History has always fascinated me. I often try to place myself in the shoes of those who walked in the past. As a guy, that usually meant I frequented ancient battlefields or heroic situations in my mind. And as a hormonal teenager, it meant that I often placed myself in the shoes of someone like a suave Mark Antony who was able to attract beautiful women like Cleopatra.
Those daydreams didn't last too long, however. It was easy to travel back in time and imagine historical figures like Cleopatra or Marilyn Monroe who were often depicted beautifully in movies or in pictures. But those images always chose to capture the beauty of these women in the prime of their lives. What killed my daydreams was when one day, I recognized that I was dreaming about a romantic relationship with an 80 and a 2,000 year old woman - basically a grandma and a mummy. After that realization, I kept my historical fantasies to battlefields and away from romance.
Those daydreams didn't last too long, however. It was easy to travel back in time and imagine historical figures like Cleopatra or Marilyn Monroe who were often depicted beautifully in movies or in pictures. But those images always chose to capture the beauty of these women in the prime of their lives. What killed my daydreams was when one day, I recognized that I was dreaming about a romantic relationship with an 80 and a 2,000 year old woman - basically a grandma and a mummy. After that realization, I kept my historical fantasies to battlefields and away from romance.
Every once in awhile, when I get the thought of mummy breath out of my mind, I revisit this issue of loving the archaic. I'm no longer attracted to the Cleopatras or Monroes of history, but rather to an interesting philosophical question: if we didn't age unto death, would it be weird to have a romantic relationship with someone a few centuries or millennia older than us? If we don't seem to have a problem fantasizing about romance with long dead historical figures who are captured in their prime, is that an indication that it's not age we despise but rather the appearance and encroachment of death evidenced in our decaying physiques? In my mind, our greatest aversion to the old isn't found in the aged's greater experiences in life over time, but in their ever apparent mortality - in the wrinkled skin, the white hair, and the shortened gate. It's not the accrual of time and experience we find repulsive in the hoary headed octogenarian, but rather the diminishment of life that comes as time slips away.
We hate being reminded of our mortality. I think our historical fantasies and intuitions are one piece of evidence for this, but we can also look at our feelings when watching movies where there are huge age discrepancies (Age of Adeline, Tuck Everlasting, Ice Age 5, Hook, or Twilight). Most of us are not repulsed by the relationships represented in these movies despite the age differences because the bodies of the aged show no signs of approaching death. Sure, it's a little strange when you really think about it, but it's not repulsive like when you see Hugh Hefner with his arm around a nineteen year old woman.
I don't think such a conclusion should be surprising. While many may say they don't like to disclose their age, it's really our proximity to death we don't like disclosing. It's why senior citizens and the elderly don't buy fake ID's with a later birth date so they can deceive others as to how many years they've lived. Instead, they spend time and money on hair coloring products, makeup, or anything else to make themselves appear at a greater distance from death's doorstep. Age isn't despised - our mortality is. We don't care about numbers, we care about vitality. We try to hide, both to others and to ourselves, that we are mortal creatures. And when the aged and infirmed in our families can no longer mask the scent of death, we hide them away in places where we don't have to look upon them any longer, except on holidays or when the will is being drawn up. I would argue that nursing homes are, for the majority of occupants in our society, not primarily a place for receiving care, but a place where they can be hidden away and forgotten. Yes, we hate inconvenience, but we hate being reminded of death even more.
Stanley Hauerwas, while talking about American ideals and values, said something I thought quite profound for the topic at hand. Hauerwas said,
We hate being reminded of our mortality. I think our historical fantasies and intuitions are one piece of evidence for this, but we can also look at our feelings when watching movies where there are huge age discrepancies (Age of Adeline, Tuck Everlasting, Ice Age 5, Hook, or Twilight). Most of us are not repulsed by the relationships represented in these movies despite the age differences because the bodies of the aged show no signs of approaching death. Sure, it's a little strange when you really think about it, but it's not repulsive like when you see Hugh Hefner with his arm around a nineteen year old woman.
I don't think such a conclusion should be surprising. While many may say they don't like to disclose their age, it's really our proximity to death we don't like disclosing. It's why senior citizens and the elderly don't buy fake ID's with a later birth date so they can deceive others as to how many years they've lived. Instead, they spend time and money on hair coloring products, makeup, or anything else to make themselves appear at a greater distance from death's doorstep. Age isn't despised - our mortality is. We don't care about numbers, we care about vitality. We try to hide, both to others and to ourselves, that we are mortal creatures. And when the aged and infirmed in our families can no longer mask the scent of death, we hide them away in places where we don't have to look upon them any longer, except on holidays or when the will is being drawn up. I would argue that nursing homes are, for the majority of occupants in our society, not primarily a place for receiving care, but a place where they can be hidden away and forgotten. Yes, we hate inconvenience, but we hate being reminded of death even more.
Stanley Hauerwas, while talking about American ideals and values, said something I thought quite profound for the topic at hand. Hauerwas said,
...[Americans] share nothing in common other than the presumption that death is to be avoided at all costs. That is why in America hospitals have become our cathedrals and physicians are our priests. Accordingly medical schools are much more serious about the moral formation of their students than divinity schools. They are so because Americans do not believe that an inadequately trained priest may damage their salvation, but they do believe an inadequately trained doctor can hurt them. The American desire to use medicine in an attempt to get out of life alive...(Article 1)
...When I lecture to lay audiences, I ask them how they want to die. For people in our society the response is fairly consistent: they want to die quickly, painlessly, in their sleep, and without being a burden. They want to die painlessly, in their sleep, and quickly because when they die they don’t want to have to know they’re dying. So now they ask physicians to keep them alive to the point that when they die they don’t have to know they’re dying – and then they blame physicians for keeping them alive to no point. (article 2)
I believe our intuitions and reactions related to the past are very telling about the strength death plays in our desires and aversions. Hauerwas adds to this by pointing out how the desire for life and aversion of death shape our values, actions, and resources. All of this highlights the fact that we are obsessed with the avoidance of death. We do everything we can to surround ourselves with life and rid death from our presence. It's as if we believe that ignoring death is the same thing as having or extending life. Such an idea reminds me of an old show called "Rugrats," where a bunch of very young kids were playing hide and seek. Since they had not yet developed object permanence, they often hid by just closing their eyes or putting their heads under the couch. Their irrational minds thought that if they couldn't see others, then they themselves couldn't be seen (see "Family Guy" video below for an example of lacking object permanence).
I think we do the same thing with death in our culture. We logically know that death is inescapable, yet we put our heads behind our hands or under the furniture, imagining that if we can't see death coming, then it can't really see us. We color our hair, worship youth, go to the gym, jump on every fad diet, plaster on the makeup, inject botox, and put our elderly out of sight. In wanting to be immortals, we ignore the death that's all around us, even the death which entrenches itself and grows within our own beings. Through our actions, we isolate ourselves and ironically become servants to death, scheduling our lives around it, usually in avoidance, wherever it surfaces. But in our seeking to escape death, we fail to truly live. And when death does finally close in on us, we hope for a quick, surprise demise, or a merciful doctor who can give us enough morphine we won't see death coming. But death comes for us all and it would do us good to acknowledge such. So until death comes calling for us, all the death and decay around us and in us is a reminder of what awaits us all, and is even now approaching. Whether you heed the sound or not, every bell tolls for thee.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
- John Donne
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