Not wanting to die...

 

Well here's a subject for a Sunday morning breakfast, but really at some point you can't ignore the fact that a lot of people really don't want to die, even though if they are logical about it they must realise that they are going to.

You could say that it is a bit like paying taxes maybe? It's something that you don't want to do but know you will have to whether you want to or not.

So I'd like to do a little unpicking of why we don't want to die, or maybe of why it causes problems for us. There are a whole lot of emotional and even philosophical triggers linked to dying and some are very easy to understand. Others less so.

Well, first of all, there is a very long history of people not wanting to die and putting a huge amount of effort into not doing it. The first Chinese emperor, Qin Shi Huang, was obsessed with immortality and sent out expeditions to find alleged 'Islands of Immortality' where curative herbs grow. Spoiler: he still died. There are people today in Silicon Valley who are conducting research (all in the name of science) into how they can live to 150 or 200 (not immortality, but the same vibe). 

And even though I can quite understand that you wouldn't welcome the end of your life with open arms, especially if you are really enjoying that life, you would think it possible to at least accept that you are going to die some day and accept that it is a real part of your life ahead. And maybe even to accept that the time when you know you are dying soon is one of the most real parts of your life, and perhaps one of the most meaningful, so not to be derided or minimized. 

Here are - in no particular order - some of the reasons that people don't want to die (or perhaps, more correctly, don't want to think about the unavoidable fact that they are going to die)

1. Bringing on bad luck: This seems a bit silly, but maybe we believe that if we think too much about death we will somehow attract it or bring it on. So it is safer to leave it in the background and not think too much about it. 

2. Worried about our loved ones: If you have loved ones or are responsible for others' care, you will of course think about how they would feel if you died. And you want to avoid giving them that pain. This seems a very reasonable reason to not want to die, but no more effective in preventing death. Some people use this motivation very well, by actually making plans that will make their death less disruptive (writing a will; saying what your funeral should be; explaining where the silver is hidden etc)

3. Worried about the process of dying: We see death in films (and Shakespeare plays) as quite a climactic moment involving swords and car crashes and we can feel quite dramatic about the possible pain and fear. But most medical conditions that we die of now can be pretty well managed most of the time, even when they are going to kill you. And as they said in the cancer ward where Cro finally died, "Our bodies do know what to do, and they are good at knowing when they are dying". 

4. Unable to think of the world without us in it: This is a bit philosophical. We avoid admitting that we will die, because when we try to think of the world without us in it and looking at it, our brain does a 'fails to compute', and can't imagine us into it. So we deny death itself. This seems a fairly mild problem as it is not so much outright denial as an inability to imagine something, even though we might try. It's not that we don't want to; we just can't imagine it. 

5. Not 'giving up': Now despite poems like that Ulysses which I posted earlier, you can fill all your life with plenty of activity without feeling that you have somehow betrayed your life when you do die. There is a Dylan Thomas poem 'Do not go gently into that good night', which seems to be an icon of resisting death, in a way that could be either noble or bone-headed. Going gently seems a pretty reasonable choice to me, when you know that you are going that way. But there can be a feeling of letting the side down by dying when there is so much more to do in the world. But whenever you die, there will always be so much more to do in the world, so why focus on this particular death?

As death has played rather a prominent role in my life these last two years, I have had plenty of time to think about it. I think you can both not want to die, and do all the reasonable things that will prevent it, and also accept that you are going to die. And depending on your health condition, you can also sometimes know that you are going to die in a timescale that you can see. I'm not quite there yet, but will get more clarity later, and at some point will know better exactly how long I likely have left. 

And when you are in that time when you accept that you are dying and know quite a lot about how long it will be, I think you can really enjoy so many things. I saw Cro saying what she knew was goodbye to lifelong friends and it was a glorious and loving experience for both of them. I can imagine looking back on all the fun and joy and music and silliness and love, and thinking how lucky I had been. I'm not exactly looking forward to dying, but oh to think of all the joy that I'll remember. 

The Stoics used to talk about 'Living a good life and dying a good death'. I'm with them on that.