Père Lachaise, Paris, 2011
"There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does."
Hazel Grace Lancaster, The Fault In Our Stars
I recall reading somewhere that we die three times.
The second, when everyone we ever knew have all died, too.
And the third, final death is when our name is uttered for the very last time.
People share a natural fear of mortality, but where we differ lies in the reasons why we fear annihilation. Some of us simply fear the unknown; Death, of course, being the greatest of these.
Others fear being forgotten; indeed, the thought of no one ever knowing or remembering you once existed is terrifying. To experience and be experienced : that's what make us alive. And therefore to be forgotten - to spend an entire lifetime on this earth without anyone even knowing or remembering you existed - is a particular kind of annihilation.
That is why people who have been reduced to vegetative states or have suffered some sort of damage that prevents them from knowing, sensing, and experiencing the infinite stimuli that make up existence are considered dead - brain-dead, anyway. For without the "consciousness" of existence - the knowing that one is alive - then one may truly just as well be dead.
To be forgotten is to be reduced to nothingness.
On this Day of Remembrance, I must remind myself that.
And this is the reason we scribble on these pages. Words sometimes afford us immortality.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Joms.
DeleteWriting - as well as the other arts - is but one way to ensure our immortality. Great works of art, when they endure, contain the memory of their creators.
As long as they stand, are heard, seen, or read, their creators live on.
i am sure, you're someone who won't be easily forgotten. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, you and your flattery, gillboard.
DeleteAnd we haven't even met yet.
Oh Tudor.. maybe it's the diva in us that is so afraid of being forgotten. Truth is, the thought alone scares me more than physical death. I mean what if no one attends your funeral?
ReplyDeleteI hope our words live on longer than our earthly bodies can. :(
And I take it back. You are definitely not in a cheerful mood! Lolz
"I hope our words live on longer than our earthly bodies can."
DeleteWe can only hope, Nyl.
And yes, one of the saddest things is to see a funeral where no one bears witness to the life of the recently-deceased. The silence, as it were, speaks volumes.
As for mood, while I'm certainly not cheerful, I'm not melancholy, either. The somber tone of this piece was just in keeping with the... spirit of the occasion. Fear not, I have other entries for the season of the dead, not all of them as respectful as this one.
;-P
Do you fear being forgotten, Ruddie?
ReplyDeleteI have many fears, john stan.
DeleteIs being forgotten among them? I'm not sure. My ego isn't big enough to demand immortality through fame, and at this point, I have neither children nor outstanding accomplishments to serve as a legacy that will outlive me.
And that doesn't bother me. Not yet, anyway.
What I fear is the unknown, like most people.
And I suppose that's why I also fear the future. Because the past is known, and the present is being known. But the future - ah, who knows for sure?
Man's quest for immortality have always been fueled by his want for recognition, to know that his brief presence upon this earth was not in vain, and that his existence mattered.
ReplyDeleteBut we are all moments against humanity's expanse and history, and infinitessimal small in planetary ages. Despite this, all life is interconnected, and the butterfly effect is neither linear nor plainly cumulative. What we do with our life is what should matter most, not the affect it might on the unborn generations ahead.
If we do what is, for us, the right course of action, let history be the judge of it.
The quote, by the way, is poignant and insightful. It echoed my thoughts.
Man's quest for immortality have always been fueled by his want for recognition, to know that his brief presence upon this earth was not in vain, and that his existence mattered.
ReplyDeleteBut we are all moments against humanity's expanse and history, and infinitessimal small in planetary ages. Despite this, all life is interconnected, and the butterfly effect is neither linear nor plainly cumulative. What we do with our life is what should matter most, not the affect it might on the unborn generations ahead.
If we do what is, for us, the right course of action, let history be the judge of it.
The quote, by the way, is poignant and insightful. It echoed my thoughts.
"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched in a way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, so when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there."
Delete- Ray Bradbury, on legacy, via a character in Fahrenheit 451
when i die i want it to be quick and painless. i want my remains to be cremated and scattered immediately. none of those extended funerals where people have to remember nice things about you. maybe i just want to disappear quickly. or perhaps deep inside, i am scared that i actually will.
DeleteFew people like to talk about their own mortality, which, if you really think about it, is quite absurd considering its inevitability. I know I'm one of them. I suppose it's verboten because to give word to it is to make it flesh. Like conjuring up demons with incantations. And the less said about them, the longer they stay away.
DeleteOr so we'd like to think. I know I do.
Having said that, we're on the same page, Sean, with everything you said.