September 23, 2009
dear clusterflock
How often do you think about your own death?
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comments:
- Deron Bauman: It’s a start.
- Joel Bernstein: The first of many things, no doubt.
- Deron Bauman: I’ll pick him up at eight. He may not like the way I smell.
- Michael Smith: Joel’s Dream Date: Phantom Menace; Cat urine cologne; Deron.
- Joel Bernstein: For the record, if you pay to see this, you are no longer my friend.
- Deron Bauman: Meow.
- Joel Bernstein: This must be why I fuck so many cats.
- Michael Smith: Seems to me the experiment almost does itself.
- Casey Cichowicz: No. It is not possible. I can assure you.
- Joel Bernstein: Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes?
- LaurenH: I’m with those who say get that girl out of that household. The father has now very effectively...
- Rick Neece: Holee sh..!
- Rick Neece: Asian calligraphy, ‘cept instead of a brush, hot glass. The image of her controlling the glass and...
- Rick Neece: For the gull-wing, I’m sure it would knock me in the chin every time I opened it.
- Marco: Oh god yes.
Biweekly.
I sometimes think I’d be a tad pissed if I died right now, but, other than that I don’t give it any serious thought.
qd
I don’t know how to answer this without over-sharing to the point of discomfort. This would be a really good moment to use humor to deflect! If I were any good at that.
Every morning, as I dress for work. The reason: my grandfather, whom I was close to, died last year, leaving behind stacks of brand new white t-shirts that are just my size. I inherited them, and each morning I put one on, cover it with shirt and tie, and remember him and think about my own trip West of Everything. It’s a nice way to start the day.
Being dead, I suspect, is just fine. It’s the idea of dying painfully that is so, well, painful. It’s not uncommon for me to think about being dead. It happens.
Actually…
The way I’ve recently paid attention to death as a looming concept has more to do with the way this cartoonist describes The Referendum:
How often? just the once really, still thinking about it, I’ll tell you if I stop…
I’m pretty much with Ross on this one. I neither fear nor dread death, but it’s always with me.
All the effing time. A common conversation:
“I haven’t talked to you in a while.”
“I died.”
“Sorry to hear that!”
“It’s ok, I got better.”
Every now and again I imagine what it would be like to be shot or otherwise violently injured. I do not imagine the pain of it or even think about the likely outcome, death, instead I imagine what would happen to my flesh. It’s a little like watching a gory movie starring yourself.
Perhaps this is weird. I don’t know.
As for death itself, I used to wake up in the middle of the night and be afraid of what it will be like to not exist. It was actually a Tom Robbins novel that got me over that, Another Roadside Attraction, I think. He drove home the idea that we’re all energy and energy never dies.
I did get thinking about my own death just a couple of days ago. It is not a topic I brood on, but what set me thinking was a train of connections that led me to re-viewing that 2002 episode of David Letterman’s show on which Warren Zevon made his final appearance. (Conversation with a friend re: “Mohammed’s Radio” + headless donkey piñata in my car = “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” — hence Zevon on Letterman.)
That broadcast had all the makings for maudlin dreck in the manner of Oprah, but in watching it again Monday afternoon, I thought, “I hope I face my own death with that degree of grace. Just the right weight.”
Part 1 and Part 2.
Though now I ponder it, I am not sure I can really imagine my own death. All I can hope for is that I face it in something of the same spirit as has guided the living of my life.
It passes my mind from time to time; the last instance prompted me to tell my girlfriend, “You know, if I get hit by a cab or anything, uh, all my photography shit is yours, of course…just sayin’.”
I take some solace in the recently overheard conversation of a semi-coherent flea market vendor, talking about his near-death experience: “…and then they revived me. No bright light, no tunnel, nothing. I tell you, when you die, you’re the only one who doesn’t know it.”
Pretty much 5 days out 7. Occupational hazard.
I get caught up in the mechanics of death – arranging, preparing, directing. The mind wanders. I come to ponder eventually what my funeral would be like. Who’d come. Who would I let embalm me (if that’s what my wife chooses). Just what the hell is it like is it at the moment of death? What is that other side?
Then I go have lunch.
OK, I’ve tried today six times to answer this. If this one doesn’t go, I’m giving up.
(You can say it’s not “the moon,” I can’t imagine what else it might be. Or the alternative is my own stupidity, which is also, I think, a factor of the moon.)
I don’t fear death. I don’t want anyone to hurt at my passing.
If you could choose your death, what would you choose?
I have often imagined myself getting gunned down in a mugging because I gave the guy guff (“those aren’t for threatening,” or some such thing). I am not sure whether or not I would choose it, but it is what I find myself replaying in my head.
In the interest of belated full-disclosure, mine has been haunting me on an hourly or so basis for a long time. Sometimes I imagine how folks would respond were I to fall over dead in the street or shower. In several instances, it would be sweet revenge, let me tell you. But a mess would be left, too, because my 39 years have been anything but tidy.
Maybe that’s why most of the time I contemplate different ways my mortal curtain’s sweeping close could be hurried along. I’m all about options.
But nobody start worrying. This is how I’ve lived my life for years. It works for me.
When I’m driving, I think about crashing and dying quite a lot. Last year I crashed my car on the same place on a road that I always dream about crashing (only in winter though). Broke my arm but wrote my car off. Haven’t dreamt about it since, so maybe this is a good sign?