"I'd rather burn out than fade away." --Neil Young

Were someone to ask me if I would rather live my life out to the very end in a simple obscurity, or die very young but remain famous for thousands of years, I'd have to say that I would rather die young. It's not that I want glory... it's that I'm opposed to forgetting who I am. I think that a lot of people who live for eighty years lose a lot of themselves. Sure, they're wiser and know almost everything, but they have Alzheimer's and arthritis and fake teeth. The degeneration brought on by old age is unappealing and unappetizing. I don't want to look at my children and not know them. I don't want to go blind or deaf. I don't want to be one of those old people who you feel bad for and easily forget once they're out of sight. Of course, there's no guarantee that that is what will happen to me should I live to eighty or ninety. But still.