We can all sympathise with Chris Hoy for his terminal cancer, and admire the manner in which he revealed it. Dignity so rarely goes with celebrity. We wish him well. But Hoy has two advantages over me. First, he cycles faster. Second, he knows how long he has to live. It is four years at the outside.
Hoy can therefore plan. He can draw up a final bucket list. He can complete the projects, deepen the friendships and make the trips. He still has time to climb the munros, visit Machu Picchu and see all of Shakespeare. Or he can choose not to. He can be a hedonist and take each day as it comes, revelling in what he calls his good fortune to have lived at all. He does not mention religion, but I sense that for him life itself has a sufficiency of meaning.
In this respect I truly envy him. I had a cancer that was caught in time and removed. For a brief moment after it was diagnosed, I felt the same panic as did Hoy, but also the mild exhilaration at entering the presence of the gods of time. Having revealed themselves to me, how did they want me to use their now modest gifts?
On this Hoy is specific. “The fear and anxiety … comes from trying to predict the future,” he says. For him that uncertainty has gone. He has “the information” and it is of inestimable value. Most people die amid the pain of uncertainty and eventual incoherence. They are given “no chance to say goodbyes or make peace with everything”. Hoy has been given that time and he confesses to “genuine moments of joy”.
If I knew what medical science has privileged Hoy to know, I am sure I would live differently. The casualness with which I enjoy my life would seem sloppy and thoughtless. As it is, I get surges of doubt that I might be wasting my time – but with no idea what this means. The sights unseen, the friends forsaken, the words unwritten. What did I think I was doing all that time, when in reality I was dying?
If one thing is for sure, science is moving in the direction of resolving that doubt. It cannot predict accidents or pandemics, but it can dig ever deeper into our genetics, analyse our diet and compute our vulnerabilities. When I look at my blood test results, I have not the faintest idea what they mean. But science does. I am sure it will be able to scour my body and chart its weaknesses. Sooner or later some fiendish algorithm will deliver the result: a 90% probability that I will die in 20xx.
And when that occurs, I’m in no doubt that I will want a choice. We can all join with Dylan Thomas in his words to his father: “Do not go gentle into that good night. / Old age should burn and rave at close of day” and “rage against the dying of the light”. The uncertainty of death is the devil’s punishment for our arrogance in presuming to live at all.
But if that algorithm really does arrive then I would demand my human right to see the result of it. And of course, it couldn’t be kept secret. Every drug company and insurance firm in the world would get their hands on it.
At that point, Hoy’s positivity comes into play. For millions, the greatest and most painful chaos in life is the final chapter, because it is the most unpredictable. We cannot prepare for it. As we descend towards Shakespeare’s “mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”, there is no schedule, no time to say goodbye to family and friends as we and they would wish.
In a strange way, the algorithm would offer order and comfort. Ageing is nowadays accompanied by a barrage of advertisements for care homes and cruise trips. So one day it could be marked by “departure counsellors” ready to help us through our last months on Earth. Last wishes will be “curated”. The desire not to be forced to live with advanced dementia will be honoured. The ceremony of assisted dying will be conducted with dignity.
Do I want this? I think I do. I certainly want the choice science appears to be on the brink of giving me, as it has given Chris Hoy. It is the privilege of knowledge. That knowledge is the essence of freedom.
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Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
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