Objectivity of Death

The thing with death is... it's only hard on the living. People, young or old, who develop terminal illnesses are always comfortable with their fate. There is seldom, fear or regret in the person that is facing finality of the journey of life. They simply don't have the longing for things remaining the way that they have been. They become comfortable with the idea of taking another path.

People who are not facing certain death look upon death with a zeal as if it is a type of villain. It's as if they resent the fact that humans are that feeble, that mortal, or that susceptible to the finiteness of life. I wonder if we have the right to think that? Or are we simply that arrogant? We spend billions of dollars on research every year in an attempt to find ways to keep the body going whenever it tries to give up. Because of this, people are living longer than ever. People that would have died years earlier from any one of a number of various ailments now are given passes for another 5, 10, 20 years.

For other illnesses however, we just have not found ways to treat their particular ailment. It seems at those times we are offended by our inability to conquer the natural climax of life. We are ashamed at our inability to cheat death. We tolerate bad eating, exercising, and lifestyle habits in each other's life. We know that the combination of these things will shorten our lives. However, not only do we voluntarily indulge in them, we celebrate it. Yet, when someone we care for succumbs to them, we feel that Death, that "bastard," is dealing us an unfair hand. We seem to think we have the right to dictate when, where and how one dies.

Death was called "Bastard" in the M.A.S.H television show by the character Hawkeye Pierce. A visiting dignitary asked Colonel Potter what he meant when Hawkeye was telling a dieing soldier to "Fight damn it! Don't let the Bastard win!" Colonel Potter explained that when it came to death, Hawkeye took it personally. It was a competition between he and death as to who could win the life of a wounded soldier.

When our technology saves someone from death is it really a victory?

When our ignorance prevents us from preventing death is it really a defeat?

I've never seen a dieing person who felt or seemed defeated. Their loved one always seem to have that gloom about them however.

We know nothing about death other than as we see it, it is final. Studies have been done, and they offer no reasonable answer. The only thing we can reasonably believe about death comes through us through religion, as every major religion has some type of belief of an afterlife. Therefore, we are left with our varying and perhaps differing views that we maintain based on faith of that that can only be experienced in the first person.

Perhaps it's a selfish nature that dictates our view of death compared to that of the dieing. It could stem from either our curiosity of what death is like in the first person, or perhaps our regret that someone we care for is no longer among us.

It seems as if it is a journey that we will all take, but we all want to be the first of our loved one's to take it.

In the Matrix trilogy, the programmer of the Matrix stated that denial was the most predictable of all human emotions. When I was 17, my Mother entered my room one night and told me that a guy that had been a friend since the first grade had died that night. I immediately blurted out "NO!" in disbelief and in anger. How could he die when I didn't get to say bye? How could he die when I'll never talk with him again? How could he do this to his family? How could he do this to his friends? Why did this happen? What could have prevented this?

How could I be so selfish to ask those questions? None of them are concerned with my friend. They were questions about my insecurities with the situation. Looking back, I didn't feel remorse and sorrow for my friend. It was for me. His mother and father. His brother. The Bastard hadn't really beaten my friend. He was beating me.

That's what He does. Death has never claimed a life. It merely accepts them. Death will try to take something it can't possess though... life from the living, and we allow it via our self imposed view of death. When looked at objectively, death is simply a continuation of existence. When viewed selfishly, death is a defeat of a life that was loved.

When viewed as that defeat, the Bastard does win.