Sunday, June 9, 2013

Week 10 - Death and meaning

Our reading from the book this week gives ten ways of looking at death.

  • Death as an image or object - flag at half-staff, monument
  • Death as a statistic - mortality rates, life expectancy tables
  • Death as an event - funeral, wake
  • Death as a state of being - nothingness, energy state of being
  • Death as an analogy - "dead as a doornail," "the dead of winter"
  • Death as a mystery - "what happens after death?"
  • Death as a boundary - "how many years are left?", "you can't come back.
  • Death as a thief of meaning - "I feel so cheated," "I have much left to do."
  • Death as fear and anxiety - "I'm afraid to die," "will dying be painful?"
  • Death as a reward or punishment - "heaven awaits the just," "thee wicked go to hell.

Looking over this list, I see an omission. I'm not contradicting the authors here, they present death as being viewable in at least these ways. When I read "death as a thief of meaning" I automatically think about the inverse - Death as a giver of meaning.

Right now, I am alive. And I am trying out a hundred different things to assert that I am alive: I am keeping my connections to loved ones, I am educating myself to be able to do something new, and with my wife I am trying to have a child. There are real stakes to these actions, because I only have so much time to do them. It might be oversimplifying to say this, but I do these things because I will die.

There's some of this in our book, in the section on Death Anxiety. Being aware of death may push you to enjoy what you have. Terror management theory states that "ensuring the continuation of one's life is the primary motive underlying behavior and that all other motives can be traced to this basic one."

I think that, in part, our lives have meaning because they end. The fact of death gives shape to life; but also, the circumstance of death can impart meaning into someone's life that might not have been there before. This is all over our culture. These are the martyrs, the "heroic deaths," the soldier or the fireman who gives their life saving others. JFK and Lincoln are arguably more famous because they were killed in office. There are entire religions built on the circumstances of one person's death.

As Leah pointed out in her podcast, our lives can be touched by death at any point along the lifespan. This makes it not only an ending, but a part of life. What meaning do you get from death?

4 comments:

  1. I really liked your view of death as "the giver of meaning", and I agree with you that it motivates us to "live" our lives to the fullest. I think, though, that this viewpoint usually isn't acquired until we get into early middle adulthood (I don't know how old you are, but I'm going to be 50 in August), and I just wish I could have looked at death from this standpoint, instead of being so afraid of it when I was younger.

    I also liked the part about circumstances of death and how it imparts meaning into someone's life that might not have been there before. This reminded me of someone I knew that died in April. He was a regular customer at my store for 10 years and a really nice guy. He died a heroic death. Apparently, his sister was asleep in her mobile home and it caught on fire, he went in to try and save her, but couldn't; then went to one of the neighbors, where they didn't even recognize him, until he said his sister's name, because he was burned beyond recognition. So, even though they both ended up dying, he still was considered a hero for trying to save her. He was sixty years old.

    In the past year I have lost my father to pancreatic cancer, my husband lost his sister to breast cancer, and my 92 year old grandma lost her boyfriend to cancer, so we have both experienced a lot of grief. So, after going through all this, the meaning I get from death, is, live you life to the fullest, be kind to others, don't be afraid to try new things (or careers!), don't complain about the little things, try to see the world as a loving place, and just be happy, because no matter what, at some point, we'll all be crossing over to the "other side", so lets make the most out of "this side".

    I've enjoyed reading your blogs throughout the quarter. Good luck to you in the future!!

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    1. Thank you, Kim. Good luck to you too, and (I don't know if you're in a rush to hear this) happy early 50th!

      I'm 35 - is that early middle adulthood? late early? - and I haven't been deeply touched by death, aside from the usual attrition (grandparents, an uncle or two, various friends of the family.) So I might not know what I'm talking about. But there's a moment in childhood when we first understand that things die. All things: our pet goldfishes, our grandmas, our moms and dads, us. Once you get over the shock and panic, you try not to think about it for the next 25-50 years. I mostly didn't.

      Death is a big idea, but accepting the truth of it is how you get to the next big idea: Death is real, and life is important.

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  2. I love how you put all this into perspective and totally understood what they were talking about. There is so many ways to death and how everyone goes through this process. I loved the way you took this and made me understand just that little more... I really enjoyed this blog.

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    1. Thank you Ashley. I was trying not to say "death gives meaning and that's the ONLY WAY OF LOOKING AT IT" - like you said, there's many ways to death. And this way is more about the idea and less about the experience. Everybody's way of looking at it is valid. It's a very personal thing.

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