Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
As I Lay Dying
When the Comtesse de Vercellis, well, passed gas while she was dying, she said, quite reasonably I think, “Good! A woman who can fart is not dead.” Then she died.
The Comtesse didn’t seem to care a whit about other people’s opinions of her. But surely she is an exception to the mass of humanity. Most people care—as they should—about the world’s opinion.
When you don’t care at all about the world’s opinion, you are a sociopath. When you care too much, you’re not enough your own man and the world is too much with you. As usual, the golden mean is the way to go.
I have a story about a man who cared too much about the world’s opinion.
The following episode is true, but I’ve changed names for reasons that will be obvious. When I taught at Middleboro State University, Professor Dubman died in front of his class. According to his students, Dubman was lecturing when his coherence began to go to pieces. Dubman wasn’t too coherent to begin with, so it took the students awhile to notice a difference.
But this time he started rambling more than usual and started to stare off into space. This went on for a minute or so. Then he collapsed, stumbling awkwardly on his way to the floor, spittle coming from his lips. His heart had stopped. A student rushed to the front and started artificial respiration. Dubman came back to life.
I talked to Dubman when he retuned to the University after a period of rehabilitation. “Kent,” he said, “you know what my last thoughts before death were? I was worrying about how foolish I looked as I began to fall apart. I landed on the floor rather awkwardly, you know.”
Afterwards, back in my office, I started thinking about what Dubman had said. Isn’t it sad that in the last moments of his life, his mind was dwelling on what people thought of him? There was a man who worried too much about the world’s opinion.
As we die, shouldn’t we be thinking of our wives, husbands, mothers? Or, even better, a great thought or two. “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of. . . . . .Ack!”
Goethe was supposed to have cried out, “More light, more light!”
The artist and writer, Dereck Jarman, said, “I want the world to be filled with white fluffy duckies.”
W.C. Fields’ last words: “G-d damn the whole friggin’ world and everyone in it but you, Carlotta. (Carlotta was his mistress.)
Margaret Sanger: “A party! Let’s have a party!”
Steve Jobs last words were, “Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!”—as if he were seeing something no one else could see. Or perhaps he was playing a final joke on us.
But no big thoughts for Professor Dubman as he was dying. He was worried about how foolish he looked.
I hope my last thoughts on this earth will not be about what others are thinking of me. So I’m planning right now that my last word will be “Marie.”
Endnote: Have you thought about what your last words will be? Your mind may be distracted, you know, so you ought to have something in mind.
Published in General
Disagree. Plenty of sociopaths care greatly about the world’s opinion and go to great lengths to engineer the world’s opinion.
Every thought that I have ever had about death revolves around not about the when, the why or the how – but the where. I have known too many people in my business who have died on the road, alone in hotel rooms to be discovered by staff. All I ever wanted to do is die in my bride’s arms.
“Hey, y’all! Watch this! Yeeeeeehaaaa!”
I have no idea what this means :)
That’s what I plan to have as my last words.
“Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43)
I can only hope, pray and act so that I will be worthy to say those words. Pretty sure I need a lot of work on that ‘act’ part.
Mr. Misthiocraciy, here’s what I had in mind: a sociopath has no conscience. That is, he doesn’t care what people think.
Kent
So Marie is your mistress?
“No new taxes at last!”
Either that or his sled.
I have survived 3 accidents that should have killed me. I don’t think I said anything when they happened, but I do remember my thoughts. The first one, my last thought was thinking how stupid I was for not doing a simple thing that would have avoided the accident. The second, and third time, my last thoughts were simply, “So this is how it ends.”
What I didn’t think was about God (although I have complete faith he saved me), or my loved ones. Surprisingly, I didn’t have any fear. I just accepted it was over.
“See. I told you I was sick.”
I don’t recall my Dad’s exact last words, but I do vividly recall the events surrounding them.
He died of heart failure 23 years ago in the ICU, after he dropped off the eligibility list for a heart transplant. It was his first grandchild’s 12th birthday, and we had left the hospital to go to my sisters house for birthday cake. As we arrived we got a phone call that we better hurry back (it was about a 45 minute drive). We rushed back to find my mom in with him, and my dad apparently comatose. My mom (an RN) speculated that he might have had a small stroke because he had been somewhat physically agitated but had quieted down suddenly a while before. The doctor told us he probably had not much more than an hour or so left. We were all in the room with him, when his eyes suddenly popped open and he said “I’m still alive?” (in a very surprised tone of voice) and proceeded to carry on a conversation with us for about 2 or 3 minutes, including telling us to tell Brian “Happy Birthday” for him. Then he just got kind of tired, closed his eyes and over the next 30 minutes or so his heart just kept beating slower and slower until it stopped.
Edit: Dammit, now I’m crying at my desk…
Clever, Arahant. Very clever. Always with the movies.
Kent
I pretend occasionally, but no, that’s my wife.
Kent
That’s a classic.
Kent
Again, just because a person has no conscience it doesn’t mean they don’t care what people think. It can simply mean they have no scruples about the means they can use to engineer what people think.
Put another way, liars care a great deal about what people think. One could argue it’s the thing that care the most about, yet few would argue that liars are much bothered by conscience.
I just told this joke in the PIT, but I suppose the rest of y’all can stand to hear it:
“When I go, I want to go quietly in my sleep like my grandpa. Not screaming like his passengers.”
My sister-in-law was driving, my cousin was in the back seat, and my brother was riding shotgun, reading aloud. He was reading Dune, and the plot was making less and less sense to the listeners, until he read a sentence with a dramatic pause — and let out a snore.
Mr. Miffed, it seems to me that you’re father’s death was better than most. That short period of consciousness at the end was a blessing for everyone who was there, wasn’t it? My father’s death was quick and relatively painless. Perhaps that’s the best we can hope for.
Kent
My husband had a near death experience on a plane once; because of some technical problem, the plane suddenly started plummeting-really, it was ok, they were not in any real danger, the pilot just needed to quickly get to an altitude where people could breathe. But they didn’t have time to explain that to the passengers, and the passengers believed that the plane was crashing and they were all about to die; people were screaming, it was crazy. My husband was sitting one seat down from a very attractive woman; he said that he and the woman just looked at each other, and he thought about how much he wanted to sleep with her, and how it was too bad that he never would.
That was long before he met me :)
OMG did I clean my browser history?
Private windows and auto-delete of history, my friend. We don’t want your wife to know about the naked midget wrestling.
Ha ha. That’s a good one. Wait a minute, that’s not a joke. I think I’ll keep it in mind.
Kent
I plan to die peacefully in my sleep after tell my wife that I love her.
At this point, my biggest fear of death is that I’m going to go suddenly without a chance to say goodbye to my wife and kids (both boys are pre-teens).
We had about two days notice with my dad (he was removed from the transplant list on Tuesday, died on Thursday), so everybody got a chance to say the things they wanted to say. That last two minutes was just a bonus.
Judithann, surely that story is just too good to be true. Sex would be the last thing on my mind if I thought the plane were going to crash. I bet he told that story to you just to keep your marriage interesting. I once told my wife that I was a cowboy before we met. She likes stories like that. It makes her think she married someone interesting.
Kent
That’s great!
Kent
I’m glad you added that last sentence.
I was on an Amtrak trip probably 20 years ago and met a guy who had an airplane experience – one of the engines literally fell off the plane in flight. That’s why he was on Amtrak – he didn’t fly anymore.