Marx Vs. Jesus

One of the proudest moments of my life, one that gives me deep pleasure whenever I remember it, was when I took my dad sailing a few months before he died. After he died, my mom told me many times that he was walking on air for weeks afterwards.

My father desperately wanted to go sailing again. He loved to sail in a dinghy the family had owned since the early 1960s. It was a Twinkle 12, a wooden boat originally designed in 1912 that required a massive ladder to install the mast. It was preposterously out of date and a huge pain to set up for sailing. Once in the water, though, it was lovely.

Ours had its mast closer to amidships and we had a jib as well. The seats went across the hull, not down the sides, but sailing it was a lot like what you see here.

We tried four times to go sailing, failing for various reasons each of the first three. My dad turned 90 during this time and was of no use whatsoever in rigging or sailing the boat, but he wouldn't stop asking me to take him sailing.

Each time we went took a day. Their house was far from the boat launches in San Diego Bay and Mission Bay and getting everything into his van was, as typical with my dad, terribly complicated, but utterly thorough. The first time we went, the launching area on San Diego Bay was jam packed and we had to launch far from the dock. I put the boat in and then swam to the dock, towing the boat behind me.

The pier was encrusted with mussels and I ripped my legs to shreds hoisting myself out of the water. I had to do it alone as it was all my dad could do to walk to the dock and stand there. My legs were covered in blood. I didn't mind. In fact, I thought it was hilarious. That trip failed because my dad didn't remember how the mast worked and had failed to tie a knot in the end of the line that hoisted the sail. It slid right out of the mast and couldn't be re-rigged with the boat in the water.

The other two failures were similar.

He was 90 when we finally succeeded, launching in Mission Bay and sailing around a bit there. Well, we sailed and rowed because the bay's wind was so spotty. Actually, I sailed and rowed. He was too weak to lift himself onto the seat in the middle, so he sat in the bottom of the boat, getting soaked from the water that leaked through the wooden hull.

He loved it. He practically cried with joy. I'm tearing up now, just thinking of the love we shared that day.

I write all this as an introduction to one of Joe Biden's new Coronavirus advisors, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, professor of Health Care Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Old Zeke has written extensively in the past about the value of dying at the age of 75 and how living past that point is not worth it. The article linked there points out the obvious - Joe himself is over 75, but there's a much deeper question in it in a quote from an article Zeke wrote for The Atlantic. Dig this.

But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.

What is life? What is reality? Is it, as the Materialists claim, only physical matter? What is the meaning of life? Is it, as the Democrats claim, all about money and power? The social justice struggles beloved of the left are couched in terms of money and power. It's all about who earns what and who is a victim of whom.

Or is life spiritual as well as material? Was Jesus right, is it all about love? My father fit all of the adjectives in Zeke's paragraph and yet, that was his value to me. Without his frailty, there was no need for my strength. If he had been hale and hearty, my gift of love would have meant far less. In fact, in his hale and hearty days, my dad would have dominated the trips and the experiences would have been barely endurable.

Without weakness, without suffering, without need, there is no love because love is unnecessary. Yes, the national debt would be much lower and our unfunded pension obligations probably wiped out if we slaughtered everyone over 75. The Democrats' plans for providing everything for everyone for free might even work under those conditions.

Are we simply tiny cogs in the economy to be discarded when we wear out?

Is that what life is all about?