I was reading Wikipedia articles aimlessly, when I came across a rather daunting sentence. Wikipedia has a policy of impartiality; that is, it's against its guidelines to invest any kind of emotionally charged opinions or political biases within the text. This, however, creates an adverse effect, at times. Because of this policy, Wikipedia can sound cold. Distant, careless, aloof. Impersonal. Especially with regards to the articles I was reading. They were articles about all kinds of death. I started out with "Sickle-cell Disease", and then "Pneumonia". I looked up "Virus", and then I looked up "Death". And then I looked up "Old age". The next article I happened across, I found the most daunting thing of all, and it's something I personally have never thought about. The article was "Death by natural causes". It mentions "Old age". [quote]Old age is not a scientifically recognized cause of death[/quote]Sounds reasonable, until you get down to the scariness of it. Do you remember being younger? Did you ever have a close relative who died during those years? Do you remember asking your parents what they died of? What did they tell you? Mine said, "old age". They just got [i]too[/i] old. I grow up now, and common sense tells me that people don't die like that, not actually. This is simply the first time it was spelled out to me. But the implications. At that age, I was afraid of the world and all its horrors. Cancer outbreaks, there's this thing called "cancer" out there. No one knows how anyone gets it, no one knows when someone will get it, and we can't cure it. The world is a scary place. And yet, this ancient grandmother of mine just died because she was too old. I hoped that when I would die, it would be just like her. I don't want to die in any other fashion other than old age. And then it hits you: You can't. If you aren't already dead, or you aren't getting killed tomorrow, you will grow old. You will grow old, and your body will fail you. You will get a disease, your heart will fail, or you will break something... And you will die, like that. It will most likely not be peaceful, and it almost certainly will be painful. And there is nothing—nothing—you can do about it. Are you prepared?