Musings: 1-3
1~Perspectives on death is discussed in all religions, as well as such instructive philosophies as the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. Covey suggests that if you really want to get your life moving and grooving in a marvellous direction you first need to envision your funeral and what people will be saying about what you did with your life.
Death as it is said is one of the only things one can count on in life. The cultural history of death is a remarkable chronology that may in great measure be generated by the problem of what to do with the rotting stinking carcass of the human body. Certainly the consciousness of death is the quintessential existential conundrum of human life. In the Denial of Death Ernest Becker states that the fear of death is the central motivating factor in all human activity.
The Vanitas images of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance served as a reminder of the fragility and the ephemeral nature of existence. These images provided moral instruction. Reminding one not to squander the precious and fleeting time one has in avarice and vice.
2~Who taught you all this doctor the reply came promptly; suffering. Camus
The capacity to suffer and the myriad forms of suffering we all experience is a great unifier and leveler. Yet it seems that collective cultural narratives overlook the power and incomprehensibility of suffering in our lives as a process to teach and transform. As Camus brilliantly writes in The Plague, suffering is a shared experience that looms over life in varying weights upon us all. It is an experience that can in a flash change life from joy to incomprehensible grief. Suffering occurs on a continuum like other life processes, and if it does not end in ultimate demise, one may take from it a profound appreciation for the present moments of life that are strung together in thinly veiled comfort that life is far removed from it.
3~MY ALL TIME FAVOURITE perspective on death is that the focus on the afterlife is a form of POST-HUMOUS EGOISM. The focus on what is going to be happening after you die is discussed as a central difference in patriarchal and matriarchal religions according to Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the book His Religion and Hers. In her analysis patriarchal or death based religions evolved out of men’s central experience as hunters and warriors, so death and what would happen as a result of it became the central question upon which the religion was built. Matriarchal or life based religions were centred around women’s role as mother and provider of food and sustenance, so the question was how can we care for the children and others rather than the end of life. It is a simple analysis and no matter what you think of it, God Almighty POST-HUMOUS EGOISM sure has caught on.