Topical Guide 523
Mark Dorset
Life, Attitudes Toward
Death, Attitudes Toward
Carpe Diem, Memento Mori
Reservations Recommended, Chapter 5:
Matthew watches while the Graffitist writes. When he’s finished, he caps his marker, gathers his garbage bags, and shuffles off. Matthew waits until he’s halfway down the block before crossing the street to see what he’s written.
CHEER UP — NOBODY LIVES FOREVER. YOU’LL ENJOY DEATH. NO WORRIES, NO PAIN, NO HUNGER, NO WISHES, NO REGRETS, NO WIND. ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS AND TANNING BOOTHS ACCELERATE THIS PROCESS.
When Matthew gets home, he writes this on his wall.
Eugene Ionesco, Fragments of a Journal:
I have always tried to live, but I have passed life by. I think this is what most men feel. To forget oneself one must not only forget one’s own death, but forget that those one loves will die and that the world will come to an end. The thought of the end fills me with anguish and fury.
Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion (Bruce Frederick Cummings), The Journal of a Disappointed Man (1919):
I have revelled in my littleness and irresponsibility. It has relieved me of the harassing desire to live. I feel content to live dangerously, indifferent to my fate; I have discovered I am a fly, that we are all flies, that nothing matters. It’s a great load off my life, for I don’t mind being such a micro-organism—to me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe—such a great universe, so grand a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For nothing can alter the fact that I have lived; I have been I, if for ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my body is indestructible—and eternal, so that come what may to my “Soul,” my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its separate part—I shall still have some sort of a finger in the Pie. When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me—but you cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you.
Max Tegmark, Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014):
At both ends of your spacetime braid, corresponding to your birth and death, all the threads gradually separate, corresponding to all your particles joining, interacting and finally going their own separate ways. This makes the spacetime structure of your entire life resemble a tree: at the bottom, corresponding to early times, is an elaborate system of roots corresponding to the spacetime trajectories of many particles, which gradually merge into thicker strands and culminate in a single tubelike trunk corresponding to your current body […]. At the top, corresponding to late times, the trunk splits into ever-finer branches, corresponding to your particles going their own separate ways once your life is over. In other words, the pattern of life has only a finite extent along the time dimension, with the braid coming apart into frizz at both ends.
Andrei Codrescu, Casanova in Bohemia:
Instead of dwelling on death, he became obsessed with fresh fruit.
Horace, Odes, Book 1, Canto XI:
Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. Ut melius quicquid erit pati!
Seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum, sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
Translation by A. S. Kline, from Poetry in Translation:
Leuconoë, don’t ask, we never know, what fate the gods grant us,
whether your fate or mine, don’t waste your time on Babylonian,
futile, calculations. How much better to suffer what happens,
whether Jupiter gives us more winters or this is the last one,
one debilitating the Tyrrhenian Sea on opposing cliffs.
Be wise, and mix the wine, since time is short: limit that far-reaching hope.
The envious moment is flying now, now, while we’re speaking:
Seize the day, place in the hours that come as little faith as you can.
Omar Khayyám, Rubáiyát (1048–1141), translated, loosely, by Edward FitzGerald):
VII
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.
VIII
Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
XIII
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
LIV
Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of This and That endeavour and dispute;
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
Wreckless Eric, “Take the Cash”:
There’s a rumour going round says you’re gonna split
They say you’re going away, it’s a midnight blitz,
But there’s only good in leaving with a suitcase full of load,
’Cause where’s all the good times with a pocket full of I.O.U.s!
Take the cash, don’t let them pay you in kind,
Take the cash before they change their minds,
And let’s see the colour of their money — take the cash!
So watch it, watch it, watch it, if the payment doesn’t bounce,
It’s the sweetness of the ready, makes the bell ring on the till,
And if they say they pay next week, you know they never will
Take the cash, don’t let them pay you in kind,
Take the cash before they change their minds,
And let’s see the colour of their money — take the cash!
And if they try to tell you there’s a cheque in the post,
You know, you know, you know that you can take it as a joke
Take the cash, don’t let them pay you in kind,
Take the cash before they change their minds,
And let’s see the colour of their money!
So don’t pretend you trust, and get the money down in front,
’Cause it’s the sweetness of the
Ready, makes the bell ring on the till,
And if they say they pay next week, you know they never will
Take the cash, don’t let them pay you in kind,
Take the cash before they change their minds,
And let’s see the colour of the money — take the cash!
Take the cash — take the K.A.S.H.
See also:
Death TG 48
Life: Metaphors and Similes for TG 40, TG 55, TG 60; Phases of TG 89; Life and Death TG 92; Yearning for Another, Different, Better TG 100, TG 104; Life: Its Vicissitudes TG 146; Life Imitates Art (More or Less) TG 153; Stages of: Puberty TG 164; Life: The Nature of It, and Ways One Might Live One’s TG 382; Life: Its Vicissitudes, Its Shames and Humiliations, Its Follies, Its Burden of Pain, Care, and Misery TG 376
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies and Herb ’n’ Lorna.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document) and at Encyclopedia.com.