Phil on Death

When did you first meet?

I first met Death when I was ten years old living in a boarding school. My grandmother and uncle died around the same time. I wasn’t allowed to go to the funerals. I became very depressed and it led me into an uncomfortable preoccupation with Death, which lasted for years.

When did you become friends?

I studied evolutionary theory at university and it is really through this that I recognised Life and Death as two great forces that drove creativity and change. They were both essential, and both responsible, for love, diversity and beauty.

What do you like most about Death?

As an artist I can’t help but be in awe of the power of death, the mystery and even the glamour. It can also be a motivation for exceptional behaviours, for creating and expressing life. Exquisite really…

What do you least like about Death?

I am still scared of Death. Of course I am. I can’t quite bring myself to accept Death. I hope that my ideas and actions live on, at least for a little while, in the memories of others.

Then finally, as my body balances on the cusp of nothingness, I will look back and know that I loved and cherished life. I think that will be my comfort.

I don’t have an overly philosophical approach to my death and, to be honest, I don’t think about it that much. I know that it will happen, probably before I want it to, and that when it does I will be like the Norwegian Blue in Monty Python’s wonderful Dead Parrot sketch: no more! … ceased to be! … a stiff! … bereft of life!

Rather than making me anxious or leaving me searching for some role for myself in the cosmic scheme of things, the certainty and finality of my death gives me comfort. Knowing I have but this one life means that it is entirely up to me to fill it with joy and meaning while it lasts. Its value is mine, and mine alone, to determine.

But – and this is very important to me – even after I die, I know that the best part of me will be left behind. When my family embraces love in its myriad forms, has a festive Sunday roast, gives a weird gift, talks openly with each other about what they’re feeling, chooses doing the right thing over taking the easy option, argues semantics, and laughs at things it is not polite to laugh at, I’ll be there with them. These are my gifts to them and will have been theirs to me.

I don’t need more than that. It’s enough, and I am happy.

At 85, with the coronavirus circling, I of course think about my mortality. But it seems to me there is a difference between wanting to live, and the reasons for doing so, and not wanting to die. I don’t want to catch the virus, I don’t want to die period. That is instinctual. If I say to someone ‘I don’t want to die’, it would hardly make sense for them to answer, ‘Why not?’. There are circumstances that might make one want to die – intense and incurable pain for one; but without them, the survival instinct is paramount.

What though are the positive things that make me want to live? I have no children, but I do have nephews through my wife’s family, and we look after them. I look after my wife, as she looks after me. The sense of being valuable to others is key. If I couldn’t be useful to anyone at all my desire to live would be much diminished. But not extinguished. I’d still look forward to enjoying what I enjoy, books, music, movies, pleasures of the table. For a keen chess player as I am, there is always the lure of playing one more good game. And so forth.

All said and done, I want to go on living. But my time will come. I have two sources of comfort about that. One is the famous saying of Epicurus, ‘Where I am, death is not; where death is, I am not.’ That seems to encompass the finality of dying, and its mysterious absence.

And then there is the universe, its unimaginable size and age. The atoms that made up my person and their attendant consciousness will be infinitesimally small specks in the vastness. The ‘I’ that I was will be in good company.

I must admit I don’t think about my mortality a lot even though I am aware that I’m getting older and nearer the end than the beginning of my life. I tend to live in the present or just a little while ahead. I’m almost surprised that I have ‘got away with this’ for so long and know I’ve been lucky.

I do think about deaths and different ones I have known: suicides, unexpected death, and death at a very great age. I feel that the end of life can define the feelings that others have about a life and yet we all have a story in us at any stage of life. I have been lucky to have had a really full life. The most important thing has been family and the joy of watching my children grow up and now parent themselves. I’m proud of how they are all contributing to the world and they are kind and generous. They will be my legacy, as will the relationships I have had in my life. As long as there are enough good people about, things will work out.

There are still so many things to do and I hope I feel like this right to the end. I like to take up as many opportunities as I can as I’ve seen people who didn’t get the chance. I hope I don’t spend too long thinking about my mortality and spend longer thinking about all the things I have heard seen and done. I know this will depend on whether I lose my mental capacity. I’m just going to travel in hope.

In my teens the Magic and Spirits of childhood coalesced into the Christian Trinity and later disappeared altogether. Life seemed pointless. I saw the meaning of life aged 27, when my first daughter was born. I now search for the why in the universe but no longer the why in my life.

My life is the tiny bit of time allotted to me but what is time? When I was young I thought of time as Newton’s clock ticking throughout the universe. But my perception is that one minute is just a proportion of the minutes I have lived. Recently, I read that time is merely our perception of chemical changes – there is no such thing as a universal time. Maybe a mouse’s two years of life feels the same length as my 70 years. Maybe my 70 years feels the same as a yew tree’s 1000.

So is an 80 year lifespan enough for me? I have been parented, I have been a parent myself, and my children are parenting my grandchildren. We haven’t changed the world but we did well enough. I have had a good life so, although I don’t want to die, I am not afraid of death. I am content that my atoms go back into the earth and my genes live on. I get pleasure from nature, family, and friends but I think they are the results of programs running in the biological computer called ‘my brain’. Passing on my genes was what made me feel complete.

Suppose I was given an afterlife? I would have to be me for all time. I am a better person than I feared I would become when I was younger but I am far from perfect. I don’t want to be me for eternity.

Death? I’m terrified by death; my to-do list is too long for death. As a humanist, death is a sign of the finality of my being. The end of me. I struggle with the idea of no more internal dialogue. Nothingness. It seems hardly credible, let alone possible. But it is so. I do occasionally feel jealous of my religious friends, with their presumed self-assurance of immortality in another realm. Humanism brings with it rather a cold, harsh reality of life: the end of me really is the end of me.

But, humanism brings a way to deal with this harshness: make the best of my only life. Okay. I’ve become vegan. I have walked the wards of hospitals as a pastoral supporter. I imbue critical thought in others; how to spot snake oil from palm oil. I’ve started a charity that aims to tackle inequality. I look to treat everyone I meet with respect and warmth. To build bridges and not walls. Especially with people who have very different outlooks on life to myself.

If death comes sooner rather than later, I may not finish my to-dos. But I know I am making the best of the life I have. If I am unable to continue with my projects, maybe others will pick up the batons I leave behind; maybe change for the better will occur after my demise.

Humanist mortality is harsh, but it offers the means by which to make the best of it. I must bring meaning to what I am and what I do. By following humanist principles, I can meet my finality, safe in the knowledge that I did what I could with the time I had and maybe, hopefully, make the world a slightly better place in the process.

Many will tell you it is not rational to fear death. Why worry about non-existence, they ask. They are right, but I still do. It’s only natural I guess, an innate part of us that some can overcome but many, myself included, can’t. Some suggest we seek solace in the legacy we leave behind us after we’ve gone. Children perhaps, the memories others hold of us, the ripples of the good we have done. Yet I have no children, memories will too die with those who hold them, and ripples fade away to nothing over time. Anyway, even if I could console myself a little in that way, I’m not sure how much effect it would have chasing away the fear of death.

So, what to do? Especially as, entering my 60s, I’m aware that death is no longer the distant prospect it once was. My answer is to remind myself that time spent worrying about it is precious time wasted for no purpose. It will make no difference to the inevitable end of my life, just sap the pleasure I can enjoy in the meanwhile. The one little piece of good I can draw from the occasional pang of fear is to see it as a reminder to make the most of what life is left to me. I would like to think that will be many years, but I need to be conscious that I may not be so fortunate.

I’m lucky that I am retired now and can focus on making the most of the time remaining. I hope that, when the end does come I can look back on my life with some satisfaction, or at least the minimum of regrets.