Monday, July 23, 2007

Death is

We all know the saying about death and taxes, and we all expect that death is the worst thing that could happen to us. Well, sort of on the last. I won't get into suicide and all its manifestations and perspectives except to say it's relative to one's life and view of life. I just wanted to say death is. Just that simple, it is, and nothing more. We can wrap all the heroics and faith around it we want about being noble and good or being in the name of some God.

But in the end it just is. The absence of our existence. The absence of our bodies on this earth, the last time we'll be around to experience life. And it's about the mess we leave behind, our belongings and estate where the survivors and the courts have to wrangle with the leftovers of our life. We've departed the scene and whatever is there when it happens is there, and all our planning and hoping won't change the reality of it.

Ok, you're wondering, or not, why this topic. And why right now. Like you're expecting some great revelation or something? No one has one because no one comes back to tell us the news of what happens. Near death experiences don't count because it's the body's way of preparing to die, it just didn't happen that time, and we awake with a sense of having seen the open door and our departure from life. But it didn't happen.

Personally I think evolution has given us a way to die. I can't see that death, a normal phenomena in nature - and we're a part of it like all the rest of life - hasn't been programmed into our innate brain structure. It's seems reasonable and logical we are programmed to accept death when our brain senses it immenient. And how you ask?

I think there are three steps in death. First, there is a trigger. Something has to happen where all the sensory inputs into the mind meets a threshold and triggers the death sequence stored as part of our innate sense of being - those things evolution has given every animal. This doesn't mean it's a reality and will actually happen, but simply the threshold is met. And the threshold triggers the mind into the next sequence about pain.

Second, the mind determines that it can't accept all the pain associated with the sensory inputs from the body from dying. No one thinks death is painful, or maybe at least the last few moments. Evolution, in my view, wouldn't be so cruel to make it painful, and as near as I can tell from those I've known who have died, pain wasn't at the top of their list when they died. And it does this in two ways.

First it floods the immediate consciousness with white noise, the "white" that near death experiences produce. This isn't a sign or anything beyond the brain automatically covering all the sensory inputs about pain. In short, the consciousness becomes full so pain isn't recognized let alone acknowledged. We feel no pain but the perceived pleasure of white and our life.

Second it floods the short term memory with one's past, that seeing your life flash before your eyes experience, except it's reminding you of the life you had with experiences and loved ones. It reminds you why you were alive, to be and to have, and to have been born, lived and now dying. Both the white noise and your life completely occupys the consciousness and memory of your mind so nothing else exists.

Third, the mind has to determine it's time to simply stop, to tell the heart to cease and tell the body the mind isn't open for business anymore. This signals the rest of the body to go on autopilot and let whatever is natural happen. You're no longer alive and conscious, so the other side of nature takes over.

That's my take on it. Why today? I don't know except it sneaks into my consciousness now and then in my dreams and I wake up with the notion it's another day. Nothing more except death didn't happen overnight. For you see you don't know. People die in their sleep routinely, and not just the elderly. We can die anytime, and life is the luck of the draw every morning.

And sometimes I wake up with the last dream about death. Not necessarily mine but the idea of death. I'm one of those folks who dreams in ideas. I don't put much stock in dreams - they're the brain's way of reprocessing experiences, storing memories and recharging the active parts for the next day - and so they're only interesting if I wake up with a memory of one, such as my 50th birthday.

So that's the thought here. Nothing more than death is and a matter of course. We don't have to worry about it, it will find us sometime in our future. We won't know exactly when, but we will know the moment, or rather have a new experience where there is not return.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

It's just a life


It's just a life, one in 6-plus billion with thousands coming and going every day. I don't know what else anyone has the right to say. While each of us can claim some right or power over other people, it's still the same, we're one in the many, much like any grain of sand on a beach. Just one. But it's our one, and that's the question and answer. Or is it really?

We're given life with a set of innate characteristics, much of which we can't change, or at least not without a lot of money and/or help, but likely not, and we are somewhat limited in what we think we can accomplish and really can accomplish. We can use our talent to achieve, go through life with it, or simply forget about it's existence. It's not fixed how and how much we use our talent, but it's our choice within the framework we're given from life.

And that's the second part. While we have all this talent, we can only do what life provides in terms of opportunity. You can argue all you want about chances and opportunity, it really boils down to the old adage with everything, timing and location. We have to be at the right place at the right time for many opportunites whether we believe we created them or not. A small change in the world and life, and it's all for naught.

I don't really have a point to this post except thinking out loud, as I do sometimes, and now in retirement on a new career, I wonder the typical philosophical stuff about what I'm doing. After 28 years working for an agency, and the normal bosses, most too stupid to be good but a few really great, and working for the public, where I really believed in the work I was doing, the proverbial "for the greater good." And being in my mid-to-late 50's it's the time you begin to face the reality of your own body, what's left that it can do without breaking.

Two years ago I had a complete physical with several heart tests, including a sonogram which is really cool to see your heart working, and the normal test they give to those over 50, meaning a colonoscopy, complete with DVD too. I now know the limitations of my aging body. I can't do what it did when I was 50, let alone before that. It's the reality of my being. And I have to learn to find ways to keep it working near its best, or best I can do.

And I've had to accept what I can learn. The mind is interesting as it ages. Our minds are still as sharp, and maybe a little slower, and hopefully smarter and wiser. Studies have shown that many endeavors requires the youthful mind where they professionally peak in their 20's, and while they can still do more and new work, their best is usually history past 30. But many endeavors are doable until one's death. One of those is photography. Age only slows you down but never impedes the creative mind.

Well, except for one thing, happenstance. We never know when something will happen to leave you less than whole, and we have to learn again who we are. We can hope for a life without such events but life is a random chance. We can simply go about what we're doing and let the rest of it take care of itself. It's about life as we know and can.


In the pile of leaves, we just another one that existed for the season in the many piles in the corners of the world. And life goes on.