What is it about death? Is it really that painful? Scary? It certainly is unwelcome by most of us, but can it really be that bad, if all of us have to eventually do it?
Well, what does one have to do with the other? That is, what does the fact that we all have to die, have to do with whether or not it is as bad as many of us believe it will be?
I don't know. But it seems like there is something there to be mined.
Last night, I saw a jumping spider on my stove and I debated whether or not I should kill it. I ultimately decided not to, because I don't generally like killing things just because they scare me, or gross me out, or inconvenience me in some other cosmetic way. I do make an exception to this for house centipedes though. Anyway, only if something is a real threat, will I deem it necessary to kill it - roaches (disease), mice and rats, (bites, disease), large spiders and insects (bites). Flies, small spiders, and anything else I can "catch and release", usually get just that - caught and released.
So, as I mentioned, I decided it wasn't necessary to kill the spider, and since spiders kill other insects, I may even be serving a purpose by letting it live. Besides, how would I like it if I were minding my business and a giant napkin squashed the life out of me and flushed me down the toilet or threw me in a trashcan. Any conscious part of me after that would likely think I had lived a pretty useless and meaningless existence if something else could so casually kill me without a second thought. Then my life meant nothing. So, I tapped the stove, which I knew would startle it and cause it to run off and hide. It did. I was pleased.
Not too long after, I hear my girlfriend pounding on the kitchen counter (I was in bed). "What are you doing?" I asked with all the innocence of a toddler about to enter a crime scene. "Trying to kill this jumping spider" she replied. "I got it!" she celebrated. I wasn't as celebratory, but I didn't tell her that.
For a second, I hated that spider for it's stupidity. I thought "You idiot! I spared your life, only so you could return to the scene of the crime to be killed less than an hour later!! Maybe it was your time, and maybe you deserved it." But my second thought was "What was I trying to spare this spider from?" Spiders live in a life and death struggle everyday. They know the risks of their lives better than anyone else. Everytime they face off with a mantis or have a run-in with a predatory bird, they are reminded soundly of the deadly struggles of life (if they survive these encounters).
(And here's the non sequitur part, because on the surface, what I'm about to say has nothing to do with what I just said, but somehow - for me - they're connected - I haven't found the exact connection though - but I'm looking...)
So why are we any different? Are we any different? Somehow the death of that spider has led me to the conclusion that death is probably not all that bad, or, if it is, life is meaningless anyway, so who cares?
If life is meaningless what do I care if I go to work, get paid, have a child, rob a bank, kick a cat, or whatever? Therein, lies a paradox, because I do care (to some degree) about those things. Some, more than others, but I care, nonetheless. But I care within the context of knowing (for me) that these things are all ultimately meaningless, and it is something I've struggled with since I became an atheist (or Adeist - if you've read my earlier article).
It doesn't bother me that everything is pointless. Rather, it bothers me that everything is pointless and that I'm here anyway. Because, why? Why be here at all then? I find some peace in the idea that I'm just one of the many processes in the Universe - a flail - if you will, but ultimately, pointless or not, life is damn enjoyable. Why have it to lose it? I suppose if I had a gambler's outlook on life this idea would suffice, but I don't and it doesn't.
I'm in no hurry to leave life (at least not yet), but I have to wonder what the point is.
There's really no ending to this post and there's not much within it that one could connect (without being in my head). Just some thoughts that are somehow and for some reason conflated within me and had to get them out...
There's a lot packed into this little bite. You review the inevitability of death and logic that it can't be all bad, since we all have to go through it. We all had to go through puberty and that wasn’t all that awesome but it did lead to sex so quite possibly you’re on to something here. In Avatar, Guru Pathik did say that death was an illusion. An illusion of what reality is the question, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, I was hard pressed to find anything else as inevitable as death, puberty was all that came to mind. I thought perhaps birth. Yes, there are deaths of the unborn but if life starts at the moment of conception then unborn people regrettably have extremely short lives. From the human vantage point conception doesn't seem inevitable because the causes of conception see so clear to us, "A sperm cell from the male and an egg cell from the female meet when two people copulate..." and all that jazz but where does the soul come from? It’s easy enough to assume it develops out of the genetic code just as the arms, lungs and heart do. However if there is an after-life won’t a pre-life make since also? I mean when we die and as many believe arrive in the after-life will we be in a small, warm, place as the medium incasing our soul develops. If only we could remember a pre-life, then after-life would probably be less daunting. Will we even remember this life when we arrive in the after-life? It's an awful lot more symmetrical to have the two inevitabilities be birth and death rather than taxes and death. I'm sure AIG execs with hefty bonus would appreciate that.
Oh, and no worries about the jumping spider she meet death valiantly with a mighty leap!