The Art Of Dying

I’ve always been interested in Death, since I can remember…

As a young boy I’d sometimes manifacture or imagine tragic scenarios in order to provoke tears and a deep sense of sadness and mourning. I attended spiritualist church with my Mum every Sunday for a long period when I was just 11 or 12 years old. I even bought an ex-girlfriend of mine a large collection of ‘Japanese Death Poems’ as a Birthday present.

I looked frequently for books on death throughout my adult life and my search would always come up short. Incidently, I’ve found many interesting practices and pursuits through which I’ve been able to ‘die’ (metaphorically speaking); many of which I’ll discuss in later blogs/chapters. These include meditation, various forms of ‘movement’ training, ultramarathon running and writing etc.

None have prepared me nearly as well as my current journey however: getting diagnosed with cancer.

In ways, I might now be uniquely qualified to write about, research and reflect upon death, and much more so than even before, as a curiously philosophical, lonely and reflective boy. I hope (and expect) that these pages will help me come to terms and manage my health journey better, and also bring perhaps more ease, acceptance and compassion for your own journey of dying.

After all, as one of my idols, Ido Portal, likes to say: “actually, we’re not living, we’re dying”.

Simple being alive and awake, day after day, as comically explained by Andrew Huberman, is akin to brain damage. We recover each night when asleep but not entirely. Enough years go by and we lose a little of ourselves, more and more over time. We are like bright, fiery stars burning ourselves up.

Obviously there are certain ‘expected’ lifespans that we attach to our general ideas of health and what constitutes ‘a life well lived’. Bar tragic accidents or unfortunate diseases, modern medicine can help to keep us alive for 100+ years, and even without such assistance, a cautious, holistic way of life can get you close to or over a hundred years.

And yet, how many of us wish to live in such a way?

The world is filled with men and women choosing to more-than-likely lower their life expectancy - whether through extreme physical pursuits, experience-enhancing drugs and substances, enjoyable or indulgent foods, or tiring/stressful careers, we understandably prioritise our ‘dream life’ over one that’s guaranteed to be healthy and long.

Sure, these things are not mutually exclusive per se, but they certainly can be. Moreover, a highly low-risk-taking way of life can equally lead to depression, hopelessness and, in turn, various other unhealthy habits later down the road. I’ve met people of both varieties and no one, it seems, is saved from the paradoxical, innate challenges of living a human life.

So what do you really want from your years? And what are you willing to sacrifice, or at least risk, in order to get it?

These are better questions than ‘how can I live until I’m 100?’ I feel…

That being said, as my current life is testimony to, when survival is at stake then we appreciate the mere fact of being alive more than ever. What we thought was important becomes questioned, and the basic, primitive things obviously become priority: food, rest, relationships, emotional well-being, physical health etc.

So it it true that a meaningful, shorter life is preferable to a cautious, unfulfilled longer one?

And, equally, could dying heroically, or at least in keeping with one’s highest ethics, be greater than the drawn-out, numbing effect of years spent on medications, IVs and whatever else has been designed to lengthen our life spans?

Personally, I thought a ‘heroic’ death would be much easier than it is in reality - when deciding between ‘the natural way’ (aka no meds) and chemotherapy, in the end I chose for the chemo, as it at least gave me a chance of survival, despite it’s poisonous side effects.

Death is a delicious thing to ponder over, laugh and write poetry about when one’s healthy (or under the illusion of health). Health deludes us into believing we’re permanent, immortal, endless; that whatever happens, we’ll recover and be alright in the end. True comedy, and true art, I’ve learned, comes when death stares us right in the face.

How then do we perceive our own lives and that of others? How do we treat our friends, our enemies and loved ones? What’s really important when it comes right down to it?

Despite the fear, the pain and the suffering I’ve been through this last 6 months, I’m grateful to have had real, direct exposure to these questions. It’s shown me the capacities I have, and we all have, to keep going; the strength, hope and optimism contained inside of me when it’s truly required; the willingness of others to support and hold me when I’m most in need of help.

I’m not immortal. Far from it. I know that now.

And in many ways that’s been a blessing…

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