I have absolutely no idea who Priscilla Ahn is. I’ve never heard of her, I don’t know any of her music except this song, but dear God does she hit it out of the park. Watch and listen:
Video I’m talking about
I’m 41 years old. By any contemporary measure, I’m more than halfway done with my life. I hope that medical science will extend that as I grow older, but who knows? I’ve stopped smoking, I’m working hard, with some success, at getting my weight down from the 256 I had ballooned to (244 this week when I weighed in). I have a brilliant wife, a 4 year old son who is the absolute light of my life and a teenage son who is, I think, on the cusp of realizing exactly who and what he can be (even though he keeps fucking it up. I covered that, he’s a teenager, it’s endemic.). All of that is great. There is just one thing…
I’m going to die. Someday. I don’t want to die, but it’s going to happen. There’s the usual uncertainty, I could be killed tomorrow in a car accident or a bank robbery, but I’m not worried about that. You do what you do, and if you roll snake eyes, well then that’s the way it goes. Absent that though, I’m STILL going to die. The video I embedded above does a very nice job of putting everything in perspective. The old lady embodies “this life I’m willing to leave”. It may, hell it likely will, come to that. At some point, I hope that I will be able to think “I’m done. I have led a good life, now I’m done”. I think I’m on that course. I HOPE that when my life is done, I’ll be able to honestly take ownership of 2 Timothy 4:7: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith”. That’s what I want from my life. I think I’ll feel that way because that’s the way I live my life. Still…I’m going to DIE.
How fair is that? No matter what I do, I’m going to die. I, me, the wonderful person I am, I am going to die. That may be the way of the world, but it still kinda sucks.
You know those people who are aware of their mortality, but don’t worry about it, understand it’s inevitable and accept it with grace? I’m not one of those people.
My best friend, however, is. I had written a quote on my social networking page that I adore for its ability to bring me comfort in the midst of sorrow. My friend stole it for her bio, and summed up her philosophy thus:
*You will live, or you will die, both are good.
~Buddha
If you believe in the many-worlds theory of quantum physics, you will live forever. Each moment there is a choice whether you live or die. Since you are not dead, you obviously entered the parallel universe where you lived. This will keep going ad infinitum. At one point, where you are 126 years old, the universe has a choice to let you die, or give you one more day. One of you will die, but the other one will live. As only the living one will remember what happened, to you it is as if it was the only path taken.
Think of me telling you this when the sun dies out, OK?
(only slightly more seriously: I’m with you dude. It terrifies the hell out of me too, and it seems so, for lack of a better word, *unlikely * that we will die someday)
I find that doing a lot of dancing helps, seriously. How unhappy can a person be while dancing? And if you did end up crying as you danced, it would be probably be a really great cry. I also think singing is pretty good for this as well. You’ll still die some day, but you’ll have all these great memories while you are on your deathbed of singing and dancing.
Well, at least you’ll die. The alternative is to pass away. Man, I hate how that bullshit religious phrase has replaced the honest and accurate terms die and death in the US. Don’t know about you, but when die, I’m gonna die. I damn well better not pass away.
I cant remember what movie or TV show it came on, but a character was offered eternal life and declined saying, “naw, sometimes I want to die.” You never get that feeling? It’s morbid but not a depressive, suicidal thing.
Every time something really good happens in my life; when I’m on a mountaintop or desert floor completely surrounded by beauty, when my dear friends make me laugh, when I fall in love with a woman, when I see my daughter come into this world, when I think about the health I’ve enjoyed, I try and think to myself that if I go suddenly for whatever reason, it’s okay because all this other makes up for it.
Life has been good. I’m past the cake and well into the icing and realizing this makes everything else acceptable, even putting down the fork.
I get that feeling sometimes, but then if i could live forever, and got that feeling i have the choice of waiting and getting over it, or follow through with it (by killing myself or, if its some kind of magical “curse” that does not allow you to die, i would put myself unconscious forever, by oxygen deprivation, drug overdose, or any other of the miriad ways to do it, being unconscious == dying so its the same).
I can work myself into a full-blown, gasping for air, sweat-beading on my clammy skin, heart racing panic attack if I think about this too hard. Happens a couple times a year. Other than that, meh, fuck it. You’ll have time.
I’m okay with it. What I don’t like to think about is that my kids will die, and I won’t be around to help them through it. (The alternative is that they’ll go before me, but that doesn’t bear thinking about.)
Imagine watching everyone you’ve ever known die, then knowing that you’re going to see everyone you meet from now on die. You’re going to see whole civilizations wipe each other out. Eventually you’ll witness the end of the human race. Then you could either be really lonely for the rest of time or a new dominant species will arise, who will likely treat you either like a slave or some kind of novelty; either way you’ll be beneath them and entitled to no place in their society. But eventually they’ll die off when the sun expands and swallows the Earth. You won’t, though. Oh you’ll wish you were dead. You’ll experience the ultimate in loneliness, and a complete lack of stimuli. No more books, movies, music, no one to talk to. All burned up. Not you, though. You’ll outlive the sun and end up floating around the void for the next several billion years. I don’t think anyone knows what happens then - a new big bang, maybe? Heat death of the universe leaving it absolute dark and absolute zero? And you without a change of clothes. That can’t be comfortable.
