DEATH
September 29th 2006 04:04
Not quite as colourful and light a topic as yesterday's, but worthy of contemplation none the less.
A child who watches a few hours of cartoons, TV or film a day is said to witness over 10000 deaths before the age of 15. What does that do to our feelings about our own mortality?
Other civilisations have contemplated death in very different ways. The ancient Egyptians are said to have had an obsession with death and their rituals of mummification, elaborate ceremony and opulent tombs for the elite show an unparalleled reverence for the dead and a strong belief that there is an afterlife to be prepared for.
Even contemporary cultures such as that of Mexico show a very different relationship with death. The ancient Aztec celebration, Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a massive national holiday of joyous celebration. The dead are remembered and so is the mortality of the living.
But our society, though saturated with images of death, seems to have a general shyness talking about death on a personal level. Woody Allen said it well with his words, “it's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.” Just as our cultural taboos about sex create pornography, the taboos about death in out society create the cartoonish and gruesome representations of death in our popular culture, making it a shocking spectacle rather than an inevitable part of life’s cycle.
Death is, after all, the one certainty (because even taxes are avoided by some) - so perhaps we need to be more open about it. Words like ‘descesed,’ ‘late,’ ‘departed’ and ‘passed away’ all detour the heavy connotations of ‘dead.’ But wouldn’t being more in touch with our mortality make us live better? Perhaps…
On the one hand, if we are given, say, six months to live, would we finally do all the things we procrastinate about? I guess I would hope to eat all the things I like to eat, dance to the music I love, be with the people who inspire me, live more and love more. Maybe I’d try heroin. Maybe I’d type faster. The idea is that I would embrace my living moments in a new way.
On the other hand, maybe those who have no concept of their mortality are the ones who really live more. Jung said that life like an arrow to it’s target: from the moment it begins it is aiming for death, and at midlife it stops it’s ascent and begins it’s decent. It is then that we must realise out mortality and develop a philosophy about it. So in its initial ascent, the arrow has not realised that it is heading straight to death and it soars up and up. Is the youth freer, more reckless and more active precisely because they don’t think about their death?
It would be wrong to suggest that our culture ignores the concept of death completely. We do have varied rituals for funerals, burials and mourning, all designed to make the emotional experience more tangible for those the deceased left behind.
I remember wondering as a kid why they put make-up on the corpse and a satin pillow in the coffin if the person is dead anyway. It was explained to me that it is not for the dead person but for the people still living. It isn’t to help the soul get to the afterlife, as in Tutankhamen’s tomb, it is to make the dead less dead for those still living.
Another tactic for dealing with the intangibility of death in our culture has been to come up with a personification of it. The Grim Reaper with his dark hooded cloak and scythe has regularly appeared in pop culture to make death something palpable and often comical. In The Meaning Of Life, Death shows up at a dinner party and announces “I am Deeeeeath.” In true Monty Python fashion, the guests are somewhat unfazed and try to make Death welcome. When he says “you are all deeeeeeead,” the host remarks “well that’s cast rather a gloom over the evening hasn’t it?”
Rather than give you a picture of death, here’s one I took at the Thames of a piece by Bansky
A child who watches a few hours of cartoons, TV or film a day is said to witness over 10000 deaths before the age of 15. What does that do to our feelings about our own mortality?
Other civilisations have contemplated death in very different ways. The ancient Egyptians are said to have had an obsession with death and their rituals of mummification, elaborate ceremony and opulent tombs for the elite show an unparalleled reverence for the dead and a strong belief that there is an afterlife to be prepared for.
Even contemporary cultures such as that of Mexico show a very different relationship with death. The ancient Aztec celebration, Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a massive national holiday of joyous celebration. The dead are remembered and so is the mortality of the living.
But our society, though saturated with images of death, seems to have a general shyness talking about death on a personal level. Woody Allen said it well with his words, “it's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.” Just as our cultural taboos about sex create pornography, the taboos about death in out society create the cartoonish and gruesome representations of death in our popular culture, making it a shocking spectacle rather than an inevitable part of life’s cycle.
Death is, after all, the one certainty (because even taxes are avoided by some) - so perhaps we need to be more open about it. Words like ‘descesed,’ ‘late,’ ‘departed’ and ‘passed away’ all detour the heavy connotations of ‘dead.’ But wouldn’t being more in touch with our mortality make us live better? Perhaps…
On the one hand, if we are given, say, six months to live, would we finally do all the things we procrastinate about? I guess I would hope to eat all the things I like to eat, dance to the music I love, be with the people who inspire me, live more and love more. Maybe I’d try heroin. Maybe I’d type faster. The idea is that I would embrace my living moments in a new way.
On the other hand, maybe those who have no concept of their mortality are the ones who really live more. Jung said that life like an arrow to it’s target: from the moment it begins it is aiming for death, and at midlife it stops it’s ascent and begins it’s decent. It is then that we must realise out mortality and develop a philosophy about it. So in its initial ascent, the arrow has not realised that it is heading straight to death and it soars up and up. Is the youth freer, more reckless and more active precisely because they don’t think about their death?
It would be wrong to suggest that our culture ignores the concept of death completely. We do have varied rituals for funerals, burials and mourning, all designed to make the emotional experience more tangible for those the deceased left behind.
I remember wondering as a kid why they put make-up on the corpse and a satin pillow in the coffin if the person is dead anyway. It was explained to me that it is not for the dead person but for the people still living. It isn’t to help the soul get to the afterlife, as in Tutankhamen’s tomb, it is to make the dead less dead for those still living.
Another tactic for dealing with the intangibility of death in our culture has been to come up with a personification of it. The Grim Reaper with his dark hooded cloak and scythe has regularly appeared in pop culture to make death something palpable and often comical. In The Meaning Of Life, Death shows up at a dinner party and announces “I am Deeeeeath.” In true Monty Python fashion, the guests are somewhat unfazed and try to make Death welcome. When he says “you are all deeeeeeead,” the host remarks “well that’s cast rather a gloom over the evening hasn’t it?”
Rather than give you a picture of death, here’s one I took at the Thames of a piece by Bansky
Quote Of The day:
"For three days after death hair and fingernails
continue to grow but phone calls taper off."
Johnny Carson
"For three days after death hair and fingernails
continue to grow but phone calls taper off."
Johnny Carson
| 64 |
| Vote |
Comments (1)
Add Comments
