[lit-ideas] Re: Right to Life, Right to Die

  • From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:25:51 -0500

> [Original Message]
> From: Stan Spiegel <writeforu2@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 3/27/2005 6:49:40 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Right to Life, Right to Die
>
> AA: Personally, I'm beginning to see that death invalidates life. It's
like
> writing a book that one will throw away.
>
> SS: I have to disagree with that thought. I remember being a college
> freshman and reading Wallace Stevens poem 'Sunday Morning' where Stevens
> wrote that "...death is the mother of beauty..." I think it was Stevens
> anyway. I have that line in my head for the past 30-40 years. And I think
> finally I begin to understand it.
>
> I understand it the way that limits make me more productive, deadlines
make
> me work harder to meet them, forces me to write more artfully, pushes me
to
> do more. Revision is my middle name except for here on lit-ideas. I used
to
> write a political column for a newspaper every week -- and I was forced to
> trim my thoughts down to 600 words every week, no matter how complex the
> subject. As a result of that compulsory limit, I wrote better, I confess.
I
> always ached and bitched about it, but I was a better writer for it.
>
> Knowing that we don't live forever forces me to make decisions about my
> present and my future I would never make otherwise. Granted, I don't want
to
> die. But I think, over all, my life is improved in quality and quantity
> because I dont' have forever to make my mark
>


A.A. That's my point. What mark is that?  In the end, all the stuff we do,
all the stuff we write, who's going to read it?  Who's going to care about
it?  Newspaper articles, television shows, etc. etc. all go into archives
for a while and then are purged.  Household names like Stalin and Mao will
become surreal facts in history books. If your children cherish every word
you write, what happens when they're gone?  The vast majority of authors
are forgotten, utterly unknown.  The written word and beyond.  It's all
crap, no matter what it is.

I appreciate the essay on death defining life that John Wager posted.  I
was taken by the idea, among others, that we're all terrified of something
we'll never experience.  I qualify as nether the optimist nor pessimist in
the essay.  I don't fear or hate death, as the optimist does, so I do not
risk hypochondria in a bid to cling  to life.  But I'm not really a
pessimist either; since I don't pursue death.  I think I've resolved the
meaninglessness issue:  death does invalidate life.  But by making life
meaningless, death also takes away the burden of seriousness.  If rushing
through one's "life's work" is fun, then let's do it.  If it's not fun,
then heck, what's the point?  


Andy Amago




> As a result, death can give validity and meaning to my life. I don't
believe
> that's always the case. But for me it is. If my life were cut short this
> very minute, I don't think my life would have been improved. But short of
> such a precipitous end, I think it is.
>
> Stan
> Portland, Maine
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "John Wager" <johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2005 5:49 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Right to Life, Right to Die
>
>
> > Andy Amago wrote:
> >
> > >Personally, I'm beginning to see that death invalidates life.  It's
like
> > >writing a book that one will throw away.
> > >
> > Whether there's "something" after death not quite like this life, let's
> > just consider the other alternative: Never dying. This would be like
> > writing a book that goes on forever, repeating chapters and characters
> > and events an infinite number of times. Give me the preciousness of
> > single life over the excess of infinity.
> >
> > > Regarding staying perpetually young, that sounds like being condemned
to
> > >hell.  There has to be a rung in hell for the condemned to do the
> > >impossible, in this case: stay perpetually young.
> > >
> >
> > I recommend a chapter from the book THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
> > by William Earle.  The chapter is "Some Notes on Death, Existentially
> > Considered." It's simply written (simple enough so that freshmen college
> > students LIKE reading it) but it addresses some of your ideas here.  The
> > book is out of print, but the chapter is temporarily up on my
> > department's website at: http://academics.triton.edu/uc/earle.html .
> >
> >
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>
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