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Friday, February 11, 2005
Enough
Regular readers of Eternity Road have undoubtedly noticed that the Curmudgeon doesn't write about personal matters. He doesn't think it's dignified, nor that the Web should be used for trivia of no importance to anyone beyond one's household. Most of the time, I let him have his way.
But not today.
The Fortress of Crankitude is home to quite a lot of living things, including a large, shaggy, eleven-year-old Newfoundland, Bruno Da Newf, who's graced our lives with his drool, his affection, and his stolid companionship since puppyhood. Bruno is much loved around here; despite the groans whenever he festoons someone's homework or a major appliance with his unique exudates, no Fortress resident would be happy to see him depart. But that day is drawing tragically near.
The Newfoundland is the fourth largest dog breed. The adult male Newf weighs about 140 pounds on average. That's a lot of dog, and a lot of burden for a dog to carry. It wears them down considerably faster than the lesser breeds; their average longevity is about ten years. Similar figures apply to all the giant breeds.
Newfs suffer first in their hips, knees and ankles. The joints simply refuse to hold them up for long. In a Newf's old age, he might have to be lifted and carried outside by his owner just to eliminate. It's not much fun, especially if you're not much bigger than your Newf.
They acquire other problems, too. Giant breed dogs tend to be sedentary, which makes them natural targets for cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, arthritis, and skin ulcers. Suffice it to say that this makes a Newf's final year or two less than a joyous time, both for him and for his owners.
It won't be much longer before the responsible thing to do will be to put Bruno to sleep for good. It will be a very hard thing to face. I'm sure all of us will cry bitterly over it; I expect to be useless for some time thereafter. But it will be necessary. Bruno's very nature -- the sort of thing he is -- will have forced it upon us, by wearing him out.
In Bruno's case, the simple, unrelenting depredations of time are doing him in. Pet dogs don't do much -- this "working group" crap has to be one of the world's biggest put-ons -- and Bruno does less than most. But just by living as the sort of being he is, he's accumulating more wear than his anatomy can bear. Absent a catastrophe or fatal accident, the same can be said for all of us.
Samuel Peguy wrote that "When a man dies, he does not die merely of the disease that he has; he dies of his whole life." How true! Our natures, particularly as instantiated in our bodies, allow us a certain amount of wear and tear. The vicissitudes of life may bring the ultimate overload to some sooner than others, but ultimately, we all die of being human. We die because, when confronted with "the last straw," which to every man cometh soon or late, it's in our natures to do so.
To delay that "last straw," to fortify the human organism and buttress it with drugs, surgery and prosthetics, is the aim of our medical sciences. In recent years, gerontology, the study of the aging process and how it might be combatted, has become particularly aggressive. Researchers are striving harder than ever to find some way or ways to defeat death -- literally to remove it as a requirement of our natures.
It's unclear how far human longevity can be stretched. In defeating the worst of the infectious diseases, medicine has added ten to fifteen years to the average lifespan. But as it defeats various of nature's killers, more remote threats come to the fore, to be confronted in their turn. Infectious diseases gave way to degenerative diseases, and then to cancer as the most prominent enemies of extended human life. Advances in immunization and nano-bio-engineering hint that these latter threats can be confounded by automatic mechanisms that will vigilantly hunt down their outriders and scrub them from the body. But then neuro-degeneracy will come to the fore, and after that something else.
However long Man might contrive to live, he will not defeat death. Death is part of human nature, because it's part of the nature of life itself.
"Life is change. That is how it differs from the rocks," wrote John Wyndham in his classic novel Re-Birth. He was half right; the rocks change as well, albeit more slowly, and in response to an external rather than an internal dynamic.
All things change. Heraclitus was right; the whole universe is in continuous flux. Not one thing, not one characteristic of any one thing, can be static, even for the smallest measurable time interval.
While we live, we consider ourselves "alive." But this is a very partial truth; it evades the essential flux of existence. We are not "alive" in any defensibly static sense; we are living -- and we are dying as well.
One could say that living uses up our lives by consuming the matter of our bodies. This is more apparent in our later lives than when we're young and still growing, but even in our earliest years, we are progressing steadily toward death, by progressively exhausting our bodies' capacity to grow. "Senescence begins when growth ends." Our steps through our anabolic years are just as much a part of the journey toward terminus as any erosion time might later work upon us.
We fight death will all the powers of life. We vanquish its raiders, pinch its salients, push back its lines, and stake claims to ever more of the wilderness of Time. But we will continue to die.
In this realm, life eternal is not available to us.
We fear death. Many aspects of our nature collaborate in this. Dead things have a foul aspect, a foul smell, and are sources of septic disease. We shun them, even the bodies of our beloved ones who've departed. This is as it must be, if we're to live as our natures dictate.
Yet death is an inseparable part of life. It's as much part of our nature as the urge to flee and avert it. More, it's all around us in innumerable forms. The inevitability of it is visited upon us in a billion ways great and small, from the loss of relatives and friends to the unending reports of tragedies that beset peoples half a world away.
To be ready for death when it comes is a part of life, too.
Man's many religious traditions have their various angles on this. Some, such as Christianity, emphasize the life well lived; others such as Buddhism focus on final preparations, the "arts of right dying." That we should strain, in our diverse ways, to grapple with this final requirement and integrate it into our lives is a natural thing; what cannot be prevented must somehow be accommodated, however bitter it might seem. But few thinkers, and few strains of well-appreciated thought, have enfolded the life-unto-death gestalt as a thing worthy in itself.
Why not? If it's in our natures to die -- if the passage of time progressively erodes us, filling us with burdens until our bodies can no longer carry them and with tragedies and sad wisdoms until our souls cry out for relief -- doesn't death become a consummation devoutly to be wished? Isn't there a point at which one can say, with sincerity, that one has had enough?
Life is change, and change is tiring. Adapting to change, suffering the frictions of the ever-changing universe against body and brain uses a man up, wears him out, leaves him gasping for surcease and, just maybe, some unimaginable form of renewal.
Even to contemplate the possibility that death might be a guest one would welcome is difficult for us who live. But the difficulty of it might underscore the importance of the attempt: not merely for ourselves as individuals, but as existential examples to those who will come after. The quietus at the end of life is not an incursion of evil into the universe that must be defeated at any cost.
A discussion of death must necessarily touch upon religion and religious belief. Many have opined that religion arose specifically as a countermeasure to the fear of death. Such thinkers have little truck with any suggestion that there really is an unseen world, or that death is our gateway into it. They would reject with prejudice the assertions of Christ that a Kingdom awaits us whose splendor our meager temporal natures could never comprehend.
In the Christian conception, one earns the next life with his conduct in this one. More, this is posited to be the last of our trials; after this, there are no more hurdles to surmount. Neither this nor the more fundamental postulate of Man's undying soul is susceptible to testing in our temporal realm; we are simply not equipped for such an investigation. To accept it is an act of faith.
But faith, too, is difficult for Man. We were constructed as rational beings, who explore our universe with logic, according to the implications of observable data. Even the most devout Christian will have his doubts, not because he wants his beliefs to be untrue, but because it's not possible for limited, fallible Man to be perfectly confident of something his temporal senses can never touch. This, too, is in our natures.
So the difficulty of approaching death with equanimity, much less gladness, will remain. Though we will age, and deteriorate, and weigh each day's labors and trials more heavily than the last, to confront the final exit as a welcome arrival, to stride toward it in full confidence that what's on the other side of that door is better than we will leave behind, will challenge every man who lives. It will defeat more than a few of us.
But at some point, just as with Bruno, the body and mind will cry "Enough!" When that day comes, what will it avail us to shrink back from the only relief our natures offer? Would we not be better advised to unlearn our fear of death, at least far enough that we can relax into it when life has filled us too full of weariness and pain to continue?
"And this, too, shall pass away" might be the last required wisdom, the one that makes all our other cares bearable to the end.
I hope I haven't depressed you too much. I write about what's most on my mind, and this subject has pressed upon me for some time now. I fleshed it out for my own sake, but perhaps you'll have derived some food for thought from it as well.
What's that you say? Why should it be so much with me just now? Have I had some recent news or suffered some catastrophe that put my thoughts into the all-flesh-is-grass vein? Well, we've had enough personal disclosures for one essay, don't you think?
Comments
For those who might be interested in this subject further, I recommend Piers Anthony’s novel On A Pale Horse. It tells the story of a young man who, when about to suicide, sees Death come to collect him—and kills him. Thereafter, he must assume the office of Death, traveling the world on his pale horse and collecting the souls of those who die “in balance” between good and evil. The book contains many insights into the nature of Death, the tragedy of those taken before their time, and the injustice of keeping souls on Earth when their time has come. It puts forward the notion that, if more people knew Death, fewer would fear him. It’s not only a good novel in its own right, it’s the first book in a good series.
Posted by Erbo on 02/11/2005 at 12:25 PMCongratulations on Bruno’s advanced age. It is a sign that he is much loved. It’s hard to face the death of any loved one and it’s especially true of dogs, perhaps because they are so full of love. I’m sure I need not tell you but the most important thing you can do for Bruno when his time comes is to ensure that he knows it’s okay for him to die. Dog struggle long past their time if they feel they are needed. He’ll tell you. And you can let him go.
As I’ve written on my own blog, I’m a member of a dog pack—four Samoyeds (also members of the working group). We backpack, skijor, and dogsled with our pack as well as herding and therapy dog activities. They love their jobs—it’s part of who they are.
Posted by Dave Schuler on 02/11/2005 at 01:43 PMI am tempted to guess William Buckley’s recent column about the Holy See is at least part of what prompted this post. But, whatever brought you to this point, even as your logical mind comes to grips with it, may your emotional heart find a most suitable balm as well.
Posted by GuyS on 02/11/2005 at 03:28 PMIt doesn’t much matter what brought this on, what matters is that you needed to say it and get it off your chest, and it is a good thought-provoking essay. As for me, I thank you for sharing the thoughts and most importantly, Bruno with us. That he has lived so long is testimony to the love he has and that you all share with him. I wish him and all of you the best in the days ahead.
Posted by Laughing Wolf on 02/11/2005 at 06:06 PM“LIFE’S JOURNEY IS NOT TO ARRIVE AT THE GRAVE SAFELY IN A WELL PRESERVED BODY, BUT RATHER TO SKID IN SIDEWAYS, TOTALLY WORN OUT, SHOUTING, “...HOLY S**T…WHAT A RIDE”.”
UNKNOWN
I do not take your thoughts or feelings lightly, rather wish to express how I hope I can make, and finish, the journey myself, the next thought being “...OK, WHAT’S NEXT, I’M READY”.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/12/2005 at 11:15 AMBruno is beautiful.
Great essay.
Posted by Heather on 02/13/2005 at 01:50 AMFor more on the science of doing something about death and age-related degeneration, you might want to take a look at biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey’s site:
http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/
And the M Prize:
And of course my blog
Posted by Reason on 02/13/2005 at 08:35 PM
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