I’ll take the cure. Before I take it, I’ll say a final goodbye to all my loved ones, and tell them that they should act as if I died. After I’m cured, I’ll go live somewhere out in the woods by myself.
I’ll take the death over the cure.
If I can’t love people, then I’m already dead. I’m not that attached to living, without love to express I’d be lost, and just as soon dead, thanks anyway. Not worth it for the sake of a few more breaths, in my opinion.
I’d talk it over with those who’d be affected by it first. But, in the end, I’d probably do it. If I hate it afterwards, I can always off myself. This is, of course, assuming that I retain my own morality and empathy for others.
If it elminates those things–which could be considered a logical extension of removing the capacity for emotional connection–then I might just choose to eat the gun first.
I thought about that, but really, who amongst your loved ones is going to say, “I’d rather you died than stop loving me?” They might be thinking it, but I can’t imagine someone admitting it. For my own selfish reasons, I want to go on living, but I think it would be better for my family if they acted as if I’d died - mourn me for a while, and then go on with their lives.
I want to live, but not like that. Not keen on the bone-crunching pain though - please pump me full of morphine and let me die along with my loves.
Sounds like a patient featured in a TV documentary about traumatic brain injuries a few years ago. IIRC, he had minute frontal lobe injuries, resulting in complete inability to form emotional connections. He didn’t appear to be depressed, suicidal or sociopathic, nor did he seem particularly happy, just kind of apathetic. From what I saw, it was hard to tell to what degree he was capable of empathy.
He was asked whether he loved his wife and son, and immediately replied “Yes”, but when asked how that felt, replied hesitantly “I like having him around” and “we’ve been together so long, she’s part of the furniture”. He obviously knew more was expected of him, and seemed to feel bad about it. He had tried to leave his wife so she could move on with someone who could love her back, but she wouldn’t hear of it. His doctors commented that in cases like this, spouses often give up after a couple of years.
It didn’t seem like a happy life for the patient, and most definitely not for his family. They were grieving a loss rather than a death, with many years ahead of living with him - unable to distance themselves from it, hoping for a cure or improvement that would never come.
So, in response to the OP: Much as I would want to live, I wonder if it might be easier for my family if I didn’t.
Dead.
I wouldn’t want to live without emotional connections.
And I think it would be easier on the family to see me dead than to see me walking around, suddenly not giving a damn about them, leaving them bewildered and broken-hearted.
My wife says to cure me.
My emotional connections are my life, so I’m dead either way.
I have sort of depressed emotional response as it is. I don’t really care that much. Aren’t ethics a better basis for social behavior than primate group loyalty anyway?
So, yeah, I’m halfway there. Never become emotionally attached again? OK, I guess. Creepy, but sort of a, “So what?”
Not that I’m emotionally attached enough to my own life to jump at it. I’d sit & think about whether there’s some reason I should still have emotional attachments, & if it would be better just to die.