I have recently turned eighty.
That’s 80 years or eight decades on this planet (not counting the three-fourths
of a year or so when I was gestating). And though there has been no apparent
change in either my physical or mental capacity (well, not obviously; though I
have been noticing subtle changes in my balance and in my endurance at simple
tasks, and others may well notice less than subtle changes in my mental ravings),
there has been just today a change in my thinking about endings. About death.
It’s something most of us are reluctant to contemplate most of the time. Too
depressing. We all know we’re mortal. We all know we’re going to die. Some day.
But usually throughout most of our lives, we are able to set aside that some
day to an indefinite “later.” I’ll deal with that later. For now, there’s too
much to do, too much to see, too much to enjoy. Too many people to take care of
or whatever momentary crisis needs our attention. With the passage of my
eightieth birthday, however, thoughts of death have arisen unbidden. And I no
longer have the inclination or the capacity to shove them aside.
So
here we are. Closer to the fulfillment of a lifetime than ever (notice how I
just avoided that dreaded word “end”). And though most popular discussions
about such times focus on accomplishments, or how much one has enjoyed life, or
whether there’s still something one wishes to do or see or accomplish, it now
seems to me that those questions are really only more attempts to put aside the
real question. And that question is: what happens? What happens when I am no
more? What happens to whatever it is I am when the most obvious manifestation
of “what I am” has turned cold, immovable, inert?
And
here’s where we get into problems. It’s not so much that I fear the end, as
Woody Allen once said (he added that ‘I just don’t want to be there when it
happens’—which is another way of saying I’m afraid of the pain of death).
That’s not the real problem. Because if the end is truly painful, then the
release of not being there anymore would come as a relief. As something sought.
No. The real problem with thinking about death is that we have no tools with
which to think it. It is the great unknowing. For every other state that seems
analogous to “not being,” such as sleep or being put under some consciousness-blotting
drug (and the new ones are simply fantastic), we have the comparison that comes
when we “wake up.” We come out of sleep or we come out of anesthesia, and we
can think back to what we can remember or even not remember, for not-remembering is a kind of remembering: I don’t
remember a thing. And we compare that with the state of non-consciousness in
whatever way we choose. The problem with death is that there’s no comparable
comparative state. Once we die, that’s it. There is no waking up (unless we
happen to subscribe to the comforting notion of heaven or Valhalla or
reincarnation or whatever myth we’ve been taught, all of which seem pretty
obviously moot here). There is only the full stop. Death. Period. End of story.
That
is the hard thing to contemplate or comprehend. The impossible thing. Because,
again, we have no waking state from which to view it. We’re gone, our ability
to contemplate or comprehend is gone with us, and all that’s left are the
people and world we’ve left behind—if we can even say they exist any more, because once our ability to see or sense them
is gone, we don’t even know whether they, or the world itself still exists in
any meaningful sense. Does it? We don’t know. We have no way to judge. No way to
reason about it. It’s gone because we’re gone. Our contemplating of goneness is
gone.
And
so we come to a dead end—all puns intended. And thinking about that dead end is
what I, what we all fear more than anything else. The non-existence of
ourselves. Of our ability to see or comprehend the world. Which we are sure
exists and which we want to maintain in our body/minds and in its present state
(if there is such a thing) for as long as possible. But with no me to maintain
it, the world simply disappears. All its objectivity turns into an illusion. It
depended on me to give it shape and form, and once I’m gone, it is gone too.
It’s a bit like the notion in quantum physics where any object only exists when
there is an observer to pop it into existence. Without the observer, we can’t
tell what state it’s in. And that drives us crazy. Which is why death, the
notion of death, drives us crazy. And which is why so many variants of the
persistence of something—of some locus of consciousness like the soul that is
prior to the mere matter that is the body—have occurred over the millennia.
Unable to contemplate anything without us, we invent a state where some
non-material, essential us is preserved. And lives on. Which is what we really
want.
The
question is, can we dispense with this comforting notion entirely, and still
contemplate death? Can we contemplate our own nonentity? Our own nonbeing? Our
own nothingness?
It’s
not easy. I have been trying to do this for some time now. The world without
me. And only one thing is certain: it won’t be the same world I now know. It
will be the same world in many particulars, presumably, but the world that I
perceive and roam through will not exist. Nor will I. And that’s the impossible
part to conceive. Conceiving implies an “I” to animate it. Without an I,
without me, what can be conceived? Can my death be conceived without me? Or is
death only conceivable to those who survive? It seems so. Absence is only
conceivable by that which is still present. Those who know me will be able to notice,
and perhaps grieve, that I am gone. But what about me? Will I be able to see
that I am gone? It’s like an Escher drawing. Recursion. How can I see myself
when what I see with is not there?
And
the question then becomes, does it matter? Is it important to know what death
is like? Well, at this moment, it is. To me. I would like to know. Or maybe it
is a mercy that I don’t know. Maybe that’s what the real meaning is here. We
are not allowed to know because actually knowing death would be too hard. Too
painful. So we are kept in the dark until the dark comes, and then the issue
has vanished anyway.
I
hate that. I hate to accept that. Knowing seems to me, seems to our entire
culture, to be an unalloyed good. We should all know what we’re about. We
should all know what we are. We should all be aware of what we’re doing and
what is happening to us so that perhaps some of the hateful things wouldn’t be
allowed. And yet, the most important question remains beyond our reach. We keep
it beyond our reach for most of our lives, and then when we want to grasp it,
we realize that it’s still out of reach, that, perhaps, we’re not meant to
grasp it. But by whom? Who means to spare us this final realization? It’s
almost like taking refuge in a putative big Daddy again. And that simply won’t
do. There must be something to become aware of, some way to grasp the solution
to the big question. But at this moment, I have to confess, I don’t have the
key; and don’t know anyone who does. Don’t even know if there is a key. Or if
having the key would make it any better. And yet. And yet it almost feels as if
the key is there, tantalizing but just outside my grasp. And so all I’m left
with is a kind of yearning, and a kind of frustration. Almost there, but not
quite. But I soon will be. And that’s not a comfort either. It’s not like being impatient for the arrival
of a big day when something grand will happen. It’s not like awaiting one’s birthday or Christmas when one was young,
or a grand achievement when one is older. No. It’s like wanting to know
something that, when known, will be, or might be the worst thing one has ever
known. That’s what death could be like. Wanting to know something that one at
the same time does not want to know. And so, driving eagerly towards it and at
the same time putting on the brakes: no, wait, just another few days or weeks
or years. Give me some more time to maybe find the solution, some prediction,
some protection before it comes.
Ah
god. A consummation devoutly to be wished. Hamlet went over the whole thing
four or five centuries ago. To be or not to be. Except that he was
contemplating suicide. A choice. With a natural death, it’s not that we’re
contemplating a choice. We’re contemplating an inevitability, some consummation
(being consumed) we have no choice about. No choice whatever. And though we
hate that, maybe it’s a good thing. If we had a choice, we’d be likely to screw
it up like everything else humans do. So maybe it’s a good thing we’re
compelled. Compelled under the utmost compulsion of all: death. The mystery
that refuses to be solved. The final comeuppance to arrogant homo sapiens. You cannot solve this one,
smartass. You simply cannot solve it or outwit it because that which you use to
solve and outwit things is gone simultaneously with the thing to be solved.
And, dammit, though I hate it, though it’s maybe not as it should be, it’s
maybe simply as it must be, as it is .
Lawrence DiStasi
