Excuse the deeply depressing nature of this - but it seems impossible to escape thinking of our mortality at the moment, with a picture everyday in the papers of someone who is not long for this life. It is a ever present reminder to all of the fragility of life - however since anarchy has yet to take hold, I must surmise that the human condition is still firmly in place.
Realising this and looking at the scenario, it appears to me that the way that we as a nation are dealing with this is by making it into a 'story.' Do we any longer believe that the reality that we see on reality tv or in the papers is truly real? Are we able to watch someone die in front of our faces because we think that at the last minute it will all turn out OK? That behind he scenes it is in fact all a big joke? A PR stunt?
I have always thought of death as the greatest adventure - but this idea is not my own, but first voiced, but the Peter Pan - the boy who never grows old, and has surely one of the strangest relationships with death of any literary character?! However - he will now never be forgotten, and perhaps this is what compels people - like Jade Goody- to act the way that they do. The more infamous their lives, the longer they are spoken of after death. And in this a form of immortality if gained. Comforting thoughts when you know that you end is near.
In years past rich people would pay monks to pray for them after their death. Granted they believed that this would lessen their time in purgatory, but it was also as a form of remembrance. Their name being read out in church ensured that their parish did not forget them, and hopefully more people would then pray for them. Perhaps now, we still do this, but we have made The Sun our Church and Rupert Murdoch out Priest. Gosh - i think that might be more depressing than actual death!
1 comment:
Even posthumous fame will come to end, as indeed will the Earth and the Sun. "All things must pass," as we gorillas say.
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