Category: wereallgoingtodie

An interesting essay in The Atlantic by Arthur C. Brooks:

I suspect that my own terror of professional decline is rooted in a fear of death—a fear that, even if it is not conscious, motivates me to act as if death will never come by denying any degradation in my résumé virtues. This denial is destructive, because it leads me to ignore the eulogy virtues that bring me the greatest joy.

How can I overcome this tendency? The Buddha recommends, of all things, corpse meditation: Many Theravada Buddhist monasteries in Thailand and Sri Lanka display photos of corpses in various states of decomposition for the monks to contemplate. “This body, too,” students are taught to say about their own body, “such is its nature, such is its future, such is its unavoidable fate.” At first this seems morbid. But its logic is grounded in psychological principles—and it’s not an exclusively Eastern idea. “To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us,” Michel de Montaigne wrote in the 16th century, “let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death.”

Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think

I’m a big fan of WeCroak, an iOS app (very much in this tradition) that reminds you five times a day that you will die. The essay has tips for managing your inevitable professional decline, but mostly this is about acceptance. There is nothing more focusing than the prospect of death. And focus is key.

In a 1961 survey, 90 percent of doctors said they preferred to not tell a patient he or she had cancer. Many people died without even knowing what killed them.

That may offend contemporary ears, but it’s not necessarily a story of negligence or dishonesty, nor is the idea of a Prognosis Declaration a vote for denial. It’s simply an acknowledgment that knowing more sometimes serves us less. And no matter what we choose, we never really get to know everything. 

Don’t Tell Me When I’m Going to Die

File under unintended consequences:

A Canadian store’s attempt to help the environment and gently shame its customers into avoiding plastic bags by printing embarrassing messages on them has not gone quite as planned.

Far from spurring customers to bring their own reusables, the plastic bags — variously emblazoned with “Dr. Toews’ Wart Ointment Wholesale,” “Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium” or “The Colon Care Co-op” — have become somewhat of a surprise hit.

“Some of the customers want to collect them because they love the idea of it,” David Lee Kwen, the owner of the store, Vancouver’s East West Market, told The Guardian newspaper.

Store’s Bid to Shame Customers Over Plastic Bags Backfires

He kept charging. A bullet to the torso did not stop Riley Howell. A second bullet to the body did not prevent him from reaching his goal and hurling himself at the gunman who opened fire last week inside a classroom at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The third bullet came as Mr. Howell was inches from the gunman, who fired at point-blank range into his head.

. . . He tackled the gunman so forcefully that the suspect complained to first responders after his arrest of internal injuries, the parents said the authorities told them.

. . . . .

“The chief said no one was shot after Riley body-slammed him,” said his mother, Natalie Henry-Howell.

Riley Howell’s Parents Say He Was Shot 3 Times While Tackling the U.N.C. Charlotte Gunman

A life cut short, but a final act of astonishing courage and sacrifice.

I hope to die as well as Riley Howell. I hope to die as well as Riley Howell. I hope to die as well as Riley Howell. RIP.

Sophie Gilbert, writing for The Atlantic:

What seems hopeful, though, is that it will be rebuilt, because the history of sacred structures is defined by exactly this cycle of ruin and repair. Cathedrals in Europe are palimpsests, built and rebuilt on the same sites over thousands of years: They bear additions and repairs—and sometimes total reconstruction—by countless hands. Notre Dame, for example, is believed to have been put up on the original site of a temple to Jupiter. Four separate churches predated its consecration, and all were destroyed, or demolished, before the cornerstone for Notre Dame was laid in the springtime of 1163, 856 years ago. Notre Dame’s spire, the one that burned on Monday, was added in the 19th century, replacing the original, which had been weakened by the elements over the course of 500 years.

Notre-Dame Isn’t Lost

Notre Dame is a symbol, and a collection of old materials, and most importantly, a sacred space. It exists because generations of humans have attached meaning to its enclosure. And like all physical things, it will crumble and decay. It has before, and it will again. But we keep rebuilding. And that is its meaning.

If you want to feel what is special about Notre Dame, feel the collective pain of watching it burn, and the collective determination to make it whole again. It is not the ancient wood or stone that imbues it with meaning or emotionality. It is this determination to reflect on our collective past and strive again to preserve the sacred space for ourselves and our children. The cycle of destruction and construction is both inevitable and human.

The Onion, of course, makes this point in its own special way.

Notre Dame was built, destroyed, and rebuilt over the course of hundreds of years, and we will rebuild it again, only to watch it decay once more, for indeed that is its fate, as it is the fate of all of man’s works. Like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain, we will endeavor to fix the cathedral despite all empirical evidence to the contrary, in a world which demonstrates time and time again that there is nothing real to be found in worshipping the ersatz edifices that serve as a sorry facsimile of any real human connection.

Paris Vows To Rebuild Notre Dame Despite Cosmic Absurdity Of Seeking Inherent Meaning In Fleeting Creations Of Man

Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. But Notre Dame is special because it is powerful evidence that we keep trying, and we always will. Notre Dame retains its meaning, especially now.