Death—long view

Note: this is not a history-of-technology piece

It would be typically ahistorically presumptuous of us to think that we’re the only society to refuse to accept death for what it is. Almost every—if not every—human society I can think of has done that, to some extent. So, let’s not be so arrogant as to arrogate special arrogance to ourselves … Having said that, we know so much more than any other society ever has about the workings of the universe and the workings of ourselves down to the electron-microscope level that we have less excuse.

That doesn’t mean we should toss all the deeply-historically-rooted symbolism and metaphor surrounding death that we’ve inherited in the bin. As with all symbolism and metaphor—and mythic truth—it’s invaluable so long as we understand the difference between it and what is literal or “real” and don’t confuse the two.

The central arrogance of humanity throughout time is the overinflation of the importance of consciousness—which we have claimed not only as our exclusive distinguishing trait, but as the most important trait a being can have—so important that there’s no way it can just cease to be. Consciousness is a wondrous thing; its importance is difficult to exaggerate—but exaggerate it we do. We’ve assigned consciousness to trees, rocks, the sky, the sea—and, most relevant here, to humans who have died. On a literal, “real” plane, that’s preposterous. On the symbolic, metaphorical plane, it’s not that simple.

We tend to view older and non-“Western” societies as more imbued with and respectful of “nature” (the whole universe outside what humans directly create for ourselves) than we are. So many of them were, but even our own society was more so just 150 years ago. The later nineteenth-century “West” was drawn to the idea that other beings had a soul or a spirit or something that gave them more value than a board or a lump of coal or a sword. Yes, these were the same people who were playing around with seances and devouring gothic horror and late-romantic literature, but they were open to the idea that other beings on this planet had consciousness; and, leaving aside any anthropomorphism thus implied, were less likely to view, and treat, other beings as nothing but resources to be exploited than we would be just a few decades later, when the “Western” scientific community narrowed its circle of consciousness to just us. That’s when the wholesale slaughter of advanced life forms on this planet kicked into high gear. The twentieth century—the one that just ended 25 years ago.

Full disclosure: I completely reject notions of “soul” or “spirit” in the traditional “religious” sense of something literally real that is separate from the “corporeal”—something that can somehow exist before and/or after the existence of the “body.” Such dualisms are not just unhelpful; they’re destructive. They obscure reality from us rather than reveal it. If you want to have a parade for a funeral as a celebration of life, I’m in. If you want to have a parade to celebrate Aunt Carol’s soul getting to heaven, have fun with that. And a rejection of life for the hope of nirvana—no.

But—“soul” and “spirit” are valuable concepts in the symbolic, metaphorical plane. When a being dies, what animates that being—what makes that being “alive”—goes away. What is left is not a being; it is organic matter. Life exists in that matter, but it’s microbial life—not the life that made your mother your mother. That matter can continue to contribute to life; it can play a part in creating a new life that can become someone’s mother, but only if we let it—and, in our society, we are only just starting to realize the insanity of what are now our “traditional” death practices. We still say “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”—which is correct—but we fill corpses with toxic chemicals and spend the price of a year’s college tuition on a carefully-made hardwood box to put inside a lead vault in the ground—so that there’s no way that matter can ever contribute to new life again. That’s crazy.

Sure, it is true that there’s a practical origin to this; too many corpses buried too close together in a plot of ground with a high water table is literally pathological; it can, and has, spread disease, which creates more corpses. But we now have far more sustainable—and cheaper—ways of disposing of corpses than this. Cremation is popular, and that’s encouraging. Even older people in our society accept it, and that’s even more encouraging. But, cremation uses a lot of natural gas and puts CO2 into the atmosphere—something that people who know what the hell is going on are trying to curb. So, we’re exploring “natural burial”—which has been around since long before the point where we know much at all about our own species—and “liquid cremation,” which has not.

To return to the symbolic and metaphorical, though: the wholly “unnatural” procedures practiced by the mainstream funeral industry reflect something much larger than what we do with corpses; they reflect the reality that, in our society, today, we don’t really know how to accept death. There’s still a clinging—whether open or tacit—to an old Christian superstition that there will be an overturning of the natural way of things at some specific point in the future, at which time “souls” will be returned to “bodies” which will then magically lose all evidence of decay and people who have died will exist again in a state of perfect bliss. Jesus—wishful thinking much? This is full-on lack of acceptance of death. Death is a part of life—just as much as birth. That’s hard for us—I’m no exception. We feel death as the antithesis of life; we juxtapose it with sex, and with birth, which of course are as intimately connected as possible, and how could we not? How do we accept death as a part of life while at the same time accepting it as the antithesis of life? You won’t get a pat answer to that here. The best I can do is incorporate death into the realm of realities that I accept as realities—and, more than that, into that exclusive realm of inevitable realities. As adults—if we ever become adults (beyond chronologically)—we learn to “accept what [we] cannot change.” If there’s one thing we can’t change, it’s death. Life is finite. What do we do with that?

Well, everything is finite, so far as we can tell. We have to be open to being wrong, of course, but it seems to us right now that even the universe had some sort of beginning and will have some sort of end. If not, it at least is in a constant state of change; there is no stasis. “The only constant is change” may be a cliché but it’s also a central truth.

Before our own time, human societies were much more intimately acquainted with death. They had far fewer tools with which to put it off. They did not expect to live to be 90. Their babies died, their children died. Even the essence of life—sex and birth—killed them. We can muse that the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death, but we need to do that with this context in mind.

But they were no better at accepting death than we are; they spent untold amounts of their vast riches on a make-believe “afterlife.” On the other hand, though, the ancient Egyptians lived well and enjoyed life, for an ancient people. Perhaps that’s one reason they had a hard time accepting death.

To give due credit, though, ancient peoples got a lot right about the universe, about the basic realities of being human, about how to live. They had to intuit much of that, for sure, but they did. We have to remember that not all their superstitions were superstitions; a lot of them were their symbolic and metaphorical reality, based on what they knew, didn’t know, and experienced. They did not have the powers we have.

We’re offended by death, it seems. Death just doesn’t compute with us, because we walk around assuming we have so much power over our own lives—which we do. Or, we just make up a “God” and assign all the real power to “God.” Neither really helps us come to terms with reality.

When I think about it with the longest view I can, I don’t think it matters so much what rites and rituals a society employs around death. What matters is, does that society accept death, and do something symbolically- and metaphorically-constructive with it, rather than make up unrealities about it—or, worse, allow the inescapable reality of death to compromise life? We are right to observe the death of one of us as an important event. We are right to pause and reflect on the life of someone whose life has just ended. We are right to assign meaning to—more than that, to draw meaning from—a concluded human life. On the symbolic, metaphorical plane, “spirit” and “soul” absolutely “exist.” All of us alive have the spirits of those who are dead inside us, contributing much to who we are and how we live. We can put our spirits into what we create. My conception of my own life changed after my books were published; I have created something that will outlive me and can be bigger than I am. Our spirits are in our children, if we have them—so we should be damn careful about what spirit we pass on.

Ironically, perhaps, the knowledge and tools we have today can contribute to, rather than distract us from, something as timeless and inevitable as death. Also ironically, perhaps: the control we want over our lives could contribute to, rather than distract us from, an acceptance of death. We are willing to spend any amount of money and other resources, and endure so much suffering, to avoid taking control of our own deaths. This is changing in some places, and I’d very much like to see it change everywhere. We know we are going to die. We know that, if we’ve lived right, our death will be a painful loss to some people. We can’t choose not to die, but we can, in so many instances, choose how and when to. This is as personal a decision as whom to marry, but how and when to die is—or at least can be—a decision. But not if we spend our lives pushing away the reality of death—so that, when it is right there, and wont’ go away, we’re not prepared. We don’t know what to do—so we do nothing, for as long as we can. As if pushing away death for literally as long as possible is a refusal to surrender an affirmation of life. That’s not the choice—because, paradoxical as it is, death is a part of life. Always has been, always will be.

So—enjoy the rest of your day.