Says in “The Meaning of Death” something
quite profound about our age, and how the fate of our civilization is tied to
the personal experience of death.
I have watched the video maybe twenty times
and have been both moved and confused by what he said. I transcribed the entire
text, but I am still not sure exactly what he is saying. What I can say is that
I would not have been drawn to it if it were not compelling.
Stephen Jenkinson
“The Meaning of Death”
You know I was asked, many, many times when
I was in the front lines of the.. No! When the people in death’s shade thought
I was a good idea–to come and talk about finding meaning at the end of life.
That was the standard request
So you can see the idea that meaning is
somehow potentially elusive, or even fugitive. And has to be somehow be wrung
from the circumstances is behind that question.
It is a particularly modernist dilemma
To find meaning.
But the real problem is in conceiving of it
as something that you have to find. You can see the language implies that it is
hidden, or that you are not looking in the right place, or that there is some nefarious
architecture that keeps it from you, or that… You understand—or that
you have to claim so-and-so as your
personal savior.
What but what if the meaning is not hidden?
What if is not something to find.
What if the story is that meaning is not
found at all, but it’s made. It is made by the willingness to proceed as if
certain things must be.
Like, life has to continue, not you have to
continue. That life is not your lifespan, or your children’s lifespan, or the lifespan
of what you hold dear.
How about holding dear the fact that
nothing you hold dear lasts? How about holding that close to your bosom? That’s
making meaning of the end of life, the willingness to do that.
It is not hammered into the sky for all to
see so that nobody can forget.
You see how precarious the whole
proposition is. It actually has to be lived out and told in order to pertain.
It ha(s) no police, it ha(s) no enforcement
branch.
You know.
If you’re not willing for it to be so, it
probably won’t be. End. Well, what’s the consequence of that? Well, it is not a
conjecture, look around you. Our way of life is the consequence.
Life does not feed life. Life is on the
receiving side of life, always. No it is death that feeds life. It is the end
of life that gives life a chance.
It is a hurtful kind of comfort, maybe,
that the dominant culture of North America is in some kind of beginning stage
of a terminal swoon. Because it’s the
beginning, it is hard to tell the difference between that and dancing, or
having a good time, you know.
But, it is terminal alright, meaning that
there is no turning back from it, there is no undoing it.
Alas, it is worse than talking about it as
a punishment.
It’s not a punishment, no more that dying is
a punishment for being born.
Our particular dilemma, I think, is trying
to live with the realization that what the world requires of us humans is not
that they piss off already and why don’t you all die and then we’ll go back
where we were.
No, I think that the world whispers, “All
we need of you is that you be human—that’s it.
The dilemma is in the meaning of the word, “human.”
What has to die is your refusal to die; your
refusal for things to end.
If that dies, life can be fed by (that) and
so the plea is not for punishment, it’s for remembrance. You are not supposed
to feel bad about having forgotten. You are supposed to feel more. See, that is
the invitation.
Circles and Squares 