We don’t ordinarily pay much attention to celebrity deaths around here, unless there is a political angle to them. But death of 84 year-old Debbie Reynolds following on the passing of her daughter Carrie Fisher is so intensely human and heart-breaking that it becomes a signal event in the culture, one from which meaning will be drawn, mostly privately. I doubt that I am at all unusual in having seen a loved one give up the will to live and rapidly pass away, usually in the senior years from some condition that was chronic but seemingly under control. Most often a spouse dies and the mate soon follows. One lesson here is that our emotional state directly affects our physical health. But beyond that dry language lies something more elemental: life is an active choice.  There is something deeply buried, some call it the survival instinct, that impels us to  choose life  -- for ourselves, at least – instinctively. But life takes its toll and can blunt that...(Read Full Post)