Die Well

Men today are stripped of the great deliverer that once blasted life down to one flash – death. Read to the end.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
Rudyard Kipling

Men today are stripped of the great deliverer that once blasted life down to one flash – death. Skim the newspapers, watch TV, and you see this is true. Everything is about how to make life more comfy, less stressful. About how to avoid death.

This is a great thing, you say. Yes and no. Sensible steps should be taken to avoid death. But not to the point of fear of any little struggle. The modern world wants to remove struggle. And in the process death runs farther and farther away. So human beings are no longer draped in the source of life. They are no longer connected to death as men, or as a society, and the structure can only crumble from there.

On the Fear of Death and Nations

Fear of death becomes fear of action. So in Britain it’s now illegal to carry a knife on the street. A good thing? I don’t know. But I will say this - If you see a mugger out a-mugging all the wise councel you’ve taken from the state plays out in your brain, and you do nothing. Because that’s what you’re meant to do right? Only muggers can be armed. Stopping them is for the cops, right?

That is mediocrity, though it be called moderation Nietzsche.

The fear of death that turns whole nations into little forts of mediocrity. Because the onus to remove criminals is on the state, not the person, people who risk a clash are viewed with wariness. It’s ‘unnatural’. Who chases the criminal? Crazy people. Risk takers. But the main reason why the criminal isn’t fought is simple – fear. Fear of injury. Fear of the unseen. Fear of action. All coursing around the central point – fear of death.

Because of waning faith, society no longer has a strong link to death once toughened every Sunday. Because of peace and calm, man is no longer bonded to death by risk. Because women don’t go through the rigors of childbirth early, they lose the One Thing that binds them to the world of life and death, and instead fritter around the point.

Men of today have little in common with the dead. Burial customs have become a so-so, bureaucratic affair, with few links to the beyond. This leads to a coldness towards the past. The ‘long democracy of the dead’, as Chesterton said, is no longer listened to. Whole nations gorge themselves on the amassed resources of the dead, frittering it away on vast welfare states that egg on idleness; or pointless wars; or in importing masses of people who have no tie at all to the corpses they live off, and care even less.

But returning to life and man (politics tires me). Few deaths are dramatic. Few come from noble feats, or from man living at his edge. Most die being eaten, slowly, by smaller creatures. For most of our history that happened in the ground, out of sight.

Hobbes on Life?

But still, this is a good thing, you say. A sign of progress. Life is no longer ‘nasty, brutish and short’, and that’s a great thing. But was life nasty and brutish? Happiness indices show that most people in the world, rich and poor, are basically happy. Buddha just said that people were miserable, he never asked them. Nor, to my mind, did Hobbes.

A question.

Which is better, a life closer or farther from death? Think about it.

You’ll find the moments you felt most alive were the moments when you were closest to the edge. The ringing laugh above the abyss. Because that’s all you can do in the face of death – laugh. Those moments make you feel alive because life is brought back to the moment.

The African.

Gary Brecher, the War Nerd, talks about death a lot. To the War Nerd African tribesmen live a better life than him, and have a grander death. His life is boring. Theirs is interesting. His life has computers, cars and box office blocks. Their life has great tropical forests, animals, and earth. His life has sports television. Their life has battles, betrayals, contests of iron, and a quick death as a healing possibility. The bullshit we read about politics – who is connected with who, who said what when, crap that doesn’t effect our lives in any way, is actually lived by them. Connections, links, and news to that effect, matter to them, and have a direct effect on their lives. And best of all. They. Die. Well.

Imagine a young African footsoldier. A kalashnikov bullet rips through his chest. He falls, clasping around, spitting blood. He has eaten shit all his life. He has AIDS. He has been betrayed countless times. He has never seen an office block. But he has seen mainly sunlight and greeness. His workplace is the pretty garden we retire to only at weekends He has lived every moment as a moment. He expected this moment. It’s no different from any other. He lies on the ground, looks up to the sweet foliage that has flanked his life, mumbles a prayer picked up from his mother before she was killed, and then sinks into a cosy oblivion. Who led the ‘fuller life’ – him, or you?

We only feel exhileration when things get tough. Because living a tough life is imprinted on our genes. We feel ennui when things are easy, when everything is provided for.

Fearless men entice women.

It’s true. A reckless man is very attractive. Agnostic has proof.

The Great Deliverer

Death is the great deliverer. Death breaks the chains of habit and sloth. Like a bull rushing a man off a cliff, the risk of death forces man to cut the weeds and commit himself to this moment. Most of life is weed. And most of us know this.

What is the deadline effect? When you’re given a deadline, odds are you’ll finish the project by the deadline. It could be 3 months or 1 day, but you’ll finish by the deadline. Why does it work? Because it cuts the weeds. Dallying is not an option if the deadline is tomorrow. It is if the deadline is 3 months. So you blast the whole project down to the basics. And you finish. You feel a great spurt of life, dig up new means of doing things, and become a hundred times more fruitful.

And that’s what living is! This is how life should be! In every moment. It used to be that way. Were cavemen able to delay hunting prey for the next couple weeks? Hell no. It was life and death. If they delayed, if they didn’t strike on the spot, their story ended. They doubtless weren’t ready. Maybe their spears needed further sharpening, or more traps needed to be set, or the camp needed guarding. Didn’t matter. It was life or death, they had to move now, even if they ‘weren’t ready’. And that’s a great secret. Do things before you’re ready.

What would you do if this was your last day? This question is now cliché, but it’s a good cliché. Last meal? This is usually something simple, something your mom or dad made. For me, sex didn’t enter into it. Oh, I’ve had a couple ‘last days’ in my life.

You’re already dead.

But the trick is to act as if you were dead, and this is hard to put into words. So here’s what the Hagakure says:

The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one’s aim is to die a dog’s death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one’s aim.

Walk around as a corpse, it’s all you are. Grasp this and you’ve grasped a great deal. But let’s put it into stouter, Christian words. From General George Gordon:

How difficult for any one to be circumcised from the world, to be as indifferent to its pleasures, its sorrows, and its comforts as a corpse is! That is to know the resurrection.

STOP!! Gordon just showed you a grand secret. What does he say you shouldn’t care about? Sorrows, yes. Every dime-a-dozen guru says that. “Ignore the bad stuff, don’t let it get you down, yadayadayada.” But not just sorrows. Gordon says ignore the pleasures and comforts of life too. Or at least be indifferent to them. This is very hard to do. Most people live for the good things, and would otherwise kill themselves. But the true heroes ignore the good moments too. The true heroes don’t have worries, for sure. That would destroy them. But there’s another thing the truest of heroes don’t have: hope. Hope is a terrible thing. Hope is mind rubbish. Imaginary garbage. No different in substance from worry. Do animals have hope?

Do you know how Gordon died? Gorgeously, fighting to the last. Torn apart and beheaded. To Gordon, do you think the moment of death was any different from getting up in the morning in a palace with servants at his call? Probably not. For the true heroes, one moment is the same as any other. And even evil men can die well. Saddam died beautiful.

Oh, don’t worry, you’ll see it yourself… at moments. Deathflash moments come to everyone. You get an image of a strange Empyrean. At the deathflash all you can do is laugh. Laugh at the absurdity of it all, tip your hat, utter a “that’s that”, and be done with it. Return to the day. Or the night, if it’s really the end. At the top of the hill, life and death hold hands.

Die Well,

Sebastian Flyte.