Modernity, Mortality, and Mystery

Abstract

Fear no more heat o' sun Nor furious winter's rages: Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone and ta'en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Fear no more frown o' great, Thou art past tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee reed is as oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. Fear no more lightning flash Nor all-dreaded thunder-strone; Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finished joy and moan: All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust. William Shakespeare Death and/as Life Strategy This essay is primarily a reflection on notion death. Lest this should seem a morbid, stale or hackneyed enterprise, let me indicate from outset what is not attempted here. I am not concerned with psychology dying or process grieving over dying.' I am similarly not going to concern myself about possibility life after death, nor with extent to which even idea life after makes any sense or not. In particular, I would not want to attempt an explanation what might entail. Even to talk about being dead seems to represent a contradiction in terms. Death, by definition, means end all experience, termination all life processes which make experience any kind possible. Similarly, I shall not embark on difficult and age-old philosophical problem as to whether is a or bad thing, and whether we should therefore fear it or not. Epicurus is recorded as first thinker to express himself categorically on this topic, and for him it was incomprehensible why people fear death. His famous statement asserts: Become accustomed to belief that is nothing to us. For all good and evil consists in sensation, but is deprivation sensation. And therefore a right understanding that is nothing to us makes mortality life enjoyable, not because it adds to an infinite span time, but because it takes away craving for immortality.... So death, most terrifying all ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist is not with us, but when comes, then we do not exist. (Epicurus in Oates 1940: 30-31) It is course case that in spite Epicurus' logical argument, people-probably most us-are afraid death, so afraid that an expression such as the fear death has acquired idiomatic status in virtually all languages. Death is most authentic characteristic life.2 No one experiences life just as a continuing, unending given. We all experience or find ourselves involved and immersed in a life/my life. Because it is precisely which makes a/my/her/his life a totality which is bounded or finite, mere fact that we speak of a/my/her/his life, incorporates notion in what we say about life. Moreover, it is that lends to life its urgency and gravity insofar as any life entails urgency and gravity. Our life is important, both for ourselves and others` especially those closest to us because it is finite and does not continue forever, i.e., because we are mortal.3 We fear because our (that is, each individual) life is not available in abundance, and is subject to scarcity, because life itself is a scarce commodity, a unique event, a flame that can be snuffed out at any moment, We also fear because it confronts us with that which is both radically unknown and radically incomprehensible. Each exposure to death-e.g. someone we knew well-confronts us with incomprehensibility fact that there was at one instant someone with a body like our own, characterized by personality traits and experience, someone who spoke, laughed, cried, loved, cared, someone like myself-and next moment, it ceased. …