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

  • From: "Stan Spiegel" <writeforu2@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 18:51:16 -0500

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

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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