Last night, I thought to write about death. Because I happen to have many thoughts about it. Plus, I had been reading some Aeon essays12 about it earlier in the day.
I might distill my current thoughts about death in a future post. But for now, here are some of my scribblings about the subject I found in my notes from 2023.
Footnotes include essays you might find interesting.
i believe that some ways of dying are better/worse than others, but sometimes i'm not too sure. i've always been curious about why virginia woolf chose to drown herself, so i went on google. if you're like me and you've never drowned before, drowning seems like a terrible way to go. remember the burn that comes with inhaling even just a bit of water? all right. surprisingly, some [fringe?] accounts of people who have survived drowning describe it as stupidly peaceful. the first few seconds are full of pain and flailing and panic because the body is wired to self-preserve. but after that, they say it’s calm. and the flailing and initial horror, they say, isn't even due to pain but due to shock: shock to be breathing water into your lungs.
i can't tell if those people genuinely didn't experience terrible pain or if their brains tampered with the memories after the fact. but it makes me wonder just how much we can't tell by simply observing. what looks to be the absolute worst thing might not be as bad as we imagine it to be if we were experiencing it firsthand. after all, we suffer much more in our minds than we do in real life, with some exceptions, of course.
something i find interesting about life is it's inconsistency. it's so easy to die. people die abruptly. sometimes they just sleep and don't wake up or slump and go, even though they seemed otherwise healthy. it's ironic that it also takes a lot of effort to die deliberately. the human spirit can be so stubborn. and if one brushes too close to death but doesn't actually die, sometimes they are slapped a fate worse than death. severe brain damage, for instance, if some attempts go awry. but again, it might be one of those things that are infinitely worse outside-looking-in than inside-looking-out.
looking at people born with extreme disabilities, you might be moved to feel sorry for them because it easily seems like such a terrible fate (and perhaps it sometimes is). but then you're surprised to find that they might actually enjoy life, fully in ways no less than how able-bodied people do. it's why peter singer and harriet johnson's conflict3 fascinated me. i didn't understand why she (at least initially) thought he was such a horrible person for believing that parents should have the option to euthanise babies born with severe disabilities in order to spare them a life of suffering with no respite. i could see the pitfalls with his advocacy (and how it could have unsavoury, unintended consequences), but i didn't think he had evil intentions. some people believe in the sanctity of life for the sake of it; others prioritise the quality. but it fascinated me how different the perceptions of quality could be between those experiencing something and those observing them experience it.
i once heard that michel de montaigne, the founder of the modern essay (wavy about the accuracy of this claim, but it sounds nice), lost his fear of death after nearly dying from a horse accident. witnesses saw him scream and cry through what seemed to be unbearable throes, but when he woke up the next day, he couldn't remember any of that, only calm. and the epiphany he came to was that death itself wasn't the scary thing since death itself lasted less than a moment. i'm recounting from old memory, which means i may have bent or embellished some parts. so take this with a pinch of salt.
we often conflate the moments/suffering before death with death when both are different. if what is terrifying is not death itself, why should one fear death? and if montaigne's account is by any means universal (though i suspect it is not), how important is the process that leads to death? of course, while i believe that death is death, i still don't believe that all dying is the same. i continue to think some processes are worse than others, but i find the gap in understanding fascinating.
i'll apologise again bc i know i abuse the word fascinating. but i don't know of too many alternatives that don't sound pretentious.
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obviously, not everyone's fear of death is about pain and suffering. for some people, it's about what comes after. it's probably why cioran more or less said that only optimists kill themselves. it sounds counterintuitive, but it takes a certain level of optimism to believe that whatever one meets or does not meet after dying is better or not worse than whatever pain they're experiencing here.
at any rate, the fear of death is logical, and it contributes greatly to why people adopt many of the beliefs they have (religious or otherwise). but the validity of its basis is debatable since no one really knows what death is. at the end of the day, everyone walks into something they don't know. some people, more confidently than others because of the beliefs they have formed about it. but everyone is just as ignorant. and because nearly dying and actually dying aren't the same thing, attempts at self-education are virtually futile. only the dead can say, but the dead cannot speak.
one line i found especially interesting when i read CNA's ghosts (from purple hibiscus) was okoro's belief that it is our diffidence about the afterlife that drives us to religion. i'm not sure how true it is, but if you, with absolute certainty, knew that you would be permanently snuffed out the moment you died, would you still hold the religious beliefs you hold?
Thanks for coming.
Life after death - The idea of life after death lives on in near-death experiences and messages from beyond the grave. What’s the evidence?
Why is death bad? - Even without a hereafter, dying gets a bad rap. But why exactly is it no good – because of what happens, or what doesn’t?
This is in relation to Johnson’s essay Unspeakable Conversations in the NY Times, in which she discusses her interactions with Peter Singer about his controversial views regarding infanticide and euthanasia for disabled individuals. It explores the clash between abstract philosophical theories and the lived reality of disability, highlighting Johnson’s struggle with Singer’s apparent kindness despite advocating utilitarian ideas she considers deeply harmful, and she questions whether rational debate is possible when fundamental assumptions about the value of human life differ so dramatically.
Not you doing a full essay for Substack. We have to discuss this but yes, I loved reading this.