Lady Magaga

Death: How to Make It Work For You, On the Job
I've been thinking about mortality a lot lately, not on account of any illnesses I might have (though I could have loads; it's been ages since I went to the doc), but because I read a really good book about the subject by Julian Barnes (Metroland). The book is called Nothing to Be Frightened Of. He basically presents the idea of death as the be-all-end-all and how terrifying that can be, but also how oddly reassuring the thought is that, well, this is it, better make the best of it.

I suppose the idea of mortality comes up more often in my mind now because I'm much older than I ever thought I might be, if not in terms of chronology than in terms of years of experience, without having experienced some basic human needs in the course of my life (thus, if I died tomorrow, I'd feel more than a little cheated, all things considered). When I was younger and stupidly fixated on the idea of "dying young" but not before "blessing the world with a masterpiece," the idea of much good coming after thirty would have been suspect to my mind. Then again, the heroic early death of literary or cinematic or musical heroes often leaves out the very important fact that you're fucked after you die, because all the posthumous mythologizing can't raise you from your tomb.

Which is why you never see the zombie Ian Curtis or a reanimated JD Salinger running around these days.

One of the basic arguments of the book has to do with the afterlife, and whether or not it exists. Barnes is of the opinion that it doesn't, and I can see his logic for it (wouldn't it be egotistical of us to suppose that, just because we had the run of things on this side of the mortal coin, we could have even longer stays of execution on the other?). But there's enough of the Southern Baptist faith of which I was brought up in and for a large part rejected still left to make me fearful of the idea that nothing exists beyond the void. Pretty heady stuff, and all this after having a new niece born into my life that I look forward to seeing grow up and imparting my wisdom to, provided I don't get lucky in the genetic race to continue propagating the species and never mate myself (I mean, mate with another person besides myself, not that I can mate with myself...bloody hell).

Lighter Topics
Spring is here...is it? Just around the corner?...well, something resembling it seems to be lollygagging around, and in the interim my allergies are starting their return to full and annoying life. I look forward to the first dusting of pollen, because that will be the sign that I was wise to save so many coins for possible trips to the car wash.

Ay dios mio...