I guess I must think a lot about death. I wouldn't say I obsess over it-I wouldn't say that. Someone else might. But this isn't their blog-is it. No. It's mine.
So, I've written quite a bit about my dad, his death, his views on death, my experience as a partner in his death, and much of my way of thinking I believe to be influenced by the idea or concept of death. The fact of it. My entire spiritual existence revolves inextricably around it.
And it is my opinion, as one who holds many opinions, that we as a race are absolutely obsessed with death-the every aspect of our existence touches death in some manner-either assisting us to avoid and forget about it, to master our existence over and above it, to somehow delay and deny its power over us, to disguise it as something else, to reshape it into something good, necessary, or lacking in any kind of moral value whatsoever.
I wonder though-is the contemporary perspective on death too cut and dry? I think I perceive (this is me attempting to define the "contemporary perspective on death" with absolutely no sort of academic integrity-totally based on my gut, ok?) death in our world as an event that is organic, final, inevitable. I wonder, now that I'm choosing my words-the roots of the word inevitable. in-e-vit-able. I don't know how this is classified in pedagogical circles, but when I try to understand a word, I frequently look at the little bit of latin I know, and apply what I know of that (example would be "veritably" and the latin word, "veritas" which means "truth") to the word I'm trying to understand. Sometimes it works, sometimes, well, I have other tricks too.
When I see the word "inevitable" I sort of transliterate "vit" to vital, vida, viva or vitamin-I think life. "In" has its own little meaning in my mind, having to do with fate, or determination, actually, whenever I see "in" as part of a word, I come back to inevitable. So, there's that. Anyway, then able has that sense of action, of motion moving forward like a wave.
Ok...that was quite the little tangent. Back to the topic. Death. Final. Organic. Inevitable. So, I sense that the sort of colloquial understanding of death is that it is the ceasing-to-exist. "Religion" tries to soften the blow to the fragile human ego by offering some sort of immaterial existence beyond the life we touch right now. The bold and enlightened mind accepts, however, the materialist's perspective, and holds to the notion that the failure to breathe is the end of our existence.
And that perspective of material and immaterial coexisting is difficult enough to understand--where is the immaterial connected to the material? Where does the spirit reside?
It is such a prevalent idea-that we exist in two parts-material and immaterial-spirit and flesh, soul and body-that it makes the ideas of life and death so hard to cognate. There is that dissonance in our head.
The bible talks about heaven and hell. Paradise and the lake of fire. Everlasting Life. And everlasting condemnation. These are big, big words. What if Life and Death are not portals? What if they are not doors we go through? What if existence IS? and "Life" and "Death" are simply WAYS of understanding existence?
We base our penal system somewhat on the idea that you live in death. Life in prison. That's not really living, is it? Life with a paralyzing disease? Not living. There's such a thing as merciful homicide in some places, because of living deaths like those I've described. I've come to wonder: Could it be that Death and Life exist side by side as mutually exclusive ontological realities? Death isn't so much a lack of existence, as much as it is possibly a WAY of existing.
So then, what constitutes "Life" as a way of existing? "Death" as a way of existing?
When do you feel alive?
When do you feel dead?
I bet it's simpler to answer those questions than you'd like to admit...
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