for their decisions, as for survivors and those who grieve the loss of a loved-one, or couldn't become pregnant, you probably understand there is a value to life, your fond memories probably represent the value so long as money isn't where you place the value of a human life