Resolved:
No, it is not New Years.
I am not about to wait for New Years to make a resolution.
No, I did not start this today.
But it is a concrete manifestation of something I've been thinking about for a while, especially after an interesting dream I had back in like, October, I think it was.
I want to, more consciously, choose my own death every day.
I might not be able to chose the exact manner of my death,
but I can put my life into everything leading up to it.
Weiter, weiter ins Verderben
Wir müssen leben bis wir sterben
5 comments:
Not to sound dense or anything, but..what exactly does that mean?
You have to die before you hit the ground.
This is a beautiful blog.
Some context for explanation,
here's what happened:
I had this dream sometime in October, I think.
It was around the end of summer and I would be heading back to Reed soon, but first I was going to go meet up with some people on this reservation, then hang out with friends on like, the east coast or something? Maybe it was the west coast....for a week before going back to school.
And there was something really profound and appropriate and proper about going to meet the guys on the reservation. It was a general feeling that became more clear as the dream progressed. I didn't tell my parents what exactly I was doing, even though they were driving me and my obscene amounts of luggage somewhere, because I didn't want them to worry about me, and I didn't want them to stop me.
Because we were going to engage in some ritual that would almost certainly result in my death. I don't know how. I don't know what the ritual was. But it was an important religious observation and it felt so right. It felt like the only thing there was to do. It was the right thing to do. It was honoring to God. I comforted myself with this thought as the idea that I might die became more real to me.
And then I started thinking, well - I can't die. Because I have to visit my friends before Reed. I can't do that if I'm dead. Therefore, I will not die. This was a real trust for a while, but it didn't seem like a good reason -it became more of denial, and I knew it.
I started wondering what exactly we were doing, and to what end. It began to seem more senseless to put so much value and energy into something that could very well leave us all dead, with nothing else to show for it. And in the name of God? This can't really be the way he wants things to go, can it? When there's so much else out there that's more important than a ritual that would do nothing other than kill us... yet be a death which pleased God? Why should this be pleasing? But, I was already involved. I couldn't back out then. My resolve that I was doing the righteous thing became more of a desperate hope. I was getting scared, but I didn't know what to do. It just didn't make sense.
I prayed to the God I hoped I believed in, the one I hoped actually existed. I really wanted to know if this was actually the way things had to go, or if there was something huge that I was missing, and to know what was the right thing to do.
Then for no apparent reason, when I turned around a friend of mine was there.
He said something pretty ordinary conversational sounding. I don't remember what.
And I woke up.
I don't think I have ever been so glad to wake up.
It was another chance.
Because there are so many legitimate ways to serve God that contribute to the world.
I didn't want my manner of death to be the only thing that I could do righteously.
I am dying some every day.
but I can choose what I expended my energy on.
So maybe by living like this, I can in fact choose a death pleasing to God. My entire life can be a death ritual, and one which does much much good in the process.
It was something like that.
Once I get back to my room,
I shall have to record the string of notes I wrote to myself on the inside of my door.
If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin
-Ivan Turgenev
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