X-Message-Number: 14102
From: "Dr. Kat Cotter" <>
Subject: RE: Ruthanna Gordon's introduction
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 12:35:35 -0700

Hello Ruthanna:

As a fellow "lurker" to this list (I've posted something once),
I'd like to say hello....and hello to all the other lurkers out
there. So much of what is posted on the list is technical info
(which is one of the reasons I read it) but I think we should
say "hello" to each other, as a community of like-minded people,
every once in a while. For example, I've read many postings by
people like John Grigg, Kennita, Scott, Gurvinder, Jan, Doug,
John de Rivaz and others, and though I've never met you-
nor even corresponded personally with you, I feel like I know you.
So hello to you all! I did have the pleasure of meeting Thomas
Donaldson, Mark Plus, and a few others in the past and I got to
meet some of the CryoNet community at the Alcor Life Extension
Technologies conference last month. It was a great pleasure to meet
people there who I've known only "electronically" up to this point
(like James Swayze).

Ruthanna said that "the number of people I've talked to who seem to
genuinely feel that 80 years is enough time shocks the hell out of
me.  There's so much to do!" Well, Ruthanna, I am one of those people
signed up for Cryonic suspension- and my reasons for signing up are
actually a combination of a very rational decision making process,
as Scott said, AND a strong emotional inclination towards genuinely
wanting to live forever, as you stated.

Eighty years! What IS that?  Literally, a tiny DROP in the bucket of
time. And the years fly by so quickly and then it's "over"....when people
ask how I could want to live forever, I tell them that I want my life
to be a ten course gourmet meal- not a drive through a fast-food window!
And, I've never understood how people just sit back and "take it" so
to speak. What blows me away is that the urge to live- to find a way
to continue to exist- isn't right up there with the urge to eat, sleep,
and breathe!

And why is there such a small number of us who are working on the
technologies that might save us?  We should be scrambling as a group
to embrace these things (you know how, when you see something like a
cave-in or a building collapse- and the people are "frantically" trying to
get to and save the lives of those underneath?  Well, we are all heading
toward that same death- so why isn't everyone frantically trying to
"save themselves"?) When I look around me, I see us as a group, moving
from the cradle toward the grave as if that's just "the way it is".  And,
I look at most people and feel so sorry for them- how sad that they have
accepted this- that they aren't scrambling to try to save themselves.

Well, THIS girl is....and as Dylan Thomas said about not going "gentle
into that good night", you can bet that I will RAGE against the dying
of MY light. I hope each day that we might reach the "age of immortality"
before I die....I hope I can live long enough to make it....but, if I
don't (like our friend FM-2030 who lost his fight with cancer just last
week. His goal was to make it to the year 2030 when he would be 100 years
old and he'd hoped that we might have found the "cure" for aging and death
by that time)...if I don't make it either, then at least I have a "back-up"
in Cryonic suspension.

I'm an Alcor member and live in L.A. I am much closer to Scottsdale, AZ
(Alcor's location) than you are, but there are quite a few members in the
Mass., N.Y., Conn. areas and Alcor has trained a number of people
there as CryoTransport technicians (trained to do preliminary "cool-down"
and get you as safely and quickly as possible to Alcor). Many of our
members (myself among them) have voluntarily trained to be able to help
a member in need.  With trained members all over the country, there will
most likely be some who live close to you. And for those members who live
in an area without others nearby, I, and quite a few other trained
volunteers, have told Alcor that I will quite literally drop everything
and be on a plane if something happens to a member who is not close to
others.  I think it's the least I can do for those who (as you said) may
be the familiar faces at the beginning of my second lifetime.

Take Care!
Kat Cotter

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