We All End Up in Diapers

Slowly the boy picked up the cone from one side and placed it on the other. There were 2 dozen cones. He was only on his forth but it already felt like eternity to me. Across, an old man lifts simple plastic rings from one end to another in a secular motion. It was a real simple motion, but he seemed to be genuinely struggle with it. To the other side, a man in a wheelchair had his arms and shoulders supported by scary looking brackets, wires and knots. All he was doing was swinging his arms left to right. And every time he managed to do so, the therapist around him would praise him. And everywhere else in the physiotherapy clinic I was in, there was some other person like this.

Funny how it almost never crosses our minds our fortunate we are sometimes in simply being able to do the basic things in life like brushing our teeth, bathing, making a meal, walking to the store, rolling around in bed without the aid of others. We take it for granted that just because we have always been able to do so, we will continue to do so in the future. And a lot of our self-worth is actually derived from our ability to do things on our own without the aid of another person. I can’t begin to imagine how it would feel like if we are robbed of even that basic ability… which is not so much a matter of if, but when.

There is this quote from the movie ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’. In it, one lover grows older while the other bizarrely grows younger – but in either case,

We all end up in diapers.

Perhaps it’s something we should all think about.