Nicholas Higgins 21/05/20

Death on My Mind

 ‘The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns’, W. Shakespeare, Hamlet

Death is humanity’s one common denominator. No matter what we do to avoid it or ignore it, the day will come when we ‘meet our maker’, ‘kick the bucket’, ‘push up the daisies’ and ‘shuffle off this mortal coil’. Death is hideous and frightening and cruel and unusual; it is the most formidable, inexorable, implacable force that the human race has to face. The death of a loved one is perhaps the hardest knock life can blow. The bereaved are left, like Edgar Allen Poe’s narrator in The Raven, ‘back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning’.

Not surprisingly, death in the West has become a dark symbol not to be stirred - not even to be touched - an obscenity to be avoided. Surrounded with so many taboos, death is almost as unmentionable to us as sex was to the Victorians. In what’s been called a ‘death-defying’ society, we cling on to the illusion that youth, and life, can last forever. This one inevitability is denied as people renovate their faces and bodies like their homes. Even dead bodies are pumped full of chemicals and makeup to make the body more ‘lifelike’.

It’s not always been this way. In almost every century preceding the 20th, Dr. Death had a place in everyday life. Then, the dying remained at their homes and their primary caretakers were family members; children were present along with everyone else during the dying process and the subsequent funeral preparations. Today, however, it is normal to live to adulthood and not watch anyone die, or even see a corpse except in the brief glance of an open coffin at a funeral. Death has become ‘invisible’. Doctors have replaced family members, and the dying are relegated to the unfamiliar spaces of hospice and hospital. Death is rarely seen, never talked about, shrouded in fear.

Yet it is tacitly understood in the secular West that death is a determined end. For some (Jean Paul Satre), this is evidence of life’s absurdity. Life is emptied of meaning when you realise you could be snuffed out tomorrow; ‘love and fame do nothingness sink’, as Keats put it. For most people, however, it means that life becomes a ‘lived for achievement’. One must get from point A -Z in the most efficient manner possible because, one day, time will be ‘up’. With no belief in an afterlife, time is worryingly limited. This ‘temporal anxiety’, means the West prizes above all else, accomplishment, achievement and incremental development toward a final goal.

This is what drives almost every Western parent to give their child a ‘head start’ in life. Mothers play Mozart in earshot of their foetuses in the hope that the child will start this life one step ahead of the rest. Instead of ‘wasting time’ playing during summer breaks, today parents spend good money on sending their kids to maths or computer camps. It’s what drives university student’s scramble for internships, to get the ‘competitive edge’ in the graduate job market. It’s the fuel in every career career climber’s heart.

On the other hand, to the 84% of the world population who identify with a religious group, death is not a finality. Hindus and Buddhists believe in cyclical reincarnation; the quality of your rebirth is determined by good and bad actions in this life. Christians, Muslims and Jews believe in Heaven and Hell. They all adhere to some form of ‘last judgement’ where we will be held to account for how we spent our time on earth. In all these beliefs, death is not the end and life is more than a personal achievement. Rather, death is a new dawn and life a ‘test’. Thus, achievement by the way the secular world measures it, wealth, status and power, are of little value for the religious believer. 

Beliefs on death then, are perhaps the strongest determinant for how we live this life. Death forces forces a decision from both secular and religious, to quote Tolkien, on ‘what to do with the time that is given us’. Death is part of living. Not just an event, the end of events, a change of state or status, it’s an attitude toward life. 

While secular and religious worldview’s might differ on what happens beyond the grave, both I think, agree that death is not something that need be feared. In an ideal world, it should be confronted, even embraced. When you consent to your death - that almonds or green smoothies will extend but not prevent the inevitable - the point of worry begins to diminish. It’s the same method by which you get rid of all anxiety, acceptance, not denial. Instead of fearing it, we can ‘number our days’ that we may gain a ‘heart of wisdom’ (Psalm 90).

Numbering your days makes you painfully aware of your own transitoriness:

Visiting graveyards, I’m always struck how vast swathes of humanity are forgotten to history. Old gravestones are abandoned to the greater forces of nature, buried amidst lichen and weeds. Realising that life will come and go like a ship in the night lends to life an urgency. For the secularist whose time is short, he better ‘get busy livin, or get busy dyin’. Nor should the believer squander his time either, for ‘what we do in life echoes in eternity’. Neither want to waste a minute. Death is the great motivator for both material and spiritual goals.

Living in the knowledge that everything will pass makes you cherish every small thing. Moments might never come again, from spectacular views on holiday to vey special evenings with your loved ones. Knowing this plants your feet firmly on the ground and makes you bask in the present moment. It’s with good reason that the ‘how would you feel if this day was your last’, question has become so cliched. The inevitable answer is that you’d stop taking life for granted, you’d quit the moaning and griping, and start appreciating the great gift that life truly is.

Death is a radical refutation of man’s power. Pandemics like Covid-19 have uncomfortably exposed the fragile, precarious nature of life. Not only is this humbling, it’s perspectivising. Big scary things like death remind you not to sweat about the small stuff. You’re suddenly not so concerned about your love handles, cracked iPhone screen or Instagram public profile. Evidence shows that most people reach the deathbed with a mixture of satisfaction and regret; if you see life as a preparation for dying, you can address that balance now. It’s better that way round. The Christian can use now to be the man God wants him to be. The atheist can use now to get out of that crap job or toxic relationship. Mortality forces you to reorder your priorities and goals. In so doing, it brings to the fore all those things that actually matter in life. It cuts the froth and leaves the dross.

We must then reverse the ‘denial of death’ at large amongst modern culture. Reconciliation with death begins the moment we understand that death is not a counterpoint or contradiction to life, but a profound teacher of it. By exposing our ephemerality it motivates us, grounds us and focuses us. Living in its shadow teaches all not to waste our days, but to prepare them for the inevitable end.