The last thing I want to do is benefit off of this information by using it, reducing it, to mere content that’ll keep my blog afloat, but I’ve just learnt that one of my friends from college has passed away. It happened yesterday, at 11 pm.
And I was shocked. To be honest, I wasn't very close to her, but that doesn't matter, does it? It was something that would probably matter to the kind of person I was not very long ago. No, I’m not thinking the words “Wow was I a monster before?”. I hope you aren't, either.
What I mean is, it was the way I thought about death. I prided myself in not crying if somebody I didn't know, or wasn't best friends with, died. Yes, I set a pretty high bar for the whole crying-at-funerals thing. But the worst part was that I made it about Me. Making it look like the fact that I didn't cry was a super power, a brush with death, if you will, that I hoped stood out even when pitted against a person who has actually died. Oh, the vanity!
Go ahead, I guess it's okay for you to say “wow was she a monster?” now.
I feel like people make a big deal out of death(Yes, it's still the narcissistic monster speaking). I mean, why make such a ruckus over somebody who’s gone? I’ve heard of people being hired to cry at funerals. Why? To get some sort of validation from the society? That you’re important enough for people to cry over? Why not just do the logical thing and save money on the funeral-criers by actually being nice? (Indeed, the monster has a saving grace)
Although I have shed my cynical shell since, I still don't understand why we focus so much on death. Why we insist on heaping all sorts of praises on a person after they’ve died. Why we don't cherish the people in our lives, and all that is important to us, while they're actually alive. While we are actually alive.
I’m just clutching at straws here, trying to think of the whys behind these questions - Maybe it is so because we are too distracted by more mundane things to be living in the now, maybe we’re too busy taking people around us, the world around us, for granted. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Tell me, if somebody handed us a report card of our lives right now, how do you think each one of us would fare? Is it going to take something like a report card for us to sit back and reevaluate our lives?
And if you know me, you’ll know that whatever I do, I make it sound like a business deal. You take something of mine, I return the favour is the rule. So in that spirit, it would be unfair of me to expect you to love me(nothing but the unconditional kind, thank you very much) if I’m not a good person myself.
And really, nothing is stopping me from being the best version of myself that I can be, save a few minefields like eternal procrastination and a general dislike for all things human, but actually, my problem seems to be a little more complex.
You see, I’ve come to the astonishing conclusion that in all likelihood, my subconscious has accepted that I’m immortal. It's not that astonishing of a thought, in retrospect. In fact, your subconscious might think you are one too! It doesn't necessarily mean thinking that exact sentence. Oh no, we’re too modest for that. It has more to do with the way we carry ourselves, recklessly locking horns with destiny, risking our lives, our precious, precious lives, all the while pitifully calling these endeavors of ours ‘Thrills’.
Now I don't mean to invoke my inner grandma in full public view like this, but, really, what else could it be then? And why, too? After all, statistically speaking, 100% of all humans manufactured end up dead. All 100% of those have no idea when, how, or where they’re going to die. Absolutely zilch information. So, why? Do we think death’s going to take a rain check? Take a sick leave? ‘Tomorrow, please’?
No. Death cannot be avoided. It is going to eventually creep up on all of us, God forbid suddenly even, snatching our lives away. And after I’m done painting a Tim Burton-like picture of death, I want to make you aware of the pretty picture life has been painting for us all along in the background, that all we need to do now is to reach out and do the simple thing of living it well.
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(Image source : Google, which should be obvious because I’m too lazy to look anywhere else.)
Source : my own blog at mariamsafoora.wordpress.com