At 19:22 1999-05-13 -0400, Rick wrote:

>Hans,  but don't you agree that "early" death, let us say for example at age
>45,  is a very foreshortened relative to the quality of life that we are
>seeking to be able to be active, productive, and creative beyond the child
>rearing years.
8<
>living i.e. perhaps 85 or 90 as opposed to 45 or 50 also relevant to our
>overall quality of life since most of us are "wage slaves"  for at leat 30
>years or so.

Your thinking of this is based on the idea that You, after Your death, can
stand aside of Yourself and overview Your life. You can't. Once You are
dead You can't think or know anything, and You have no needs or wishes.
Life quality is what life is like _this_ day, with the addition of memories
of days before and expectations of days to come. If You expect coming days
to be good, it raises life quality, and of course, if You expect a lot of
good coming days, it also adds to the quality, bud it is only this
_expectation_ _today_ that matters, not how many days it actually will be.
If You expect a long and healthy life today, it does not matter to the
life quality feeling if You in fact will have that long life or You will
happen to be killed in an accident tomorrow. To die is not sad for the
one who dies, but for his/her loved ones.
We have a built-in wish to live. In our culture this has extended to a
big fear for death, which distorts our thinking of life length. I also
think that the idea of what is a "good" life is distorted by our culture.
For example much of what is called "free will" is actually quite the
contrary. But that discussion is even more out of topic on this list.

>(please note that many US professional and self employed
>individuals are lucky to have a week or so of "holiday"  per year.

Here in Sweden we have 4-7 weeks holiday. Personally I have 3-4 weeks,
but work only 3-4 days per week.
- Hans