Of Death...

Of Death

These last few days, I have been reflecting quite a bit about death. Two friends of mine have lost a sister each, my sons friends lost a father and I have just received the news of a former teacher’s death.  Therefore the thought of death has been in my mind.

I have had a fairly intense experience with death having lost both my own parents more that sixteen years ago.  And experiencing death at close quarters in never a pleasant experience, even the death of a stranger by the side of the road.  Death has a way of shocking us into a freeze, making us wonder what it must be like for the person who has died and for those who were close family and friends, whether they were in pain and how much pain, whether they had “put their affairs in order” or even whether they have gone to the afterlife.

However, my sense is that deaths greatest tool of fear against us is the timing…. Death has a sneaky way of coming when it is least expected… a way of keeping its mystic by never giving a time and a day when it will come … so it keeps us guessing… and then it suddenly shows up.  Even for those who are terminally ill, death sneaks around giving false hope for days, months, or even years… and then it sneaks in and strikes … we even use the word “strikes” to add to the drama even when someone has died quite peacefully …. And it every time shocks us into a freeze.

Incidentally one of life’s main outcomes is death. A favorite saying goes that “the key cause of death is life”. Everyone will die at some point or other.  The bible refers to a life expectancy of seventy years and anything beyond that being a bonus.  We seem to falsely think and believe that one of our main objectives of life is to live for a long time, even if in deep pain,  – even when we know that will still come to an end.  So we go into all manner of health, financial, insurance and physical investments to keep death at bay.  I recently read a story of a man who had stayed vegetarian all is life - to keep healthy- who was now well over a hundred years old, and was wondering whether it was all worth it.

One of the tools I have learnt of dealing with uncertainty is scenario thinking.  It allows you to think “what if” around various possibilities and think through what each of the scenarios would result in, and how life would look like in that scenario.  In the case of death, death is certain.  The only uncertainty is timing.  Therefore, if you could think “what if” with the timing, what would this result in?  What if I died today, or tomorrow?  What if XYZ (insert name) died today, or tomorrow, what would this result in?  How would life unfold in this scenario?  Or even what if I (or XYZ) died in forty years?  Or sixty?  This may sound morbid but it is not different with similar messages that tell us to keep our “I love you”s current, because you don’t know when you, or the person you love will be gone.  However in this case, scenario thinking about death removes death’s overbearing power of timing from us. In other words, one of the ways to remove deaths power over us, is to expect it any time, all the time.  Then we are free to go on with the rest of our lives.

So, the next time you hear that someone has died, ask yourself whether the shock would be less if you had thought through this scenario. Indeed, that explains why people in Quarter 4 are never shocked about news of death; to them death is much more certain and is less of a scare.

The Power of Human Interaction

I have recently been struck by the amazing power of human interaction. I guess it is part of what is usually referred to as being present or being in the now.  I sometimes sit back and watch people go about their business and observe as they interact with other people.  I sometimes also watch myself as I go about my own business and the interactions I make.

I watch myself and other in regular familiar interactions, with family, friends and colleagues. I see the instant recognition, warmth, affection, respect and all other emotions that can be seen.  Sometimes I also see the coldness, confusion, sadness and many others.  Because I am in familiar environment, I can relate a lot of the observations to stuff I know that is happening around the lives of those I interact with, be it positive or negative.  All these observations make for daily experiences that accumulate to life and relationships growth and improvement and is some cases decline.

I also watch myself in regular non-familiar-mostly-customer-supplier kind of interactions.  The kind of interaction you would have in a supermarket check-out or at a gas station.  These interactions are professional, polite and transactional.  The people I interact with will usually be employed to do what they do, and they are compelled by nature of their employment to treat me in a certain way, usually polite, respectful and also to get me to do something that fulfills their mandate.  So a security guard will politely ask to conduct a body search on me or a car search, and his objective is to get me to comply and then we are soon both on to our next action.  In the event that I frequent a certain service point, the nature of this interaction evolves from initially unfamiliar-professional to a familiar professional and may soon be on its way to a familiar friend interaction.  I have observed on several occasions when I interact, on a regular basis, with professional guards at an office environment.  When they later are transferred to other premises, and I happen to visit those premises, the interaction instantly becomes personal-friendly even though they are in a professional mandate.  The same repeats itself across many other professional interactions that graduate to friendship.

However the most interesting interactions that I observe are those of strangers.  These for me represent our wiring as human beings, which can manifest as extremely good to extremely awful and any other point in between.  The same individual when interacting with a stranger can be at one point very nice and kind and at another point be very rude and mean.  The individual who is a mean rude driver may be rushing to a church where she is a volunteer usher showing people to their seats.  The guy you strike a nice friendly conversation on a sidewalk could be the same guy leading a rough violent bunch of football fans. The polite lady you it next to in a bus could be the same person shouting and cursing at a luggage attendant at the station.

What then do we make of all these interactions?  How can we as human being temper our interactions towards a more peaceful and loving world?  You have probably heard of the saying that friends are just strangers we have not met.  And the classic one that says: “They chap who cursed me and showed me the middle finger at the parking has just arrived for his interview – with me!”

Happy interacting!