The Nature Of Mortality

Mortality is a most curious thing. It's a big pile of steaming denial. People are born only to die, after all. That's the lot of mortals. Yet when I was informed that my friend finally managed to take herself out today, the revelation just got me meditating on mortality.

She never really died. The thing is, though I couldn't really feel her in the mortal realm for some time, I never did manage to trust the more subtle senses. But she only managed to die today, just about 2 months after she bought the farm. Screw the euphemisms. She died. And successfully, this time.

Yet ultimately, tragic or no, the death of a human is just an inevitability turned reality. It's the knowledge of death proper that brings closure to a doomed life anyway. Farrah Fawcett died. Michael Jackson died. It's pretty fashionable for mortal beings, after all. But then many still feel the unusual oh it's so surprising that so and so was alive yesterday, and dead today.

What fascinates me is that my friend basically became a Schrodinger's cat for awhile, being neither dead nor alive in my cognition due to ignorance (I did think her dead, but didn't manage to verify that), until the moment of closure came and I was like ah! so it's true. To be sure, I never really did have much faith in her survivability given her worsening mental state, but I guess death does interesting things to one's psyche. For one, I think she's basically experienced a net improvement in her mental state, if it still exists. Since I don't sincerely believe in a hell for humans (not permanently anyway) and the Christian assurance of heaven (though quite pretty creepy to me), I think she's better off regardless the actual presence of an afterlife. Nonetheless I do say: Rest in peace, eh? Oh, and I think one of my CDs is still at your place.

P.S. Fawcett has great taste in cameras. She was handling an E1 with an FL-50. Mmmm...