Face the truth
You will die
You will die
Do you feel the shock yet? Do you feel the fear of that truth?
That one day, your last breath will leave you and you will shit and piss and your body will decay into a stinking rot, worms and maggots will crawl through your skin and tissue that once moved and danced and laughed, and screamed and fucked and fought will dissolve.
To face that truth that your body that feels will one day be liquid is shocking.
Touch your face. Blink your eyes. Hear your breath.
One day, your loved ones will look upon your body stilled
I have faced my death. I have touched it, the moment just beyond my life when I no longer exist. It is fathomless, it is vastness stretching forever. For that moment, when I am just at the gateway, I feel the eternity of it, the emptiness of it, the lostness of it and I scramble back in fear because imagining that, one day, I will not exist is something I cannot stay with for long.
Regardless, I have played with the babies of death. I have explored my deepest fears and imagined my biggest anxieties, sat with my insecurities, my despair, my rage, and hopelessness. Yes, I have had a thousand baby deaths over and over and over again.
There is no joy in this. There is no happy ending on the other side. No answers that have made me feel better. In fact, I have found most of the influencer tips that say “I did this one thing and it changed my life,” are lies because I have tried it all and the despair doesn’t go away, the sadness, and the fears never go away. In fact, as I dive deeper, the unexplored dark ocean grows deeper and more nuanced.
I would not trade these experiences. And I would not tell you to turn away either. In fact, I would tell you to dive deep too. Even in your fear and anxiety, I say go deeper because in this process, yes, you will never experience total joy and happiness, life will always turn over and bring pain. However, by facing my baby deaths, I have found my soul and my spirit and the fullness and richness of life. The discoveries I have found are beyond anything I would have believed possible of myself, the depth of who I am, the abilities of what I can do, and my resilience.
I would tell you to dive deeper and deeper and deeper.
Death adds richness because it a mystery. The process itself is a mystery and it reveals our own aliveness. Think that a body so vital and pulsating with energy will at some point, all at once, give one last shudder and then that body will still, never to move again. The components will dissolve until the entire physical body disappears. You can look at a stilled body and remember the life. It creates meaning and a paradox. After the body is in the ground, you can close your eyes and remember the aliveness of that person and feel the ache in your own body which reminds you of your own aliveness. And so we, in a way consume death, the death of someone else so we can live so we can feel alive and, in turn, our souls are nourished and fed.
We used to sit shoulder to shoulder with death. It was a part of life and there were rituals to support that process. But we have cut death out as if it were an infliction. We have cauterized the wound and anesthetized ourselves. The wound is infected and no numbing that society prescribes will heal it.
Death has sent it’s messengers. Anxiety, despair, hopelessness, anger, and fear. It says “I have always been here. Come let me return to your tables, let me sit with you. Through me, you will experience life, again.”
Death is calling to us.
But really, what am I trying to say? Who cares? Why the dramatic prose?
The words of “Mad World,” by Gary Jules echo in my head. The song was the Tears for Fears remake for movie Donnie Darko. The song starts and the words speak to me to something I experience all the time.
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
And then in the refrain, the singer calls to death
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles, it’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
The movie explores themes of purpose, loneliness, depression, meaning of life and death, and coming of age. I remember watching it in college. I didn’t really understand the movie at the time but it struck me and those themes have been reverberated throughout my life.
I titled this post “Facing my baby deaths.” Why would you want to do that? All it will do is more pain. Facing your baby deaths will help you find meaning in your life, sure, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe. But still, who cares? Why not keep running around in circles like ants in an anthill on this globe that is running around in circles around another globe that is running around in circles and on and on through the depths of the space. We are truly in a mad world. Maybe we are in a mad universe.
In the movie, Donnie is walking death. Spoiler alert, he dies at the end. Death walks among us. Death is calling us. I am not sure that there is any point but what else are we supposed to do? Run around in circles? I can’t do that. I have to answer death’s call.
Nicole Vitale 