This belief in autonomy and mastery is imported whole and mostly unawares by dying people into their dying time. The expectation that this illusion of autonomy and mastery be protected from the vagaries of dying is to me the principal cause of intractable suffering as people begin fingering the symptom rosary of the end of their lives. It is a sad thing that this goes witlessly on and on, but it is an understandable thing given the culturally endorsed mania for autonomy and mastery.
