Mortality and Death

"Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist." - Epicurus

Been thinking about death a lot lately. You know, a real light subject to be dwelling on. 

There's a few factors at play. Sal and I just celebrated 15 years together which is a long period of time considering I still feel like our relationship is new. Partly because I'm approaching 40. Partly because it's been so gloomy. Basically, I'm getting older, people around me are getting older, so it's mid-life crisis time. Instead of buying a convertible for my mid-life crisis, I've just been discussing a lot of philosophy.

 

The age old question of what happens after death is hard for humans' brains to comprehend. 

Faith based concepts like an afterlife are the most common. 

A rebirth where you come back as another person or animal, also a common concept. 

Both feel like when someone uses a Portkey in Harry Potter. The more I think about it, the more vertigo I get. 

Then there's the case that there's nothing. You just don't exist. Really, shouldn't be scary. It was the way it was before you were born and it is the way it was after you're gone. But the concept of me not existing is incomprehensible. I think it has to do with the, "You're always the star of the movie of your life." How can this planet continue to exist without it's main character?

I used to ghost hunt. I didn't realize it at the time. I just thought I was getting some cheap thrills and seeing some really cool buildings at night, but it gave me comfort anytime I found any sort of evidence that part of us lingers on. It was the most scientific evidence I could find for what's next. I haven't done that in 15 years. Maybe I need to re-up that. 

True/False happened recently and one film got me more than others, Red Herring. 

It's a film about a 28 year old who is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor and he's given 4-8 years to live. 

Instead of dwelling on the... you know... dying thing... he wanted to put together a film celebrating all of the good times with his father, mother, and significant other. All of that unimportant, mundane crap that we worry about all the time is thrown aside and he dedicates his life to reconnecting with these people and living on as a great memory in all of these people's lives. 

The film captures these incredible moments of levity and companionship. The tumor becomes the b-plot. His significant other tries to live on as if nothing has changed. You get to see them joking around and generally seem like a great match. 

His mother and him drifted apart, so he starts visiting her and getting into these deep philosophical and medical conversations (she's a nurse) about what is going to happen. She seems to try and keep him at arms length, but there's still a matronly love there. 

And then his father has a crisis of faith and starts looking to religion to have some sort of comfort. Judaism appears to give him the most comfort. 

The film culminates in his father getting Bar Mitzvah as a full grown adult. And everyone the director cares about is in one room, dancing like no one else is there, all with a crushingly emotional monolog over the top of footage of the party.

I'm glad the room was dark because it gave me permission to ugly cry and let a lot of pent up feelings out. 

Astronauts report this feeling of "profound inspiration, overwhelming emotion, a sense of oneness, even transcendence" coming back from space. Something about seeing the Earth from space elevates you above those day to day problems. It's called the Overview Effect. People that work with the astronauts as soon as they land back on Earth describe being infected with this feeling of the Overview Effect. They have this profound change in personality for several days. 

Spoiler, the director of Red Herring, Kit, is still alive. He was there doing a QA. And he seemed like he was in pretty good health overall. 

Kit went to the True/False dance party on Saturday night and I was browsing through comments on social media and I saw so many mentions of how his sort of live like every moment is the last was rubbing off on people in a positive way. A sort of Overview Effect that you get from knowing how limited your time is exactly. 

Then, as if the universe was syncing up, a podcast I casually listen to called "Let's Get Haunted" did an episode on near death experiences. There were some stories that were very cringe and I don't  fully believe them, but there were equal amounts of stories where people talked about having this extreme calm, out of body experiences, seeing old relatives. 

These are the sort of life and death experiences that ground me. There's something comforting hearing that people were seeing older relatives or floating above the room they were in. It tells me one of two things... there is some sort of afterlife... or at the very least our brains are designed well enough to protect us from extreme fear in our final moments. 

I don't know if there's any nice bow to wrap this up in. I haven't come to any conclusions. The thoughts are still rattling around in my brain. But I at least seem to be on a journey of self discovery. I'm not running from the thoughts. I'm facing them.