I think about death often.
It's one of my more lovable hobbies for better or worse. And given this tendency I am pitted against the idea that maybe some people don't think of death often enough. It may always be a passing notion or a detestable yet somehow whimsical thing, but little is it meditated upon. Understandable-- as most times deep focus on the notion of not being is anathema to an entity who is itself a who and is currently being. Moreover death is hard to put your finger on even if you give it your best shot. It's the utter incongruence to our human spirit which feels the possibility of infinity or deathlessness is achievable. Yet conversely, it is the pure expression of our animal spirit to die, as animals die all the time. And mostly, death is just sad.
This being said, I ponder the idea of the consolidation of death. I wonder about this collective pool in which we place those who have ceased to be. In 2016, this circling trend of gathering the names of those who afforded the world great creative power as a musician, actor, etc. has seemingly little reverence for the lives as they exist separately. Is it not an egotism to suggest that life and the loss thereof has some measure of personal hand in the development of those who would tritely create some passing memorial on a social media network? Or is this how we celebrate a legacy? Is that enough? To be loved is an intriguing thing. To have acclaim and to have mourners that are strangers is equally as strange. I suppose ancient peoples would mourn a fallen king in the primitive social network of word of mouth. But somehow there is something less about an internet mourning. Somehow the 2 seconds it takes to repost the news article with your own "RIP" sentiment attached to it lacks the gravitas of the life itself. I know because I have done it as well as the rest. Am I cataloguing a memory to be viewed as a journal in retrospect? Am I falling victim to an insincerity which runs amok in the present day already so profusely. My father remembers the day essential musical voices died from the era of rock. My grandfather remembered Kennedy's assassination to the letter. But these condolences were shared in a way that gave their legacy a personal connection and gravitas. I cannot not say what it means to have felt the hope of a Kennedy presence and then a disappearance. These are such fragile sentiments almost too sacred to speak yet spoken they at least contain the possibility for an empathetic exchange. That must be the subtraction. Empathy. I just can't feel how much David Bowie meant to you. And by this line of thinking the entire internet would be labeled an analytical tool and not anything social at all. Yet here we are on social media. And here are our condolences. Can you feel me? Did you know Prince is the reason I fell in love with music? Did you know I can't stand Leonard Cohen's voice? I'm not certain. But I felt such a real feeling when they left us-- and when they were here-- that surely my mourning should be as real as the way they made me feel. Should it not? Perhaps we have let ourselves justify and sanctify this new machine more than its worth. “A new- now more convenient than ever- and in a lively shade of blue-- WAILING WALL!!!” Perhaps a few things are best left to silence or tears. All I know is I mourn, I love, I give acclaim, and I am grateful for all avenues in which these things can be expressed. But I do wonder if not sooner or later we should question the quality of said expressions and just how much time we're willing to waste on vapidity. Whatever the case I am aware above all things it’s just a matter of moving on. Despite the time we could give to death it has no time for us like the present and these ponderings devalue the passing seconds in which life should be lived and not mourned. Therefore, like all other Hallmark sentiments, we give these things for births, for weddings, and for deaths and none of it ever feels grand enough but is certainly enough to keep moving on.
