The subject of death has been coming at me from every angle lately and yet its never presented in an environment in which I am free to opine. In Contemporary Spanish Literature and Poetry class today, our two readings dealt principally with the fear of death. In the latest Dear Sugar on the Rumpus blog post, a dad wrote in about his interminable pain and anger in regards to his gay, 22 year old son's unfair death.
It's a weird subject; death is something that nobody can intrinsically understand, and yet the opinions and emotions attached to it are so seemingly unwavering... but it seems to be a paradox that not many pause and grasp. Death is bad. Death is scary. Death is absolute. Death is loss. Death is inevitable. For an existential matter that, as human beings, we are not build to comprehend, how can a chunk of the human race for thousands and thousands of years be so sure about it?!
And so religions were created to calm the masses and explain away "death." What a sham! Thousands of years of unnecessary death (irony!?), wars, brainwashing, etc. and all because of this little, harmless matter of dying.
Today in literature class we read a very clever text by Miguel de Unamuno. It was a great piece and I am sure to write a more comprehensive analysis of it in the next few days for the uncanny similarities it had to my own personal spiritual philosophy - but despite the deep realizations and suggestions, the ending was extremely disapointing and Unamuno retreated into the corner, hopeless and fearing the "awfulness and inevitability" that is death.
I groaned and Ernesto looked directly at me, asking, "Yes?"
My Spanish is not good enough for me to have burst out in what I wanted to say, but I tried. "He's so close! Unamuno is so close to getting it! But then he just... gives up. Stops following reason. What the hell, Unamuno? What are you doing? You were almost there!!" Ernesto smiled and said I had to remember that art reflects society and during 1898, Oriental philosophies had not yet reached the Western world... but I was still disheartened.
So here it is: I do not see death as inevitable, as loss nor as something intrinsically negative. Just because Westerners have been seeing it as this way for thousands of years doesn't mean it's right. Has nobody stopped to ponder this? And if not, WHY not? It's too much of a taboo - "Oh death... so sad, so scary, so ineffable." But according to whom? It's intrinsically a mystery, and thus does not intrinsically have unalterable properties... does nobody else see this?
In the piece we read by Unamuno, he spoke of the fear of the individual and his own death. I can understand finding out you're going to die and being Very Upset about this. I, too, would want nothing to do with dying. But if I'm not told ahead of time and it's something that just befalls me one day, well... Fin.
There are only two things I would be upset about in this case: 1) If you haven't lived your life fully and done all that you've wanted to do and accomplish yet. Either this is because you have not been living life to its fullest or because you are still quite young (literally or spiritually) and feel you have more to do in this lifetime! 2) Everyone you love who you would be leaving behind.
Number one is one's own issue. This should be considered all of the time. If you were to be informed life is not real and you never existed and you are going to go not exist in some other dimension tomorrow and never see this one again... would you be content with all that you'd experienced and accomplished?
Number two is a cultural issue. This needs to be explained further.... and I can already tell I'm not going to do my own feelings on the matter justice.
Before I get into it all... I just gotta throw out there that in my personal life theory, there is no end... to anything. It's all a big ball of something. So death is never death. Change, sure. Death, never. Someone dies? They went somewhere else. They're cool. They probably don't even know they're dead. And if they do, I'm really doubting it's phasing them that much. Suddenly they're the lucky guys that get to find out if God is real and if so, what he looks like. They get to understand the meaning of life if even for a split second. They get this huge perspective that's impossible to obtain in life. Sweet!
But if my calculations are correct, they never forget about the people they love - because forgetting is a type of death, and like a said, there is no death and no end... to anything. And so chances are, their energy is out there somewhere being like, "Hey! I love you! Perk up, you little ball of gloom! It's cool out here! You should see it! Yay afterlife/next dimension/i'mnotsurewhattocallthisbutilikeit! I know you're sad - I'm pretty awesome. But don't be fooled! I'm not really gone! This is just like a magic trick! You'll see!"
Considering this... a few things seem to be true in how one honors/ treats a love one converted to different dimension energy:
1) One can be upset about somebody else's death because that person is no longer on this planet and with them. To me, this is selfish. The "dead" person had somewhere else he/she needed to be in the universe and so his/her time was up to go there. If one follows the train of the thought that things only get better and things that get worse goes against the natural progression of existence... then... one should be very happy for the "dead" person's new journey ahead of them.
2) You are the one left on this planet. Your "dead" loved one is no longer here. You thus take on the onus of their legacy. It seems like the greatest dishonor to sit and mourn their "loss" when you can be getting busy honoring them. If the "dead" person would want you to suffer, then they were selfish themselves and this should not be listened to. If I were to die and everybody that loved me went around being mopey and depressed and generally unproductive members of both their own lives and of society... I'd be seriously ticked off. I'd think to myself, "Was my life that meaningless that you're going to only reap pain and sorrow from it? Because if so, I clearly and totally messed up in my quest to bring love to you and the world." Mourning period, sure, but then let's get bouncy and make my memory into something beautiful and happy, please.
3) Sometimes I think to myself, what if when you die you have to sit up in the clouds and have to watch all the people you loved on a 24/7 channel and you get no breaks at all. Wouldn't that be AWFUL if the people you loved were so upset about your "death" that they spent the rest of their lives mourning you? I mean at first it'd be cute, then it'd be sad, and then it'd just get... well... dull. It'd be way more fun to sit up in the sky and have someone saying, "This adventure I'm about to go on? This is for you! Let's DO it! These people I'm about to help? All in your honor! Let's GO!"
4) Along these lines, sometimes I think it's not that they're watching a CSPAN version of their loved one's lives, but instead they are in some limbo free of time where they get to spread their love and support and positive energy and guidance through some energy wormhole somewhere in the universe in the part that connects "life" on earth in this dimension to "death" after this earthly dimension. It's an all-access pass. You need positive energy to start a new job? To bake this really tricky cake? To start a new relationship? To get out of a depression? To travel? To change the world? To pick out your underwear for the day? They're there! Every time! No exceptions! It's like a game and they just want to be able to help you and make your life the best it can be. It's like a game of checkers and their "death" is the equivalent to saying you've just been "kinged." You don't have to go in one direction - you get the whole board to explore! BUT... you don't know this, and so you don't take advantage of it, and instead you just sit in your world of sorrow... and in the mean time this person who loves you and only wants you to be happy and to help make you successful and feel loved and honor their life is sitting there thinking, WTF? Get with the program! I'm offering you super love energy powers but you're totally not tapping into it... GRRRR.
The part of Sugar's column I loved the most was this:
"The kindest and most meaningful thing anyone ever says to me is: your mother would be proud of you. Finding a way in my grief to become the woman who my mother raised me to be is the most important way I have honored my mother. It has been the greatest salve to my sorrow. The strange and painful truth is that I’m a better person because I lost my mom young. When you say you experience my writing as sacred what you are touching is the divine place within me that is my mother. Sugar is the temple I built in my obliterated place. I’d give it all back in a snap, but the fact is, my grief taught me things. It showed me shades and hues I couldn’t have otherwise seen. It required me to suffer. It compelled me to reach."
THIS is what I'm talking about.
I'm not sure I would have ended up in Spain if Conor hadn't died. I know I wouldn't have ever gone to Brazil. I wouldn't have worked at Hooters and I certainly wouldn't have my big Orange Soda tattoo that reminds me every day who I am and how loved I am. I wouldn't know where I was going and I wouldn't be who I am. The night I found out he died I sat silently in my room, with all the lights out and my mug of hot chocolate and cried. I promised him I would let his energy shine through me as much as I could and that I would honor his sweet little life in anyway I could. I told him sometimes I would need his help to stay strong and be true and would be open to hearing him and receiving signs from anywhere he could give me them.
I told him I knew he needed to leave Earth and I would never, ever hold that against him or be mad at him for that. I told him I hoped he wouldn't be offended but I wasn't going to sit and cry and be upset all the time because he was gone from this dimension, because I had so much to do to carry his little spirit along with me that I wouldn't have time for that, except when I'd find myself alone in a dark room again with special music and no lights... and then when nobody was looking, I'd cry and wish for him to be here. I took it as a little secret mission between the two of us and I wasn't ever going to let my end of the mission down.
If anything, his death made me feel closer to him in a very distinct way. I'm sure that sounds downright insane to just about anybody else, but I mean it. It was one of my best friends who was murdered and I wasn't just about to let society or the history of the Western civilization tell me how to view his "death." Truly, along my Orange Soda bottle tattoo I almost got the words, "Playing Dead" (double entendre - playing dead as in not actually dead and playing Dead as in the Grateful Dead... oh you hippie, you) just to affirm this to myself. It's that, I don't feel like the traditional view of death does much to make people feel good nor honor the "dead" so why keep doing something that doesn't work?
Perspective. Creativity. Create your own perspective
"Alla this was just someone's idea - it could just as well have been mine."
I'm not sure how clear I've made my beliefs on all of this. I'm also not sure how radical these are because I've been cultivating them inside of me for so long without ever really saying much. I'm not saying saddness is not okay - at all... I'm just saying that it shouldn't be overshadowed by PERSPECTIVE.
Even if I'm wrong - even if death is death and then the person is gone... what would it hurt to believe and act according to my beliefs? It would make things a lot happier for EVERYBODY... doesn't need to be true to be real.
ANOTHER THING I've been working over in my little mind of existentialism... So often negativity is set as the default "truth" to life. This is especially clear when studying the history of literature! Happiness is a rouse and beauty is a farce... what's real is difficulty, struggle and ugliness.
But come on - how EASY is it to revert to that way of thinking? It requires NO energy to throw yourself on the ground and declare God is Dead and Life is Sorrow. Boohoo. HOWEVER, it can take a surprising AMOUNT of energy to see the intrinsic beauty and opportunity and happiness present in each moment and to express gratitude for this humble fact. Perhaps the truth to life isn't that life sucks and then you die -- maybe the truth is so quiet and so delicate that most miss it... maybe the truth IS that life is beautiful and happiness and love are the only pure things... no matter how much fear begs us to believe otherwise.
XOXO
Jet-set Cupcake
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