57 - Metaphors
Hey there, ! Heavy one today, so turn back if you’re not feeling up for it.
I’ve been thinking about life lately. Well, actually, death.
Before we keep going, please take this as a warning that we’re talking about things that are pretty sensitive for people - myself included. This is really a way for me to bring some more…structure to my thoughts, and help to talk through what I’ve been trying to rationalise in my head for the last 3 months.
Death is a hard topic to talk about. It’s difficult because on one hand I want to be as genuine and authentic in what I’m thinking about, but I also want to make sure I’m not overwhelming myself or others.
To that end, I’m going to heap as many metaphors as I can on to take the sting out from such a serious topic, because that’s really the only way I can think about it.
Let’s see if I strike the right balance or not…
I’m pretty scared of death. For the longest time, I imagined what it would be like to be in a hospital, being old, going to sleep, and then just never waking up. It’s terrifying. I’m even scared of surgery - that break in consciousness that might be permanent.
Rationally, I know it could probably happen anytime, anywhere, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. When it’s your time, it’s your time. And when you’re gone, you won’t know it.
I’ve had many people help me through some bouts of death anxiety I’ve had during the pandemic, and helped me with a lot of different views and ways to think about it that I wanted to share with you today. I’m not a religious person, so discussions about higher powers aren’t as relevant for me. But, well, metaphors, y’see?:
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Life as a rope: the idea that each person wants to find a way to join their rope in some way to the ‘rope of humanity’ - binding their contribution to the wider history of and future of humanity. Some people want to leave a legacy through great achievements, others contribute by having children or contributing to their community and continuing the survival of the human race.
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Life as a rock: Picture a lake. Your life is a rock, and its effect ripples throughout the lake. When you encounter others, you change the nature of the surface of the lake as your ripples interact with each other, no matter how small or large that effect is. Some make bigger splashes than others, but everyone has their part to play in the world.
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Life as a wave: From The Good Place:
“Picture a wave in the ocean. You can see it, measure it, the height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. It’s there, you can see it–it’s there, it’s a wave. And then it crashes into shore and it’s gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be for a little while.”
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Life as the universe: We’re all made of stardust, in varying levels of energy. We’re made of the same cosmic dust that star, suns, moons, lakes, trees and sand are made of. This means that we’re actually just the universe experiencing itself in a multitude of ways, and that we move between energy levels between when we’re born, when we live, and after we die. We are but a moment of human consciousness in an infinite universal experience.
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Life as grass: Day to day, grass will grow and die. It’s a natural process - you’ve come from the ground, you’ll return to the earth. Why fight against nature? It’s inevitable that you’ll die - face into the fact, and accept that it will happen to everyone.
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Life and reincarnation: the belief that you’ll die, and be reborn as someone, or something else, in your next life, dependent on what you’ve done in this life. A story called ‘The Egg’ by Andy Weir (who also wrote The Martian) takes this one step further, using the idea that you’re everyone in the world. Every time you reincarnate, you reincarnate into someone else from history, or the future, and you keep doing this until you’ve experienced the life of everyone who ever lived or will live. Then, you can transcend, having learnt everything you can about being human, and be born for real…
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Life as love:
“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”
This is my favourite recent quote about life…the fact that we’re such small creatures in the universe, that death is inevitable…all that can overcome our fears and doubts is to feel something bigger than ourselves; in many cases, love. The connections we make with one another, the love we share and partake in…it provides us with the purpose that many of us want in our life.
Life as sand: this one is where I’m at, right now. Every little thing we do is sand, on the cosmic scale of things. Every sunrise, every sunset, every second that passes, every word I write - it’s all sand. It’s small and insignificant by itself, but put a whole lot of sand together and you get a beach.
On one hand, the thought is depressing, because, well, does anything really mean anything? But on the other hand, it’s incredibly empowering. Who cares if you fuck up (within reason - I’m not arguing that you should go out and murder people)? You feel embarrassment, shame, guilt - it’s all sand in the end. Don’t worry so much.
That helps me a lot.
At the end of the day, I think going through these things actually helps to sharpen the focus of what needs to happen with life. It’s like a deadline - you know it’s coming up, so you need to sort out how you get your shit done…Memento Mori and all that. It’s a great motivator to cut out the bullshit and focus on what matters.
That’s all for now.
Chat soon :)
✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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Midnight Gospel - this specific videocast (like a podcast, but with animation) is a poignant and beautiful discussion of the host with his mum on what it means to be alive, and how to think about existence. It’s beautifully told, and brilliantly animated. Really do try and watch this - it’s only 20 minutes or so.
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Calypso by David Sedaris - a collection of essays by famed humourist David Sedaris. These pieces focussed on his family - those who have passed and who were living. I really enjoyed this collection - it was hilarious, warm, but also utterly heartbreaking. His writing reminds me of how I’d like to write about people - the good, the bad and the ugly - he talks about his sister’s suicide and his mother’s alcoholism the same way he talks about his petty qualms about how many people his husband has slept with. He doesn’t shy away from his own guilt or shame - he wears it honestly. It’s stripped of comforting wool, and lays bare the reality of relationships, life, and love.
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Thanatophobia - a subreddit dedicated to people who are afraid of death. It’s a bit of a slog to read through, but it’s part of the self-diagnosed exposure therapy I’m trying to do :D
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WeCroak - “to be a happy person, one must contemplate death five times a day”. It’s an app that randomly notifies you about death on your phone - through a quote or something to meditate on. I’ve been trying it - the notifications don’t always come through but overall it has good content.
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How to not fear your death - it didn’t help me, but it might help you?