Some stray thoughts, more musing
The most important insight is this: A doctor should NEVER do this: a SHARP warning
The fact is everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
Somebody asked Woody Allen, " Aren't you afraid of death?" He replied, "I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens"
I suppose, you too. Don't want to be there for the great event.
The terminal event.
The End.
Finito.
When we're circa 20 years old, at least some of us feel immortal. Touch wood.
Nowadays, with modern medicine, the optimistic standard expectation is circa 120 years - like Moses ( the Prophet Moses). For the rest of us, even the pious and most holy among us want to cling on to dear life and to do what can be done down here on earth - not down there in the grave or after the cremation, what remains of us as a box of ashes ( as "into ashes all my lust!") So, ideally some of us - not suicide bombers, would like to delay entry into "The undiscovered country, from whose bourn, No traveller returns", there's good reason to despair of attaining to the ripe old age of the fabled Methuselah; somewhere or other down the line, you, me, we are at one of the stages known as "The Seven Ages of Man" and no matter at what/ which stage we find ourselves, this much is certain:"Your days are numbered, so are mine"
I don't know exactly what figure of speech he was employing, but earlier in the day I came across upbeat youthman Shola Adenekan affirming his certainty on Facebook, in the following words: "There are 3 things certain in life: tax, death and Arsenal beating Chelsea !"
BTW, I had thought that he was going to say, these three are certain: 1. The Father, 2. The Son, and 3. The Holy Spirit….
BTW, Death is universally known as " the certainty" - at least in Islam death is a certainty there's no escape, i.e. none so far has escaped it. Good Christians look forward to the everlasting life that has been promised will be granted to them, after they die. It's a very tempting idea. A pleasant idea. A luminous future to look forward to.
In a brighter and much calmer mood, John Donne composed this Holy Sonnet: Death be not Proud - the kind of Sonnet Woody Allen did not compose, however, as far as I remember, when J.D. was actually passing out of this life, he called for a priest ( to administer the last rites) There's a similar story about Tolstoy and what historians and some literary biographers - and some Church people - have disputed as his religious conviction towards the end of his life. This much is true or certain: some people become more religious in old age, with remorse and repentance for an earlier life of profligacy, as they begin to contemplate the Elysian Fields, the possibilities of eternal life in the Olam Ha Ba / the fulfilment of promises about the Christian Hereafter / the Islamic Paradise
There is, for instance, the Quranic polemic in 2: 96 // Quran 2:96 - about the Jews, and whilst these days with the War in Ukraine about to escalate and goodness knows the future of the war in Sudan, we may be thinking of life and death in terms of our individual destinies of three score years and ten according to the Hebrew Bible, but the idea of collective destiny is clear in this chilling statement by Iran's President: Iran's Initial Response To Any 'Small Step' By The Zionist Entity Will Be Its Annihilation
In mystical Islam, it's "Die before you die"
St Paul the Apostle is supposed to have said: I die daily
Dr. Samuel Oloruntoba tells me that, " it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this judgment:!"
When there's no more karma holding them back, when the stock of bad karma is all burned up, some advanced yogis can leave the body at will and depart into the hereafter. Others are said to be sinning deliberately, because they don't want to leave this vale of tears in such a hurry, at least not yet. (Right now I'm feeling enormous remorse about this business of William Wordsworth being referred to as a "Scottish Poet" - he could be rolling over in his grave, on hearing this and wondering if Robert Burns ( 1759 - 1796) would take kindly to that kind of testimony of Wordsworth ( 1802 - 1859) sharing distinguished Scottish pedigree with him. Maybe as preposterous as referring to Wole Soyinka as an Igbo poet, or Christopher Okigbo as a " Yoruba Poet." or the Prophet Muhammad salallahu alaihi wa salaam as a Jew or the Prophet Moses - alaihi salaam, as an Arab…
But for all we know Wordsworth as a " Scottish " poet, is a witty, inner joke…
I have been following reports of Near-Death Experiences on this Youtube channel :
After a lifetime of pampering the body and the mind, acquiring knowledge and much material wealth, women and wisdom, in the last days of those who believe they are heaven-bound, or going to burn forever in that other place, all the academic degrees that have been obtained in theology won't be of much help. Hopefully, from a higher, more sublime conceptual plane some words of comfort from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: "Nothing dies. The body is just imagined. There is no such thing"
On Saturday, 29 April 2023 at 00:31:52 UTC+2 Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:"Scottish" Poet Wordsworth ?Who and what made him a " Scottish" poet?When he made a tour of Scotland ?On Friday, 28 April 2023 at 19:12:43 UTC+2 Emmanuel Babatunde wrote:Correction on My Contribution upon hearing of Toyin's announcement.The Poem enclosed in that article was written by the Scottish Poet Wordsworth advocating for Tousaint, rather than Tousaint advocating for himself.May you be healed My Brother Toyin.BabatundeOn Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 6:44 PM Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:--Thank you for this, tf.
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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Paul Woodruff: My death is close at handPowerful
--On Thu, 27 Apr 2023, 5:18 pm Toyin Falola, <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
--A piece by an outstanding colleague of mine….
I wrote two similar pieces, "Transition to Nothingness" and "Death at Dawn" I wrote my first memoir at the age of 50 in anticipation of death. Here I am, 20 years later but I was in "heaven" last February.
Opinion
My death is close at hand. But I do not think of myself as dying.
By Paul Woodruff
April 27, 2023 at 6:30 a.m. EDT
Error! Filename not specified.
(Jon Han for The Washington Post)
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Read by the author|Listen to Paul Woodruff6 min
Paul Woodruff is a philosopher, translator and poet who has taught at the University of Texas at Austin since 1973.
How often do you think about death? "Every third thought," said Shakespeare's avatar Prospero in the last line of the last speech he gives in Shakespeare's last play, "The Tempest," aside from the epilogue that follows the play. My friends say they think of death at least as often as Prospero. I do, too. If we think about death so much, we ought to know what to think about it. Philosophy is supposed to have answers, but the answers we hear most often from philosophers are not good for us. "Live every day as if it is your last," we are told. "Remember that you are on the way to death each day."
A friend recently wrote an email message with this line in it: "Paul is dying of a lung infection." He had meant it for someone else, but he had misdirected it. That sentence infuriated me. I do not have a lung infection. My death is close at hand, however, because of a lung condition called bronchiectasis, and I am on oxygen day and night. But I do not think of myself as dying. I am living each day with as much life as I can put into it. For me, that means going to bed each night planning at least one project for the next day — something worth getting out of bed and living for. As I think of dying, I make each day a time for living, for having something to live for.
What kind of project is worth living for? Not a project I could complete today. Worthwhile projects spread out over time. Writing this small essay and finding someone to print it will take at least a week, and today is only the first day. I will make sure that the last day for this essay will be the first day for something else. Thinking of death, I want to live every day as if it were the first for something.
Living as I do, with projects that continue over time, I can be sure that my death will cut me off before I finish something worth doing. I want to be cut off when I die of something I care about doing — not from thoughts of death alone. Unless I am in unbearable pain, I should be able to live right up to the last moments. Here is an inspiring (although slightly gruesome) example: Under bloody Queen Mary, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the author of the lovely Anglican prayer book, was burned at the stake for his protestant views despite signing false confessions of faith in Catholic doctrine. Even as the flames licked up around him, and his death was moments away, he was very much living (not dying) when he put his right hand into the heart of the fire to punish it for signing false confessions.
I know I will die soon. But must I be miserable about it? Why not find a cause for joy in each day? Some corner of my mind always knows that sad thoughts lurk behind my projects. But my dying will be much harder on my loved ones than it will be on me. Survivors often think they have failed to keep their loved one alive. I want my survivors to know that death is not unwelcome to me, although I want to be living each day. There's nothing wrong with dying. All the best people in history have done it. Let foolish philosophers see themselves as dying every day. Thinking of death, I choose life.
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