Robert: It does not mean that in death a man is happy.
Never thought it meant that. I mean, look what happened to Croesus.
When I think about my own death -- or if you want a Wittgensteinian bicker, "my dying" -- it often looms as the opposite of my mood. When I'm feeling contemplative, I often imagine that I will die squealing like a frightened pig, terrified and clinging; when I'm in a flippant mood, I imagine my death as a slow easing into the ground of being (as in _The Death of Virgil_). Then I invent comic deaths for myself. My favorite death is to be crushed by an elephant that has fallen from a C-130 transport plane. First I see its shadow welling at my feet. I hear furious trumpeting from above. Looking up, I see something that resembles a growing storm cloud. Finis. The worst thing about my imagined death is the sense of things left undone. Pain I can deal with. It's nothing new. But the end of possibility is unnerving.
Any thoughts? How do you guys imagine your death?"Sickle, skull and crossbones -- an absurd pack of lies Rather death when it comes will have your own two eyes" -Brodsky "Nature Morte" ( probably misquoted from memory)
------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html