This will be a superficial kind of post. I am not sure I’ll ever discipline myself to give this subject alot of thoughts. However it is definitely a subject worth discussing.

Fear of death is the most primal of all fears. There are ways to suppress it depending on situations. When I just started riding I had constant images of crashes in my head as I was speeding down a freeway. All these motorcycle crash videos on YouTube, stories from friends who knew someone who knew someone who died in a motorcycle accident etc. I personally knew someone who died in a motorcycle accident when I was 9 years old. It was one of my classmates older brother. He was riding at night and did not see a parked bulldozer. Slammed full speed into its blade. Heck, Lawrence of Arabia died in a motorcycle accident.

I am not sure how I dealt with it. I kept riding daily and gaining more experience, my confidence grew. And slowly these fears were being phased out. I guess it is sort of similar to a soldier in a combat zone. I was in the Army Reserve of my native country some 10 years ago and was lucky enough not to see any combat. But I have had friends who’d seen it. And apparently you fear death at first and then you sort of get used to being in danger and phase these thoughts out. You start believing in the “when your number is up” theory and subconsciously get in the denial mode.

I wish Motodisiac had not touched on this subject. Now my worst fears might come back and haunt me. Regardless of that I believe at this point denial is the best way of dealing with it. So with this said even though it might be a bit selfish I would not want to be a donor.

To wrap it up I will quote Wikipedia on the subject of organ donations in the US (where Motodisiac and I currently reside) - “Under United States law, the regulation of organ donation is left to states within the limitations of the federal National Organ Transplant Act of 1968…Still, it remains a pure consent system rather than an extended consent system or even a dissent opt-out system. Curiously, though, relatives can still dissent even in the presence of evidence of explicit consent by the potential organ donor (driver’s licence, living will, registry information, etc.).” As far as UK goes for instance “organ donation is always voluntary and no consent is presumed”

It does not seem like a very streamlined process to me. I am in denial too, Motodisiac.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 11:28 am and is filed under Motorcycles, Street, Riding, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.