Dead or Alive

Is it not for us to confess that in our civilized
attitude towards death we are once more living
psychologically beyond our means, and must
reform and give truth its due? Would it not be
better to give death the place in actuality and in
our thoughts which properly belongs to it, and to
yield a little more prominence to that unconscious
attitude towards death which we have hitherto
so carefully suppressed? This hardly seems indeed
a greater achievement, but rather a backward
step...but it has the merit of taking somewhat
more into account the true state of affairs...

- Sigmund Freud
(quoted with pleasure from The Denial of Death, Chapter 2: The Terror of Death, by Dr Ernest Becker.)

FREUD, the great thinker, perhaps the most famous cigar addict, has been called a sexist, sick man, con artist among many names. But I can't help thinking he, who pioneered the couch and fathered psychoanalysis, deserves his place in history just with that paragraph alone. And it is my honour to be in the presence, in the literary sense, of someone who can perhaps be spoken in the same breath - Dr Ernest Becker. You may have sensed some exaggeration here, but Dr Becker's prowess and life work would be otherwise, somewhat underrated. That is how I see it.

Explaining the Doctor's work on my blog would be too tall an order and inevitably a disservice to it, I am afraid. So peeling both my eyes away from his book, I prefer relating my relation with death. Indeed, I have thought often of the issue of leaving this world behind someday, never to see, to speak, to hear or to love as me. There seems no purpose if I am reborn as someone or something else if I am not me anymore.

At times, in the still of the night, when I couldn't sleep, thoughts of "what if" would swell my head. What if I can't see my beloved, cute nieces and nephews? What if I can't watch EPL or witness a world cup won by England as a matter of fact (although I have a feeling that they may just make it next year)? What if I stay a virgin? Should I ask for a prostitute at my death bed (though I doubt I could do anything by then)? What if I could not finish reading "The English Patient" (a very good read indeed) or any other books I love (too many books, too little time)? What if I can't hear Maya singing? What if...? And poor old me, at my death, would never know who cry for me, who shake his head in disbelief, exclaiming, "Such a fine young man, and at such a young age...pity his mother..." Then, I would be reminded of how close death is; just around the corner, anytime, anywhere, it is waiting.

I would tear uncontrollably for the night to end, for the fear of death to go away. I don't want my extinction unannounced, my life unneeded and unloved. Although there are many young men dying in other parts of the world at this moment, they are not me.

Later in my life, I come to understand this: that we are not too different- we all have to die someday and we all have a mother don't we? There is no reason why some would die and some others would live to a ripe old age, which suggests that our lives are closer than we think. That brings me to the question: just who I am to think my life is more important than the rest? At the end of my chain of thoughts, I think if I will to die, I would rather die for a worthy cause - preferably in place of another human.

PS: I still tear occasionally in the night over this. At other times, I shudder at the thought.