Dying to Know

                In one way or another, it is inevitable that one day we will be forced to seriously contemplate our own demise. Death looms out there, hazy at the edge of our vision, yet there is no honest way to pretend that it is not an ever-present border, a great question mark that gives a certain tone to our living. It is really no more unhealthily morbid to meditate deeply on death than it is to think of birth, or work, or friendship, or any of the other features all our lives share in common. If we want to live consciously, honestly, or authentically, then is it not necessary for us to at least live in the full awareness that life is going to end? After all, life may be nothing more than a game, but if it’s a game don’t we at least want to keep the rules in mind?

                What are we afraid of when we vigorously deny that we fear the death we spend so much of our waking lives trying to distract ourselves from? Is there really some great shame in admitting that we’re afraid that it will hurt, that we’re afraid of ceasing to be, that we’re afraid that after our small funeral no one will really miss us? Why does the very attempt to look seriously into the question of death conjure up images of discontented suburban high school students complaining that no one understands them?

                Why does death lead only to questions?

                There are a number of ways that we characteristically deal with the problem of our imminent catastrophe. How often do we bury ourselves in the routines of work, groping after blissful unawareness by continually sharpening ourselves in one direction? We distract ourselves by travel of all kinds, seeking diversion and amusement by seeing the world, by developing no end of casual acquaintances, by clicking hopeful-looking links to obscure websites we never plan to visit again. We sweep our end under a rug, and because we always stand on the brink of some new and diverting experience we never have to think of the worms that will crawl through our decaying bodies in the end.

                So long as we keep busy, we think without thinking, we can escape the inevitable thought of the inevitable.

                But I ask you this: many years from now, when you lie in you hospital bed, knowing that you will never get up again, will you be glad that you hid this quite foreseeable outcome from yourself? Will you be happy that you didn't live your life in the harrowing light of the blinding realization that you are going to die? Or will you regret that you never really took your life as your own life, never accepted the incredible responsibility of living a life you could look at and say, “This life justifies itself. Even if this life were the sum of all things that have been or ever will be, it would have been well worth the living.”

                After all, one of the great absurdities that hides behind our superstitious non-acknowledgment of death is the fact that so many of us are unhappy. If this life were one long pleasure cruise, perhaps it would make sense that we would like to remain as ignorant of death as possible. But even the easiest life is hard, and we inevitably find that life is so structured that the very things that make life worth living border on the impossible, seem almost miraculous. We find ourselves always faced with a choice between two courses, one of which is easy but will secretly fuel our self-loathing, and one of which is hard but will perhaps someday make us into the kind of person we could freely love and respect. It is almost always easier not to consider our own death.

                Perhaps we avoid the subject of death less out of any real fear of it (for who can truly fear the absolutely incomprehensible?) than from a nagging awareness of what a deep consideration of death would entail. Would we live the way we do if we let ourselves come to grips with the fact of our own death? There is nothing morbid in coming to an understanding of death. To live in the knowledge of our own death and finitude does not at all diminish the value of life, but rather increases it, opens us up to the real infinities within and around us. When we truly accept that this life is finite, it’s value, the value of each precious moment, becomes infinite.

                We are fettered by the ridiculous thought that though dying comes to us as surely as breathing, we wonder whether it’s just possible that we could be spared. Technology could advance, and we could live forever in machine bodies, building tedium upon tedium till the stars themselves grow old. Or maybe death is something like a disease, and we’ll find the cure to it, live agelessly always, young and ever beautiful.

                But these are dreams. Time rushes on always, ever faster and faster it streams towards apocalypse. The torrent has us in its unshakable grip. We have only to accept it and learn to swim.