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We’re All Going to Die
Everywhere I go I hear people talking about the massacre in Las Vegas. The 24-hour news cycle is obsessed with the tragedy, and there is no getting away from it. But one question that is asked over and over again frustrates and saddens me: “When we know why he did it, we’ll able to make the future safer.”
It’s a lie. A well intentioned lie, a desire to delude ourselves into thinking that we don’t live in a dangerous world and that we can protect ourselves. But in many ways, we can’t assure a perfectly protected existence. There is no living with “zero risk.” Let me try to clear up the delusion about making a safer world in a constructive and positive way.
The world has always been dangerous. Two thousand years ago, people died from exposure to the extreme weather, tribal and national wars, famine and disease. Many children died in childbirth. Many of these conditions are still true in third-world countries.
Today in the US we can make our cars safer, yet people will die in accidents. We make safer products, but children and adults will be killed by using them. We’ve developed cures for many diseases, and have the best healthcare in the world, and people still die from under-treatment, over-treatment, no treatment or the wrong treatment. All kinds of gun laws are already on the books and people are still dying from shootings.
Still, you say, there must be some way to stop these devastating terrorist acts. So we create the illusion that we are “doing something”; taking off our shoes for the TSA; opening our purses at concerts; providing security for controversial speakers at universities. We do all of these to protect the public, we say, but effectively we do them to fool ourselves; we are trying not just to protect ourselves, but to keep ourselves from dying.
But we are all going to die.
A part of you may say, I can’t give up! We are a civilized, intelligent, ingenious people. We should be able to come up with a solution to protect ourselves. What we are really saying is, we must be able to figure out how not to die, how to live forever.
So, you say, I don’t want to live forever! I just don’t want to die prematurely. I just want to be able to raise my kids. I just want to ensure that I see my daughter married and meet my grandkids. Is that asking so much?!
Yes. In fact it is asking for too much.
When the day comes for our deaths, we are likely not to have much, if anything, to say about it.
And yet there is a different kind of hope for us. You will not live forever; you can, however, come to terms with the fact that most things in life are out of your control. (This statement drives some people crazy, but if you think about it carefully, you’ll realize it’s true.) With that realization, that life will unfold as it will, you can experience a certain peace for important reasons:
- You can make good choices when choices are available.
- You can appreciate that you are alive to experience this special gift of your own precious life.
- You can experience and express gratitude for the big and little things you have.
- You can love those around you.
At those times when you become startlingly aware that life is fragile, ephemeral, and uncontrollable, remember you have all these gifts to embrace and share with others.
We are all going to die. But we can do our best to live with our eyes opened, enjoy every moment, show appreciation and celebrate.
Published in Culture
According to Wikipedia, there were over 2 million motor vehicle deaths in the same period of time. Ban the car? How about just left turns?
As has already been pointed out, I like the mayor of London’s answer to Islamist extremist terror deaths and apply it to gun deaths. He said, essentially: “Get over it.” No objections from the left for that pearl.
Earlier today, also on Facebook, I saw a similar surprising “factoid”: the assertion that there have been 127 mass shootings so far this year. This year.
Naturally, there was no data provided to back up this absurd-on-its-face claim. If any such data exists, you can be sure that the definition of “mass shooting” has been so twisted that it bears no resemblance to what any reasonable person understands it to mean. And yet you can be equally sure that leftists all over Facebook are happily propagating that particular meme.
If they were merely stupid, I could forgive them. But these are intelligent people who choose not to think because they’d rather cling to their false beliefs.
It would be a great post, the next step in reflecting on life, RB. I remember the Dementors–scarier to me than he whose name couldn’t be spoken. (I know I’ve got that wrong.) Despair is frightening, and is very real in our society.
Unfortunately it’s a lot easier to just blame everyone else. Self-reflection is not the strong suit of the Left. Good points, Columbo.
Well, G-d had previously said “In the moment you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen 2:15) so either Satan or G-d lied. So who is the liar?
Would also observe that in that conversation G-d pronounced judgment on Satan because he deceived the woman.
By the time you read this, I may well be dead. And you my friend could be next.
@blueyeti, we need William Shatners “your gonna die” for a podcast ending.
But the creator of this meme is most likely just fine with abortions
I don’t know that the snake is Satan in Jewish tradition. I’d have to check on that. In Judaism we have an “evil intention” within us and a “good intention”; we can choose to listen to either. Also throughout the Bible, G-d threatens destruction of the Jews if they don’t obey the laws, but he doesn’t (except for the flood, which he promised never to do again). G-d can also change his mind; we see how Moses gets G-d to do that. So we might want to call it a lie; I doubt that G-d would.
Adam and Eve weren’t going tolive forever anyway. If they had been created immortal, God wouldn’t have been worried that they’d eat the Tree of Life next. When they ate the Tree of Knowledge, they had one of the attributes of the deity. “The man is become as one of us!”
Sorry, but I’ll be going with a Tom Petty tune this week. Suggestions on which one are welcome.
I was thinking about Fixin’ to Die Rag.
They had access to it and freedom to eat it until the fatal act of disobedience. But the Jewish understandings of the fall are interesting, for sure.
My wife Sara, also a lawyer, had a variation on that theme, Susan: “I would really enjoy the practice of law, if I didn’t have to deal with clients!”
Travelling Willburies Somebody to Lean On.
Translate?
Its a song by Tom Petty. He has gone to join the Travelling Willbury reunion tour. Sorry detracting from the main point.
Not a problem, TWW. I didn’t follow Petty and thought maybe there was an in-joke I was missing! ;-)
Thought about it (actually, I was going to go withe the Willburies’ End of The Line for obvious reasons), but I think Tom deserves to be recognized on his own in this instance.
“We gotta *do* something!” I’m with you, SQ: Do one’s best daily, then toss a pebble, let the ripples go where they will.