Sunday, November 10, 2013

DABDA


                                                                                                                              
Like everyone else, especially the very young and the old, I've been thinking about death.

And yet most of us live our day-to-day lives without focusing too much on our own mortality. For better and for worse, we do not live each day as if it could be our last; we do not make the fact of death a dominant reality in our everyday lives. When a loved one dies or some tragedy strikes, we are perhaps reminded of our mortal condition; we might imagine our children throwing dirt into our graves. But the immediacy of life quickly returns, and we live again, for a while, as if the horizon of the future were very long, if not indefinite.i

Cohen and George are right. It's an intellectual exercise, not “a dominant reality in [my] everyday [life].” However unreal though, every now and then it comes to mind. For example, I was thinking about death while listening to a eulogy at a funeral I attended recently. I wondered about what would be said at my funeral. (Don't we all?) There are so many characteristics a person has, so many ideas he has about himself. How are these distilled by the speaker? How is a choice made about what to emphasize? What will be included in my obituary and what will be omitted? I know the aspects of my personality and my life that I'd want to be mentioned, but the decisions will be made by the speaker.ii And, if the funeral is typical, my virtues will be overblown. How can I fault that?

Of course I won't know what is said. I've constructed the same scenarios as everyone else for what death is like, and only the least plausible includes consciousness of the life I would have just left.iii Nothing is more likely. Or, better said, “nothingness” is more likely.iv Among the other possibilities is a kind of consciousness of the soul, and knowledge and participation in some form of “afterlife.” It's hard to imagine what this might be, but I treasure it as a possibility in order keep open the hope that the end of life is not the end. I can imagine dying. There may be pain, or there may not. I may be competent or unable to understand the world around me. Indeed, I may be insensate. But I cannot imagine death. I'll be alive when dying. There will always be a future for me, no matter how bleak. Unfortunately, as far as we know that is not the case with death. And that is what leads to fear.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross characterized the reactions to the expectation of death and to that fear: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – DABDA.v It's reassuring to think that ultimately I'll probably come to accept death, and knowing that, I've already worked out a form of rationalization of it. It doesn't tell me what death is like, only that I shouldn't be afraid of it.

I like to think of death as similar to what I experienced as a child. (And it's comforting to do so.) My parents forced me to take a nap or to go to sleep, and I fought it.vi And that was especially true when something exciting, like a party for me, was planned for the other end of the sleep. But when I awoke, rested, it was clear they were right and the new “life” I was experiencing was better than anything that preceded it. Sadly, I didn't remember that the next time sleep was forced on me, so I feared it and fought it the next time.vii

Even so, it is our understanding – right or wrong – that there are things worse than death. From Patrick Henry's perspective, and that of many of his fellow Founding Fathers, the most valid stance was “Give me Liberty or give me Death.”viii And, in the words of Nathan Hale on the scaffold, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”

More recently the motto was “Better dead than red.” Catchy, if somewhat jingoistic. Some may have taken it seriously, but in all likelihood most considered it more a slogan than a policy. Most examples of self-sacrifice are probably impulsive.ix That doesn't make them less heroic, for those whose instinct is to save others at the expense of their own lives demonstrate lifelong training in patriotism and in concern for others. Perhaps it's genetic,x and is an evolutionary strategy for species continuity, but whatever the reason for giving one's life for others, it demonstrates that for those people death was preferable to the alternative.

Not so heroically, we all rush toward death. We don't think of it in those terms, but that's the reality. We live, as Cohen and George remind us, “as if the horizon of the future were very long, if not indefinite.” We're eager to reach the next milestone in our journey – a birthday, anniversary, new job, daughter's wedding, or retirement – for what we consider to be reasons of enjoyment. Or we're determined that some unpleasant task will be completed and we can move on. But all of these things will take place in a future which we seek earnestly. And all bring us closer to death, although that is never on our minds. Nor should it be. After all, there's no point in thinking about things like death. Even if others do. We won't have to worry about it for a long time.

That's denial. It's the first step.







Next episode: “I Cannot Tell A Lie” – My memory isn't good enough.



I        Eric Cohen and Robert P. George, “The Problems and Possibilities of Modern Genetics,” in Constitution 3.0, Jeffrey Rosen and Benjamin Wittes, editors. Page 186.
ii        Of course I won't hear it, but that doesn't keep me from wondering. Perhaps I'll prepare a résumé for the speakers in order that nothing I consider important will be unavailable. That, however, is no guarantee that it will be used.
iii       But since I cannot know what G-d has in store for us, the speculation is childish.
iv       See note iii.
v       On Death and Dying, 1969, Routledge.
vi      I didn't know what sleep was, and whether I would awaken. And even if I did, I'd miss so much.
vii     It may be fantasy, but it's reassuring. Moreso than believing, as many do, that nothing follows life but the rotting of the corpse. (If they're right they'll never know it.) And from my point of view,such a fantasy is no loss. In fact I will have been happier than I might have been. If they're wrong, they've spent a lifetime anticipating a nothingness of their own creation.
viii    That, of course, didn't prevent them from allowing slavery in the Constitution. Politics and all that. Henry, himself, condemning a strong central government along with condemning life in general under British rule, opposed the Constitution, but still owned the slaves he inherited. “I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them.” Inconvenience, apparently, was also worse than death.
ix      Suicide may also be impulsive, but that's not the subject here.
x       See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/

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