{"id":25869,"date":"2022-11-04T13:22:08","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T17:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=25869"},"modified":"2022-11-04T13:22:11","modified_gmt":"2022-11-04T17:22:11","slug":"forget-the-light-at-the-end-what-happens-in-the-meantime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/forget-the-light-at-the-end-what-happens-in-the-meantime\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget the “Light at the End.” What Happens in the Meantime?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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[Image: “ESA (East Side Access) 6988,” posted<\/a> to the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Flickr account (photographer: Patrick Cashin<\/a><\/em>) and modified, by me, in accord with the Creative Commons license they offer — thank you!]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From whiskey river<\/a><\/em>, late last week — an uncharacteristically lengthy quotation, from a favorite author (of mine as well as whiskey river<\/em> itself):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The real problem here is that we’re all dying. All of us. Every day the cells weaken and the fibres stretch and the heart gets closer to its last beat. The real cost of living is dying, and we’re spending days like millionaires: a week here, a month there, casually spunked until all you have left are the two pennies on your eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personally, I like the fact we’re going to die. There’s nothing more exhilarating than waking up every morning and going “WOW! THIS IS IT! THIS IS REALLY IT!” It focuses the mind wonderfully. It makes you love vividly, work intensely, and realize that, in the scheme of things, you really don’t have time to sit on the sofa in your pants watching Homes Under the Hammer<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Death is not a release, but an incentive. The more focused you are on your death, the more righteously you live your life. My traditional closing-time rant—after the one where I cry that they closed that amazing chippy on Tollington Road; the one that did the pickled eggs—is that humans still believe in an afterlife. I genuinely think it’s the biggest philosophical problem the earth faces. Even avowedly non-religious people think they’ll be meeting up with nana and their dead dog, Crackers, when they finally keel over. Everyone thinks they’re getting a harp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But believing in an afterlife totally negates your current existence. It’s like an insidious and destabilizing mental illness. Underneath every day—every action, every word—you think it doesn’t really<\/em> matter if you screw up this time around because you can just sort it all out in paradise. You make it up with your parents, and become a better person and lose that final stone in heaven. And learn how to speak French. You’ll have time, after all! It’s eternity! And you’ll have wings, and it’ll be sunny! So, really, who cares<\/em> what you do now? This is really just some lacklustre waiting room you’re only going to be in for 20 minutes, during which you will have no wings at all, and are forced to walk around, on your feet, like pigs do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we wonder why people are so apathetic and casual about every eminently avoidable horror in the world—famine, war, disease, the seas gradually turning piss-yellow and filling with ringpulls and shattered fax machines—it’s right there. Heaven. The biggest waste of our time we ever invented, outside of jigsaws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only when the majority of the people on this planet believe—absolutely—that they are dying, minute by minute, will we actually start behaving like fully sentient, rational and compassionate beings. For whilst the appeal of ‘being good’ is strong, the terror of hurtling, unstoppably, into unending nullity is a lot more effective. I’m really holding out for us all to get The Fear. The Fear is my Second Coming. When everyone in the world admits they’re going to die, we’ll really<\/em> start getting some stuff done.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Caitlin Moran [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love that Moran turns the standard premise on its head. She doesn’t admonish us to rage against the dying of the light, nor does she urge us to eat-drink-and-be-merry. She doesn’t accept the “…for tomorrow we may die” epilogue to such sentiments. Yet she doesn’t say, y’know, to embrace<\/em> death, either. She encourages us to be grateful for the implicit incentives death offers us, unbidden — the incentives to live<\/em>, fully, in the meantime. She says, in effect: Assume you’ll die tomorrow, or if you’re lucky maybe next week or in a year or two. The time grows ever shorter. So what matters to you? And what are you doing about it<\/span>?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s see what someone else has to say about it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Aubade<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
—The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel<\/em>, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Philip Larkin [source])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is what we fear—no sight, no sound,\/No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,\/Nothing to love or link with,\/The anaesthetic from which none come round”: yes, just so. The point being that it’s coming, oh it’s coming all right — inexorably, undeniably — but for now: we have sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, a brain to think with, a hear and soul with which to love or link, a blessed every-waking-hour gift<\/em>. Can we use it? If not for our own sake, for the sake of everyone else?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “ESA (East Side Access) 6988,” posted to the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Flickr account (photographer: Patrick Cashin) and modified, by me, in accord with the Creative Commons license they offer — thank you!] From whiskey river, late last week — an uncharacteristically lengthy quotation, from a favorite author (of mine as well as whiskey river […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Caitlin Moran and Philip Larkin: 'Forget the \"Light at the End.\" What Happens in the Meantime?'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,251,4159],"tags":[1061,1446,1848,4526],"class_list":{"0":"post-25869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-art","10":"category-poetry-writing_cat","11":"category-essays","12":"tag-death","13":"tag-life","14":"tag-philip-larkin","15":"tag-caitlin-moran","16":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/ESA_6988_mta_med.jpg?fit=960%2C639&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-6Jf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25869"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25880,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25869\/revisions\/25880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}