I think we live too long. I'm not interested in existing in a state of decline. I have a peculiar sense of all being right when seeing public figures, musicians and the like, leaving the world after contributing much, but still being relatively young and healthy. I like to remember them that way. And it makes me very sad to see the same sorts of people being betrayed by their bodies when their gifts have been brutalized by age or disease.
Rush has a bittersweet song about that, "Losing It", with allusions to Hemingway, in that regards...
(I always liked the idea of Greek heroes ascending and becoming constellations in the sky, as opposed to withering away in a slow decline...)
The dancer slows her frantic pace
In pain and desperation,
Her aching limbs and downcast face
Aglow with perspiration
Stiff as wire, her lungs on fire,
With just the briefest pause —
The flooding through her memory,
The echoes of old applause.
She limps across the floor
And closes her bedroom door…
The writer stares with glassy eyes —
Defies the empty page,
His beard is white, his face is lined
And streaked with tears of rage.
Thirty years ago, how the words would flow
With passion and precision,
But now his mind is dark and dulled
By sickness and indecision
And he stares out the kitchen door
Where the sun will rise no more…
Some are born to move the world —
To live their fantasies
But most of us just dream about
The things we'd like to be
Sadder still to watch it die
Than never to have known it
For you — the blind who once could see —
The bell tolls for thee…
Hope I die before I get old. 
