The modern technological world has a certain approach to the individual Self and its experience of the world - it ought to be focused on almost to the exclusion of anything else. Nothing else ultimately matters, as long as your personal life experience continues - is what this philosophy ultimates boils down to.
Other people, in other places, value different things. Merely existing as long as possible is not their primary goal. And in fact, the lack of such ways to “use” one’s life and death in a meaningful way other than simply existing is one major cause of the modern malaise affecting many developed nations. To live and die for a purpose other than extending your own personal experience is something many people hunger for in current times.
The desire for immortality goes back at least as far as the epic of Gilgamesh. Medieval alchemists tried to achieve it. In China, Daoists attempted to dramatically lengthen their lives by various esoteric means. Tibetan Buddhism also has practices along these lines.
Conversely, in today's world plenty of people would like to lengthen their lives, without that being their primary goal. Just because someone wants to live longer does not mean that it's the only thing they care about; it's even possible that some larger purpose is a major reason they want to live longer.
From a Buddhist perspective, "if you are a practitioner of the Dharma, someone who is putting the teachings into practice, there is great significance to doing long-life practice."
I agree but I am responding mostly to the parent comment, which suggests that not trying to live as long as possible is some sort of disorder or disability.
That is not what they are suggesting though. They are simply making an analogy to a very real phenomenon in the deaf community. That they are deaf or are disabled is incidental, it could be any sort of community where they make rationalizations and then hate those who shatter their beliefs.
The modern technological world has a certain approach to the individual Self and its experience of the world - it ought to be focused on almost to the exclusion of anything else. Nothing else ultimately matters, as long as your personal life experience continues - is what this philosophy ultimates boils down to.
Other people, in other places, value different things. Merely existing as long as possible is not their primary goal. And in fact, the lack of such ways to “use” one’s life and death in a meaningful way other than simply existing is one major cause of the modern malaise affecting many developed nations. To live and die for a purpose other than extending your own personal experience is something many people hunger for in current times.