My friend Roger never made it to 50.
He was very smart, very funny and, although he never admitted it to me, I think he was very unhappy.
I knew he wasn't well, but I had no idea how sick he was. I didn't know about the oxygen machine when he slept or the fact that, at the end, his mother came over every night to take care of him.
When the call came nine years ago with the news that Roger had died at the age of 49, I was shocked. But I was not at all surprised.
Roger probably weighed close to 400 pounds.
He knew he was obese. He didn't like being obese. It caused him pain. He was afflicted with a series of infections and other ailments in his legs. It also narrowed his social life.
I heard that on a couple of occasions, some of his friends tried to persuade him to lose weight. Such efforts were doomed to failure, for one reason.
He did not want to lose weight.
He was smart, as I said, and he knew the consequences of morbid obesity. But I believe he either consciously or unconsciously made a choice that he kept to for the rest of his short life.
He could either eat less, eat more healthfully and exercise, or he could follow the path of least resistance and eat what he wanted and as much as he wanted, and suffer considerable discomfort, pain and what turned out to be an early death.
Roger chose what he probably thought of as the path of freedom. He decided as a young man that he would ignore all concerns about his health and enjoy eating the things that he liked to eat.
In other words, he decided to give up on his future and snatch what pleasure he could from the moment at hand.
As I look around at people today, I perceive that more and more of them are giving up on considering what may come and instead are concentrating on temporary pleasure through food.
There is a school of economic thought that holds that every human being, at all times, acts solely in his own self-interest. Whenever anyone does something that does not bring an obvious benefit to himself, such as making a personal sacrifice or giving money to charity, it is because he derives a different kind of benefit: It makes him feel good about himself.
Personally, I think this idea is bunk. I look at it as a clumsy way to explain actions that otherwise contradict the underlying theory of that particular school of economic thought.
But I do find the basic concept helpful in understanding Roger, and others like him.
Roger derived more utility, as the economists put it, from the act of eating large amounts of fattening food than he did from limiting what he ate in anticipation of a healthier and longer future. It was as simple, and as tragic, as that.
I never disparaged his choice; in fact, I see its allure. He lived his life the way he chose, and when it ended his friends were left behind to grieve. At his wake and afterward, there was an outpouring of regret, but never of blame. He knew what he was doing, and he knew the inevitable consequence.
I sincerely hope all the other people in his situation are as aware.
