I don’t know if it’s my age (67) but I have lately found myself reading a number of books about dying, of which, it turns out, there are rather a lot. Wendy’Mitchell’s ‘One Last Thing’ about her unwinnable battle with dementia is the most current. Then there is Julian Barnes’ ‘Nothing to Be Afraid Of’ and Diana Athills’ ‘Somewhere Towards the End’ - which are the ones I managed to get at least halfway through.
Because although I started reading the books, I have finished none of them, and neither do I expect to. Why? Because they make me think about death, of course. So why start reading them in the first place?
I am drawn towards them, I suppose, in the way that one might be drawn to the sight of a car crash when cruising down the motorway ( the difference being that sooner or later the person in the crash is going to be me).
There is both fascination and repulsion involved. As anyone who tells stories knows, the twin obsessions of most human beings are sex and death. I am no longer interested in sex, either as a spectacle, a subject or an activity. I try not to be interested in death either, but there is no avoiding the fact that it is a compelling subject because it is the one thing that unites all human beings and animals and indeed all living organisms.
I have quite often met people who claim that they are not afraid of death. I tell them that they are wrong. The fear of death is encoded into their DNA. I ask them to perform a thought experiment. If a maniac walked into the room at that moment brandishing a gun, held it to your head and told you he was going to blow your brains out, would you be afraid? Damn right, you would be.
People who say they are not afraid of death, are simply people who are good at the denial of death - the subject of a book, called, aptly enough, ‘The Denial of Death’ by Ernest Becker, a New York times bestseller when it was published in 1973. This book posited that all human achievements were rooted in the desperate attempt to get away from the fact of our own mortality. Skyscrapers, TV, motor cars, high heels - culture was all rooted in the need to distract ourselves from the unpalatable truth about human existence.
When we came to consciousness of death at some point in history, - up until then we would have, like all creatures, been unaware of what the future inevitably held - we must have had a hell of a shock as a species. It certainly explains the invention of religion, if not skyscrapers and TVs. Story, you might say, came to the rescue. After all what is the myth of Adam and Eve if not the story of mankind coming to consciousness of death? Once Adam ate of the Tree of Knowledge ( one might say the tree of self-consciousness) he was condemned by God to die. That is, he was condemned to live with the knowledge of death.
I suspect Becker had a point ( it was to some extent proven empirically by the authors of another, later book, ‘The Worm At The Core’). Death is always waiting. He is the ruffian on the stair.
Madam Life's a piece in bloom
Death goes dogging everywhere:
She's the tenant of the room,
He's the ruffian on the stair.
Oddly enough though, the closer one gets to death, the less frightening it is - or at least that is my experience. They say there are two kinds of people, those who never think of death and those who think about it every day. I am definitely one of the latter, and have been ever since I first became aware - and horrified - by the prospect of my own certain extinction, when I was around 13 years old. I was with Philip Larkin: ‘This is a special way of being afraid/No trick dispels.’
Perhaps the fact that I nearly died in my crib ( I was born with cancer) has bestowed me with a particularly acute sensitivity to mortality. Whatever the case, that dark shadow has never completely left my consciousness. However, as I say, now I am older, and my life energies run more slowly, the prospect of them ceasing does not seem so dreadful. Disappointing though. Definitely disappointing.
But not actually depressing anymore ( I have suffered a fair amount of clinical depression in my life, and this may be connected with my sensitivity to death, I don’t know). In fact, I have come to realise that being aware of death has given my life if not urgency, then a reluctance to waste my life on trivia, given how limited my timespan is. It may also explain why I have four children and have written 11 books. All attempts at immortality? Perhaps. But I don’t see that they are much use as symbols of immortality when I am not going to be there to observe them.
The church - during the 16th and 17th centuries when death was much more of an immediate and present threat, given that the lifespan was half of today’s, and the prevalence of infant death much higher - still felt it was useful to produce memento mori , little reminders of your own mortality, unless your consciousness let it slip too far into the chambers of denial.
I personally don’t need any more reminders than I already have, ie, my ageing, crumpled body and the clock on the wall. In my adopted home of Whitstable in Kent, they have set up a death cafe where you can go and talk openly about the great taboo. I won’t be attending. I am very much of the mind of David St Hubbins in ‘This is Spinal Tap’ when contemplating the grave of Elvis Presley.
"Well, this is thoroughly depressing." says St Hubbins.
"It really puts perspective on things, though, doesn't it?" says Derek Smalls ( another member of Spinal Tap).
"Too much. There's too much fucking perspective ." says St Hubbins.
Too much fucking perspective. Perhaps. The awareness of death is undoubtedly sometimes a torment., On the other hand, it can represent a tremendous liberation - because as Becker suggested, one spends an enormous amount of mental energy trying to keep it away from consciousness. Accept mortality and that energy is freed up for more positive and meaningful activity.
One could almost say that it is death, paradoxically, that gives meaning to life in the first place. For if there were no end, what would be the point of anything? Death, along with its twin, birth, provides a framework around which meaningful activity can take place. Death, you might say, is the ultimate source of energy. All you have to do is accept it as part of your accustomed reality. Easier said than done. But whether you accept it or not, it is coming. So, to my mind, making peace with ‘total emptiness forever’ ( Larkin again) is a better strategy than fighting a war you can never win.
Like you I had a sudden awareness of my mortality around the age of twenty. The thought of taking away my existence seemed like a dirty trick and a disaster that needed to be solved. I would have panic attacks at the thought of eternity. I think about death often and at 73 the thought is a nonevent. I attribute my dull response to desensitization to the thought. I have read Becker and discussed “Denial of Death” in a reading group. I think our consciousness of death is at the root of all fears and a heavy weight to carry. I work hard to take that weight off my shoulders by confessing complete acceptance. I don’t think your “gun to your hard” analogy is appropriate. The instinctual fear is a subconscious brain stem function. We would automatically be thrown into survival mode. Acceptance of death is conscious.
Hi Tim,
Àn interesting essay around a subject recently on my mind more than previously. At the moment, I am awaiting the death of a very elderly (85) friend for whom there is no turning back, and a younger one, in the grips of cancer.
The fact of death is undeniable and it is not the actual passing that I am afraid of, but the events in my family's life that I will miss.