You are dying. You will one day be worm food. You’re a gonner. You will certainly shuffle off your mortal coil. Maggots will feast on your eyes and beetles will dance in your chest. Trees will suck up your cells and spew them out into the air. You’re gonna snuff it. Life ends, shit happens. You are dying, that’s a fact and it’s good news.
Don’t get me wrong, I love living and having it’s juice run down my chin, what I object to and why I have written this is that I don’t see the benefit in denying death. I believe not facing up to the end-game to be very harmful as paradoxically, it is awareness of our temporary status that makes life rich. We live in a culture that hides de
ath behind closed doors and polite ceremonies, denies the reality that could enliven our days and breathes down our necks each night. This is not the case in all cultures, the Samurai would meditate on 1000 ways to die before breakfast to conquer fear, in Ethiopia where I lived briefly death was generously available in the streets and in the Middle East mourning is a more passionate public affair. I could go on…
Nowhere is this death (and therefore life) denial more apparent than in the corporate world. This extends beyond not mourning actual deaths in companies to denying the causes of ill health in a pretence of invincibility (I have done stress workshops after this facade has been sadly smashed). Even denying the loss of people leaving or being laid
-off in the recession is a loss and requires mourning to process that rarely happens.
So to live fully my suggestion is this – embrace death, dying and our transitory vulnerability. We are precious and doomed – and that is beautiful.
Andrew Cain
Nice one Mark.
Tolstoy was another big fan of meditating on death. I agree — it prompts me to make the most of now.
BW Andy
Cathy Dean
Couldn’t agree more, but then there’s so much denial in the corporate world isn’t there? Denial of people’s right to make their own decisions, denial even of their right to be their true selves, so it’s no wonder there’s a denial that everything else is temporary. After all, how many major corporations want to admit to the reality that the work they do isn’t really adding to the sum of human happiness and may even be contributing to the increasing levels of fear and misery around us? If they did that, they may then have to start thinking about whether or not the world would be better off if they went and did something else – and then where would their shareholders be?