You Are Dying

People, culture and society can be so cruel to old people. We treat them as useless, decrepit, weak, slow, forgetful, wrinkly, outdated & a burden. A lot of this is cultural and societal ageism, but some of it is also ableism (as aging often comes with several disabilities), and of course, fear of death (but we'll get to that in just a moment).

I can't remember where I first heard it, but research has lead me to believe that it was Ashton Applewhite who first said "all young people are old people in training", a term he borrowed from Joanne Lynn. I like this term, not just because it's incredibly apt for an old soul such as myself (I always like to tell people that I'm "old for my age"), but also because it's important to remember that one day we all will get old.

But, there's a corollary to this that occurred to me one day. I was reminded of this quote when I felt a pain in my knee. When my knees are cold, my left knee aches... I assume it's just some of the osteoarthritis, a family heirloom that I don't appreciate. But, when my knee hurt on this day I thought to myself:

We're all "old people in training", I'll be old eventually, I'm just practicing...

A fun thought, silenced by an intrusive thought from my anxiety-riddled brain:

we all die eventually too... does that mean we're all "dead people in training"?

Like I said, it was an intrusive thought, not one that I invited into my mind, but once it had barged into my mind-palace I asked it to sit down, offered it a cup of tea, and decided to interrogate it. Because whilst I think it was just one of the symptoms of my anxiety--an unhealthy obsession with preponderance of my own mortality--it's good to analyze these things so that they become less intimidating.
The reason I had this thought is because I am deeply unsettled by the inevitability of time. My brain latched onto this thought because "old age" does not last as long as death. Everyone's death will outlast their life (unless something I'm incapable of comprehending happens to time itself, but even if I could understand such a thing, it doesn't seem rather likely). Even though I find this concept unnerving, I also think it's an important one to grasp. I think Adam Conover (of Adam Ruins Everything, and CollegeHumor) said it best in a monologue he wrote, and performed. I first saw it in a standalone video he made, but it was also incorporated into his television show. In reading the following quote, I want you to take your time, read it a few times if you have to, before continuing the rest of this blogpost...

Here’s a challenge: I want you to believe what I am about to tell you. Not just hear it, not just understand it, but believe it. It’s a fact you already know to be true, but have never been able to fully accept. And it’s this: You are going to die. You, the person watching this right now, are going to die. It’s difficult for you to imagine, isn’t it? Take a moment and try to picture what it’s like to not exist... You can’t do it. You’re imagining darkness, black. But there will be no black. There will be no colour, because there will be no you to perceive it. And your mind recoils from that idea. It’s simply unable to conceive of its own nonexistence, and so it concludes that it’s impossible; that you’ll live forever. But you won’t. All things end, all motion slows, all heat becomes cold. Life is an eddy in that current of entropy. A brief chemical reaction that lights up the darkness and then it's fuel spent--dissipates back to nothing. Just like you will. Your body is a marvelous and intricate machine built out of millions of interconnected, fragile systems and as you age each begins to slowly but surely deteriorate and breakdown. When one fails a doctor may be able to repair it, but at some point there will be too many failures to proceed and like a cascade of dominoes your joints, your eyes, your heart, your lungs, your memory, your entire body will fail. It will happen. And while it's difficult to hear this truth, it is essential that you accept it because every second that goes by in which you don't is a second of your precious and finite life that you risk wasting. So I'm going to say it once more and this time, try as hard as you can to believe me. You (yes, you), will die. And there's nothing you can do to stop it.

I think this is a powerful piece of writing, and I agree that it's an important concept to both comprehend and come to terms with. But the main reason I bring it up is because after considering my "dead people in training" thought, I came to the horrifying realization that we are not dead people in training, because there are a large number of people that are simply not prepared to die.

And when I say that, I mean that people haven't considered their end-of-life plan, their succession of assets, their lifetime or even their legacy... not the "being dead" part. If you have prepared to die via some plan that will kill you, then you're probably suicidal and I'm not able to help you (I'm scared of dying, I'm the opposite of suicidal), but help is available, and I urge you to reach out.

Now, the number of people over middle-age that haven't got a Will is an issue. An issue which, in my opinion, is exacerbated by the fact that lawyers are expensive; but as I understand it you can just write your own... in some countries/locales-- look, I'm not a lawyer. In any case, you should consider it if you are aged forty years or older, or if you are the primary income and/or caregiver for your family.

But I'm less bothered by the logistics of dying, and more the philosophy and the way we think about it. And I know that a lot of people don't think about it, for one simple reason. Consider this hypothetical:

If tomorrow, your doctor told you that you have some cancer, for which there is no cure, and you will die in one year - what would you do?

Feel free to take the time to consider your answer, because most people will change what they're doing right now. Maybe they'll do something crazy, maybe they'll put their affairs in order, maybe they'll mope and act self-destructive. But, when you think about it, it's odd that we would act differently if we knew that we were going to die... considering that you are going to die, and you know it.

Obviously this isn't a perfect example, because there is a drastically reduced timeline to what most people expect, and some people have long-term plans that would get changed. I get that, but this isn't meant as a "gotcha question" it's just a thought experiment to make you think about how a lot of people seem to live their life as though they'll never die.

In a way, you could actually consider this post a partner piece to a post I wrote, simply called Your God Does Not Exist. It is all about why I am an atheist, and why you should be too. I recommend that you read it, especially if you are religious. I still stand by that post, for the most part, but the ending bothers me. I deliberately sugarcoated my conclusion in regards to the existence of an afterlife.
It's still technically true, that there is no proof that an afterlife doesn't exist... and at the time as I was attempting to convince people to change their mind, so I didn't want to highlight what I saw as the most unsavoury part of my beliefs. However, over time, I've come to believe that this is unfair and played into my own biases.
In reality, I cannot accept that there is an afterlife. Over time, your entire body will fail, as Mister Conover says. If you believe that you will perpetuate in some ghostly form, I believe that's entirely ridiculous. For starters, you are your brain... the human mind is an emergent property of the network of neurons that is your brain. Having a mind without a brain is as impossible as a wave without a medium, a program without a computer, or fire without heat. But even if you could, what then? All of your human senses are physical, based on stimuli affecting your body. Whether touch, taste, sound, smell or sight... all sensation is due to mechanical or chemical reception that sends signals that are interpreted by your brain. Which means that even if your mind could survive your death, then you would be trapped blind, deaf and numb in eternal isolation. So, even if there is an afterlife, you'd never see it. But I think that's giving it too much credit. Without your brain, I don't accept that you could ever experience it. When you die, you will be dead...
that's how life works.
So, no, I don't accept that there is an afterlife. But why am I so insistent upon it now? Why do I want people to consider the horrible inevitability of their demise?

Two reasons: Firstly, especially after what has happened in the United States, I think it is clear just how dangerous belief in an afterlife is. Because so many Christian Nationalists believe that there will be an infinite life that supersedes this finite existence, they are willing to cause the suffering for their fellow citizens just to appease the beliefs that they misattribute to their non-existent god. Upending abortion rights; dismantling the protected status of LGBTQ persons; & trying to integrate church and state with financial support for religious schools. These are all the fault of Right-Wing Christians, and whilst they aren't the only reason that the USA is a hellhole right now, they're a fucken massive part of it.

But the second reason is much simpler... I think we should be dead people in training. We are going to die, and we should be aware of that and prepare for that. Your life is finite, every life is a finite and fragile thing. If you want the world to be a better place, then the best time to start working on that is now. Because if you don't prepare now, while you're alive, then you sure as shit can't prepare for it later.
If you find that prospect uncomfortable, you should talk to people about it until you can come to terms with it, because until you do, you risk wasting the life you have.

I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time... live your life while you can. Because you're dying right now, and I don't want you to drag the rest of us down with you.