Death and dying interests us all--we are all going to die. It’s not a topic that should interfere too much with our lives, that would be a foolish preoccupation, but because it is something that at different times of our lives causes us different levels of concern we should consider it part of living and therefore worthy of reflection. The young think less about dying than the old, the ill think more about it than the well, the reflective person benefits from reflection at any time or stage of life.
Death stalks us like a storm. For most of the time it is beyond the horizon and we ignore its approach. We say, “oh yes, we all die!” and so on, but somehow it never really seems to apply to us, our own life, our own circumstances. Then suddenly, perhaps in the middle of the night, we’re struck by the terrible feeling of non-being, of our lives having terminated and with that termination, that death, the end of all that we know. It can leave us feeling hollow, sometimes fearful, sometimes worried. Here I hope to discuss some of these fears and worries and perhaps address them in ways that may help us understand the inescapability of our circumstance--that we are like Socrates mortal and that we are all going to die. And bound up with the philosophical and theological questions about “why?” and “what?”--Why are we here at all if it leads to death? (Absurdity) What is the point? (Meaning) Why do we find the prospect of death fearful? (Fear) What sort of cruelty is involved in letting us know we are going to lose the only thing we know? (Good and Evil).
A further reflection—A Little on Death--how we can understand and deal with the idea of death can be found here.
A personal account of a Farewell to a Dying Cousin can be found here
A Reflection on Wisdom, Personal Mortality and Those that Follow can be found here.
A reflection on experiences of the death of others stimulated by the suicide of Isabella can be found here
Graveyard is a reflection on the importance of now.
Here are a few books and films that are worth following up.
