On Death And My Excitement
I recently read the term ‘excitability’, as explained and defined by Nicholai Bernstein in his amazing text, ‘Dexterity And It’s Development’. I was touched by the way that humans are able to ‘feel’, to receive external input from their environment and respond accordingly.
I’m humbled (also as I write) by the limitations of my exposure to life so far, how rarely I am truly ‘in the fire’, despite my supposed independence and bravery as a writer, runner and mover; and perhaps (more than anything) by our limitations as inherently biological beings.
Indeed we are at mercy of the weather, of the greater universal forces surrounding us, and of eachother of course. Life is fragile. My individual life is also fragile.
I can’t help but feeling that my impending death (coming rather ‘soon’ in perspective of the Earth’s great, enduring timeline of events) is intrinsically linked to those things truly worth living for! Eg. my excitement.
…or to put it another way: there are things I am so inspired by that they’re worth dying for! After all, one thing that is perhaps worse than death is to never have truly lived in the first place.
To die heroically was once the ultimate success; whether the Greeks, the Japanese or Native American tribes, past cultures across the globe, it seems, were also rather heavily invested in their ‘exciting deaths’.
We all know what happens, after all, when danger alludes us for too long, when we’re never at risk of failing or getting hurt, or when society (or our own parents) designs a bubble so soft and caring that even stepping outside the front door is impossible to manage.
“Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come” (Haruki Murakami)
Murakami said it better than anyone, I feel. I too want to live a heroic death; to destroy myself whilst living; to feel deeply that I am unimportant enough to be truly ‘in service of the whole’.
There’s no sadder fate, for me, than withering away inside of an old people’s home…
Perhaps I’m being a bit too ‘gutsy’ for my own good. No doubt I’ll be a little by my deathly wishes, and I’m terrified of many things: the open sea, travelling on small boats or aeroplanes, hard drugs, psychedelics and women, just to name a few.
But to be terrified is to be aware of one’s futility, and one’s limitations as a biological being. It is absolute humility and compassion for oneself, to choose to keep living towards our incoming and inevitable demise.
To die is to visit the void and to keep visiting. We needn’t jump in to know deeply that it’s there and that we must prepare for it.
And so rather sooner than later…
I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty damn exciting if you ask me.
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