My uncle Nagarajan says we need to have an 'Art of Dying' like we have for Living. It's one of the most profound events in our lives, which affects everything else, yet we don't think or talk about it much.
If life were a prisoner's dilemma, Death makes the number of games finite, as opposed to infinite games if we lived forever. In Game Theory, the presence of infinite games provides an incentive to cooperate, and if the games were finite, it triggers selfish, uncooperative behaviour.
I think that in real life it works the opposite way - the fact that Death makes life into a series of finite games makes people cooperate even in situations where they suffer as a result. Like bad jobs, bad marriages and so on. I see a lot of people putting up with difficult situations because the end is inevitable, so one doesn't fear the perpetuity of any bad situation. Of course here the focus is on bad situations, and we will discuss good situations some other time.
I also think that these days we are not used to Death because of lower mortality rates. We don't see infants and children dying as frequently as in the past, or even adults dying as young and frequently as in the past, and this makes us ill-prepared for Death when it does arrive - a certainty that we have not prepared for. If you avoid all pain, when pain does arrive, it's unbearable.
Some argue that whether you have 10 kids or 2, the death of one is equally painful. I disagree with this line of thinking - if you have more of anything, losing one is less painful.
What amuses me is people celebrating children's age milestones these days, like the 1st birthday. In the years past children had a very good chance of dying before their first birthday, like one in four or one in three would die so young. And if you did survive till 1, your chances for adulthood are very good compared to when you were in the womb. There were good reasons to celebrate.
To celebrate you need to have exposure to some risk - not necessarily death, but failure and hurt of some sort. If there is nothing at stake, what is there to celebrate? So as we derisk our lives and gravitate towards a life of convenience, control, longevity, certainty and risk-aversion, we are giving ourselves fewer and fewer opportunities to truly feel celebratory, and we are increasingly ill-equipped to handle whatever uncertainty, inconvenience, lack of control and pain that does come our way. It's good to be exposed to viruses, and catch a flu once in a while to build immunity.
We must also be aware that Death can come any time for any of us. That we are living on the edge all the time, we just don't know when it will end. Anyone can die at any point, and a casual meeting with a friend or loved one could be the last - we just don't know. This leads to another question: what if we knew that we are meeting someone for the last time? Does it change how you think or behave? Does it help or hurt? One of the most beautiful aspects of natural design is the fact that the future is not revealed. That we could be facing death tomorrow, and we still wake up and do our routine and move around with life with the happiness of a person who is immortal. We'll have so much anxiety if we knew we're going to die tomorrow, yet nature shields us from it, so we can be happy until the last moment. A bit like the principles espoused in raising livestock - let them be happy and exhibiting natural behavior till the last minute, for death is inevitable and - for nature - of utmost necessity.
Another feature of death is pain. The last segment of all of life is filled with pain. It ranges from a moment to a long drawn-out struggle in hospitals. Often a person is sick for some period of time, and nature gives us hints, and then they pass. This period of suffering is witnessed by the loved ones and it's very hard to process. This is another part of beautiful natural design, although it's difficult to associate pain with beauty. There is pain so that when the person dies, the people caring for the person feel relief in addition to the grief. Watching a loved one suffer makes death more acceptable. If people didn't suffer and died suddenly, it makes the news harder to accept - the reason why we feel more tragic when someone dies suddenly, like in an accident or from a violent crime, than we do if they fought a prolonged illness and died.
Nature also gives our brains a mechanism to accept this trauma. What we remember and what we forget are carefully chosen by natural design, to help us survive and be happy. I have had a few traumatic events, and I don't remember much from the months, or sometimes years afterwards. Like the brain doesn't want to remember - it's too painful. Back in the day, when someone died and the body was burnt, that was the last visual image one takes in, and it's during a period of intense brain function, and it may be etched or erased, but either way it's the last glance. Now we have photographs everywhere reminding us of dead people and we think their smiling faces on our walls help us cope, but truth is it's a trigger that sets us back in life. We need to move on, and refresh our minds and slowly accept the new reality and look forward, for there are more deaths to come, and life needs to be lived before that.
I end this with one of the most profound learnings from Wendrick: enjoy every day.
If life were a prisoner's dilemma, Death makes the number of games finite, as opposed to infinite games if we lived forever. In Game Theory, the presence of infinite games provides an incentive to cooperate, and if the games were finite, it triggers selfish, uncooperative behaviour.
I think that in real life it works the opposite way - the fact that Death makes life into a series of finite games makes people cooperate even in situations where they suffer as a result. Like bad jobs, bad marriages and so on. I see a lot of people putting up with difficult situations because the end is inevitable, so one doesn't fear the perpetuity of any bad situation. Of course here the focus is on bad situations, and we will discuss good situations some other time.
I also think that these days we are not used to Death because of lower mortality rates. We don't see infants and children dying as frequently as in the past, or even adults dying as young and frequently as in the past, and this makes us ill-prepared for Death when it does arrive - a certainty that we have not prepared for. If you avoid all pain, when pain does arrive, it's unbearable.
Some argue that whether you have 10 kids or 2, the death of one is equally painful. I disagree with this line of thinking - if you have more of anything, losing one is less painful.
What amuses me is people celebrating children's age milestones these days, like the 1st birthday. In the years past children had a very good chance of dying before their first birthday, like one in four or one in three would die so young. And if you did survive till 1, your chances for adulthood are very good compared to when you were in the womb. There were good reasons to celebrate.
To celebrate you need to have exposure to some risk - not necessarily death, but failure and hurt of some sort. If there is nothing at stake, what is there to celebrate? So as we derisk our lives and gravitate towards a life of convenience, control, longevity, certainty and risk-aversion, we are giving ourselves fewer and fewer opportunities to truly feel celebratory, and we are increasingly ill-equipped to handle whatever uncertainty, inconvenience, lack of control and pain that does come our way. It's good to be exposed to viruses, and catch a flu once in a while to build immunity.
We must also be aware that Death can come any time for any of us. That we are living on the edge all the time, we just don't know when it will end. Anyone can die at any point, and a casual meeting with a friend or loved one could be the last - we just don't know. This leads to another question: what if we knew that we are meeting someone for the last time? Does it change how you think or behave? Does it help or hurt? One of the most beautiful aspects of natural design is the fact that the future is not revealed. That we could be facing death tomorrow, and we still wake up and do our routine and move around with life with the happiness of a person who is immortal. We'll have so much anxiety if we knew we're going to die tomorrow, yet nature shields us from it, so we can be happy until the last moment. A bit like the principles espoused in raising livestock - let them be happy and exhibiting natural behavior till the last minute, for death is inevitable and - for nature - of utmost necessity.
Another feature of death is pain. The last segment of all of life is filled with pain. It ranges from a moment to a long drawn-out struggle in hospitals. Often a person is sick for some period of time, and nature gives us hints, and then they pass. This period of suffering is witnessed by the loved ones and it's very hard to process. This is another part of beautiful natural design, although it's difficult to associate pain with beauty. There is pain so that when the person dies, the people caring for the person feel relief in addition to the grief. Watching a loved one suffer makes death more acceptable. If people didn't suffer and died suddenly, it makes the news harder to accept - the reason why we feel more tragic when someone dies suddenly, like in an accident or from a violent crime, than we do if they fought a prolonged illness and died.
Nature also gives our brains a mechanism to accept this trauma. What we remember and what we forget are carefully chosen by natural design, to help us survive and be happy. I have had a few traumatic events, and I don't remember much from the months, or sometimes years afterwards. Like the brain doesn't want to remember - it's too painful. Back in the day, when someone died and the body was burnt, that was the last visual image one takes in, and it's during a period of intense brain function, and it may be etched or erased, but either way it's the last glance. Now we have photographs everywhere reminding us of dead people and we think their smiling faces on our walls help us cope, but truth is it's a trigger that sets us back in life. We need to move on, and refresh our minds and slowly accept the new reality and look forward, for there are more deaths to come, and life needs to be lived before that.
I end this with one of the most profound learnings from Wendrick: enjoy every day.
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