wednesday afternoon thoughts on mortality

There is no death. Death is everywhere.

I'm 41. I see the world not just through my eyes, but through the eyes of my children. I see life through the filter of relationships that are sometimes 20, 30, even nearly 40 years old. There is nothing unique in this.

I've always been aware of mortality, but my concept of it changes as I get older. If you asked me at 20 I'd have said something along the lines of living each day to the fullest while being cognizant that it could end any time leads to a rich life. If you asked me today, I'd say the same thing, but I'd feel like I actually understood it more this time. And I'm willing to bet that, should I still be here in 20 years and you ask me again, the same will hold true.

I was an angry young man. I am now, on occasion, an angry middle-aged man. I think more now about how to direct that energy into something useful. In general, I've fallen short in doing so, but the effort at least keeps me from becoming permanently bitter. To do so would be to betray my kids, I think. Raymond Carver wrote of his children as his greatest influence (with which I agree) and a baleful influence (with which I vehemently disagree.) To call your children a baleful influence is a cop-out from the responsibility of your own actions. Bluntly, that's some weak-ass bullshit.

I am an atheist and I'm also deeply spiritual. These things are not contradictory; spirituality has nothing to do with a belief in religion or using particular metaphors. There's a ton of shit we don't understand, and so much we may yet learn if we, as a species, are lucky enough to stick around. (Honestly, I think it could go either way. Depends on my mood, you know?)

But I can say in all honesty I'm not afraid of death. I am afraid of any number of ways of dying, as most of us are. And I would be immensely sad to leave any time soon, with so much I still want to do and see and learn. Striving to live each day with an awareness that I only have so many of them (and I have no idea what that number may be), however, takes the fear of that ultimate transformation away. And it certainly provides a neverending wellspring of creative material. Artists would be in bad, bad business without death.

There is no death. Death is everywhere. The dead are looking for me, for you, for all of us.