Death – Page 3 – Achilles & Aristotle

Achilles, Children, Death, Life, Odysseus, Psychology

Dead Mum or Dinosaurs

I was debating with a friend yesterday whether he should feel any more concerned by the beliefs and values of his dead mum as the behaviours of dinosaurs. Both belong to the past; we live in the present. And soon we’ll be down with the dinosaurs – extinct.

We were on the topic of ‘self limiting beliefs’ – ideas we carry around which help us ignore reality or choose not to tackle the big questions in life. And the big question we were discussing was: how much to save for old age and how much to spend in the middle years.

I’m persuading him (especially if he’s reading this) that save, save, save and worry, worry worry are to be finally and fully vanquished. (Paradoxical that, as I bow to no man in my capacity to worry about the future). But he’s just about ‘home free’ financially and just ain’t rational to keep on saving when your days are numbered.

Just because your folks were thrifty until their last breath, doesn’t mean it’s right for you. Life is for living. We’ll all be dead before we want and it behoves us to get on and enjoy ourselves if we can afford to.

I’ve often worried much more about the years to come than the ones I’m living. So I’m with the dinosaurs, get munching those leaves and worry less about the meteor.

Achilles, Death, Life, Sport

The 3 Big Questions in Life

There are only three questions that really matter in life… So said Britain’s oldest man on his 109th birthday.

They are:

1) Where did I come from?
2) Who am I?
3) Where am I going?

He died yesterday at 110. One short of the classic superstitious cricket score 111 aka ‘Nelson‘ when unlucky things are believed to happen. A pretty good innings though.

He said he knew the answer to 1) and 2) but not yet to 3). I’d be ok on 1). And pretty good on 2) too. But 3) is always the undiscovered continent until you get there.

Death, Ethics, Life, Philosophy, Politics

Rights Gone Wrong

Rights are all well and good, but sometimes they lead you to the wrong places. Generally I’m with John Stuart Mill:

“Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.”

That’s the classic case for ‘negative liberty’ – i.e. freedom from interference if you’re doing no harm. And it has travelled time well; Governments: know your limits. But what Mill says before this is important too:

“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”

And it’s this innocuous final phrase which is the tricky one: ‘impeding their efforts to obtain it.’ Does ‘impeding’ include dodging your taxes, turning a blind eye to inequality or using ‘rights’ to justify a bad status quo? As Mill said:

“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”

Not that he was a pacifist:

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.”

“A man who has nothing which he cares more about than his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

But as America reels from another terrible school shooting, with the prospect that the 2nd Amendment will be wheeled out again to justify inaction, surely historic rights are causing contemporary wrong.

Times change. It’s the 21st century not 1791. Give Governments too many powers and they abuse them. Give citizens guns and they do too. Two wrongs don’t make a right in a modern democracy.

I can’t help quoting Mill one more time:

“I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative.”

Surely it’s time for change on the right to bear arms.

Death, Life, Work

A Moment in the Sun

A bit morbid perhaps, but the redoubtable Philosophy Now magazine does throw up some interesting angles on death.

Some say, along with religion, that the main reason philosophy exists, is millennia of thinking folk coping with their own mortality.

So handy to come across a timeless thought from Voltaire, via Schopenhauer:

“Non-existence after death cannot be different from non-existence before birth.”

Interesting. Given I don’t sweat the 8 billion years I wasn’t here before, why am I so put out by those I’ll miss when I’m a goner?

Whatever evolutionary or intellectual remnant of me might persist, I will be returned to Schopenhauer’s ‘pure Will’ – the restless energy of the universe – probably bouncing about in random particle form.

It’s quite a relief. I wasn’t around for dinosaurs and I’m not too sad. So why am I worried about missing the first Mars landing or the discovery of extra-terrestrial life? I wasn’t here for the sparking up of the Sun or the origin of multicellular life. Who was? It all behoves me, as ever, to live for the day, enjoy the moment and focus on the here and now.

I’m sat ‘suited and booted’ on a sunny step writing this, in a lunchtime pause from work. Feels a bit odd not to be bustling about. And the odd passer by is looking at me a bit strangely – but why not sit in a suit on a sunny step?

These atoms will only be in this configuration for another four decades or so – so let’s make the most of them.

Children, Death, Life, Odysseus, Poetry

An Ordinary Day to Remember

Scooting around
Nothing profound
Passing the day
Having a play
Boy and his dad
Momentarily sad
I’m in my prime
His smile is sublime
But time is finite
One day will be twilight
And then away
So remember this day.

I was talking of death with my mother-in-law this week. A relative is very ill and her cohort is slowly dying around her. She seemed a bit troubled, so we talked. I think she wants to talk about death sometimes but not many people want that conversation.

I’m ok with it though. I feel I’ve created my two time capsules nurturing two beautiful children and left them some thoughts and ideas with this blog. Let’s not tempt fate, but if a bus smashed into me tomorrow I’d have a second of pique – b@llocks – and then rest.

I’m happy with who I am and what I’ve done. Opening an improving mortgage statement letter, booking a college reunion, scooting about and making pizzas – a humdrum day. But what’s not to like. Life is good – and both quite long and quite short. So make sure to enjoy the ordinary days, I say.