I started writing this book about twenty years ago. I was in my fifties at the time and was obviously beginning to become aware of ageing and my own mortality. I thought it would be an interesting literary exercise to record my decay and approach to death. As a writer I believed it would be an interesting exercise to record my thoughts and feelings regarding death and describe the symptoms and impact as the inevitable approached.
I envisaged that in the ensuing years I would wake up one day with a pain, a lump, a cough or such-like and receive a diagnosis. Then I could the symptoms and emotions. Interesting. So I called the book ‘The Death Diaries’.
Well, twenty years have passed and I have aged. The process has been slow and frustrating as I lose strength, libido and energy, as my body develops aches and limitations, as my memory fades and my sharpness recedes, but, so far, no incident I can identify, no diagnosis, no terminal illness or date I can hang on my death. I live and function and greatly enjoy life.
This book has been something I have returned to periodically as the muse struck me. I used it as a vehicle to investigate death and my thoughts regarding it. I’d written around fifty pages when I lost it. A computer hard drive failure. The book was dead. I resurrected a number of bits and started again. This is Death mark two! Death warmed up as my Mum used to say about how she was feeling.
Today I passed a hundred pages and thought I’d share a little. Below is today’s rough effort!
The Death Diaries
So what do I expect to happen after I’m dead? Will I discorporate and find myself up at the ceiling looking down at my dead body? Will I drift around as a wispy spirit, a ghost, to wander the earth forever? Will my guardian angel be there to guide me? Will I be attracted to a tunnel of light? At the other end of that tunnel will I be ecstatically reunited with lovers, friends and relatives (no enemies or nasty people)? Will I be dragged down screaming by demons to burn forever and be tormented in pits of burning sulphur? Will I be carried on the back of a giant condor to a fabulous land where I will spend forever? Will I spend eternity singing in a celestial choir and worshipping god? Will I wake up in a glorious paradise where the weather is always warm, but not too hot, cooled by fountains and waited on by twenty four handmaidens whose only task is to bring me pleasure? Or perhaps I will find myself in a great hall on a wooden bench at a long wooden table groaning under the weight of meat and tankards of ale being waited on by buxom wenches? Will I have to pay Charon to cross the Styx? Or bribe St Peter to put my name in the book so I can pass through some pearly gates? Will I find myself in a happy hunting ground? Or will I become a star travelling through the Milky Way? Will there be a camp among the stars where I will meet up with friends and family? Will I come back as a blue bottle fly or slug? Or will my good Karma lead me to life as a happy person, a man (or woman) of contentment, creativity, fulfilment and wisdom? Will I join with some universal mind and find my identity dissolve into oneness with everything? Or, as my mother believed, would I go off to the mansion of restoration and healing where I will be healed of all physical, mental and emotional ailments, restored to new and sent out for another dose of life to learn new lessons so I can progress to higher and higher levels and achieve perfection?
Well, as you might imagine, I reckon it’s none of the above (even though a few are quite appealing). It always amazes me that people are perfectly capable of simultaneously holding a number of these options and outcomes. It also amazes me that every culture has different after-death variations that seem remarkably to suit the needs of their circumstances. The American Native Indians imagine a land abundant with wildlife to hunt while the Norsemen imagine a great feast with plenty of meat, ale and sex, the desert Arabs imagine a Paradise with cooling fountains and plenty of sex, while the poor Christians have to content themselves with harps, cherubs and chaste singing forever. The other thing is that the women always seem to get a rough deal. They are only ever there to wait on the men and give them limitless sexual pleasure. You can’t imagine that the kitchens providing the food for those eternal feasts are manned by men can you? It’s the poor women doing the cooking and washing up!
You don’t think that these visions of eternity are the product of very macho, male-centric patriarchies, by any chance?
Every culture has its own version and every culture insists that its version is the only one that is correct. There are as many after-death myths as there are cultures. Most of these stories have already passed into eternity and are as dead as dodos. The ones that are new enough to be written down still exist. We find most of them utterly ridiculous, fanciful and quaint (while clinging to our own stories) and recite them to our children as fables and myths while keeping a suitable whimsical smile on our lips. Those people can’t be blamed. They are so innocent. They didn’t know.
It’s a shame really. I quite fancy a flight on a giant condor and sailing through the Milky Way has a certain charm (though I can’t help wondering if the Cherokee who envisioned following that trail to the camp among the stars really had any concept of the distances involved).
No. For me (with a sad sigh) I have to put all these fabulous eternities aside. As I die I imagine the biochemistry in my brain cells will grind to a halt, the cells will die, the neural complex that connected me to my sensory input will decay, the electrical network (I use the term lightly) that forms the construct of me as a person, my personality, thoughts and memories, will fade away, and I will cease to exist.
The universe will simply have to go on without me.
I am sure that the loss of my consciousness will impact greatly on the billions of galaxies and countless zillions of stars and planets that make up this infinite universe. My loss will be mourned west of Beetlejuice. My influence will ripple through infinity forever! The impact of my life will resound!
No it won’t. I’ll just be gone forever.
The universe will go on and on and I won’t know. My body will decay. Tissues will break down. Atoms and molecules will flow into the air and fluids seep into the ground. I will be consumed by decomposing worms, maggots, bacteria, fungi and various invertebrates. My bits will dry and blown in the wind. My skeleton may even fossilise. All my atoms, like all the atoms that have ever been in my body, will be released to play with other atoms, forever. They are perpetual motion machines that will only fall apart when the universe cools to absolute zero – -273.15 Celsius. That will take quite a while. Meanwhile, after a mere few billion years, the sun will expand into a red dwarf and incorporate the earth and most of the other planets and I will shine just like my Mum always said I would.
I don’t think any US journalist has written as tough (and spot-on) a portrayal of the threat facing us as this Canadian, Andrew Coyne of the Toronto Globe and Mail.
“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.
The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.
There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.
The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.
At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.
At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.
The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.
Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fueled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.
Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.
We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”
Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.
All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.
All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”
I read this in Qora and thought it said everything. Worrying times. These fascists are taking over the machinery – the courts, civil service and voting. It is a daylight robbery condoned by half the US electorate. Democracy and justice are being systematically dismantled and it takes a Canadian journalist to point it out.
I look to the high tax Scandinavian countries and see that they have a far higher standard of living and better quality of life.
I don’t mind paying taxes if they are well spent on the right things.
I want transparency and accountability!
I find it utterly immoral to have a rich country with so many poor desperate people without proper healthcare!
I find it immoral to have billionaire (and Presidents) avoiding paying tax.
I find a high level of inequality completely immoral.
I want the environment and peoples’ welfare properly dealt with.
I greatly value education, science and nature!!
So FUCK TRUMP, MAGA, REFORM and the TORIES!!!
Fortunately I’m not American so I am a little removed from the mayhem and hatred. That maybe provides me with a little objectivity.
I am astounded by a number of things that the MAGA republicans are doing that seem remarkably cruel and callous to me:
Cutting off aid to the extremely needy people in the Third World. A decision that will not save a lot of money but which will cause immense suffering, starvation and death.
The cutting off of medicare for the poor. Throwing the poorest under the bus unable to get vaccinations or even basic medical care.
The reducing of welfare for the poorest people (while giving huge tax relief to the wealthy).
The deportation of people who have lived their entire life in America to countries they have never known, to violence, torture and death.
MAGA mentality is extreme and seems entirely lacking in compassion and empathy. They heartlessly blame the poor for being poor and treat immigrants with disgust. They don’t care what happens to these people. It’s as if they are vermin and should be eradicated. They are no longer real people. Their suffering is of no consequence!
Put America first! Nobody else matters!
There does seem to be a strong racist element to it. The ‘We Shall Not Be Replaced’ white supremacy movement is big in the thinking.
There are obvious fascist parallels with Nazi Germany – scapegoating immigrants, Muslims and Jews.
We are all familiar with the psychological profile of Trump who seems to be very much a stereotype of a narcissistic sociopath with psychopathic tendencies.
(Sociopathy – Some people may use the term sociopath to describe what a mental health professional would diagnose as antisocial personality disorder. Symptoms may include disregard for others, a lack of empathy, and dishonest behaviour.)
(Psychopathy, or psychopathic personality,[1] is a personality construct[2][3] characterized by impaired empathy and remorse, along with bold, disinhibited, and egocentric traits. These traits are often masked by superficial charm and immunity to stress,[4] which create an outward appearance of apparent normalcy)
(Narcissism – selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, as characterizing a personality type.)
The key word in this is empathy – a human trait leading to compassion, a basic human trait that is the basis of most positive relationships and civilisation.
It appears to be a key factor missing from most MAGA individuals. Musk is another who fits the profile. Vance is another.
They simply do not seem to care at all about anybody – particularly people who oppose them. Indeed, they actively seem to enjoy inflicting pain on these people. That’s Psychopathy!
The weird thing is that the evangelical movement have got right behind this heartlessness. They selectively use scripture to support their own support for policies that seem completely at odds with the teachings of Jesus. But they justify it. It’s a weird double-think.
The other weird thing is that the MAGA policies of giving to the rich and taking from the poor hit the very people who avidly support them. By stoking up the fear of immigrants they have successfully distracted from what is actually going on. Far from draining swamps they are supporting a confederacy of billionaires!
The psychology of this phenomena is interesting. Is there a mass psychology at work? Does Sociopathy breed sociopathy? Can psychopathy breed psychopathy?
No tariffs for Russia.
Over in 1 Day!!
Siding with the enemy.
Shitting on allies.
Selling Ukraine down the river.
What has the Kremlin got on Trump? Hookers? An Agent? Bribes?
Here’s the deal I’d make – GET THE FUCK OUT OF UKRAINE or we hit your economy with everything! Take it or leave it! No pussyfooting!
