In ancient Japan people didn't celebrate their birthday. I don't mean to say that they didn't have a party and a cake (which I don't think they did), or that they didn't keep track of how old they were (which they sort of did).
What I mean is that on New Years's Day (of the lunar calendar) everyone turned a year older, all at the same time. Which means that a baby born on New Years's Eve turned one the very next day, even though she had been around for just two days. (Similar story in China.)
On New Years's Day they would sound the temple bell 108 times (one for each of our "earthly desires"), and that fact sheds light on the meaning of an old haiku, which reflects melancholically on the passing of time:
Never to grow old
Was my intention
But the temple bell sounds
In both ancient China and ancient Japan, among educated people, poetry was considered the highest form of artistic expression (prose fiction was sort of looked down upon, a bit like comics and soap-operas are today), and sometimes, when two friends met and one of them wanted to express how she felt, she would just recite a poem that also expressed that very same feeling.
So for example, if one was feeling blue about getting old, instead of just saying so, she might recite that poem above, and then the other person would know how she felt.
I like the whole poetry-quoting thing, but I don't think I could do that. Most poetry is completely obscure to me. The only poet I like is Bukowski, but given that he was a cynical, grumpy, alcoholic old bastard, that would rather restrict the range of emotions that I could express. However, I think I can express most (and perhaps all) of my emotions by quoting lines from Friends and other sitcoms. (A sad indictment of my tv-based education.)
Going back to birthdays, I don't celebrate mine (or at least I don't make a big deal out of it). That is not a criticism of the people who do celebrate birthdays. By all means, there's nothing wrong with that. Any excuse to get together with family and friends is welcome, and I like a party as much as the next guy. (Well, perhaps a little bit less.)
I’m also not big on anniversaries, but luckily neither is my wife, so that worked out pretty well for both of us. We're both cynical, jaded and unsentimental. Two peas in a pod.
One thing I can state categorically is that my reluctance to celebrate birthdays has nothing to do with me being uncomfortable about getting older. It honestly doesn’t bother me. Sure, my hair is thinning on top, and the skin on my face is starting to lose its battle against gravity, but so what?
I suppose one problem abut getting older is that eventually it leads to death (I know, bummer), and death is something most people don't want to talk or even think about.
I can't speak for other animals, but human beings are in a pickle. They know that they're going to die, but they don't want to. It's that awareness that creates a problem. Does a sparrow feel the same way? We'll never know. Let's compose a quick haiku on the subject:
Little bird, little bird
Perched high on that cherry tree
Is it death you're thinking of?
(Alright, perhaps not the most inspired poem. Solid effort, though.)
I actually think that we have absolutely nothing to fear from death. Don’t get me wrong, premature deaths are a tragedy, there’s no doubt about it. What I mean is that we have nothing to fear from being dead, because I think that we won't even be aware of being dead.
(One of the stupidest things religious people say, and there are many to choose from, is something they say when someone dies before his or her time: "God calls to Him the people He loves the most." What a selfish bastard. If that's the case, then I hope he hates me.)
In the words of Mark Twain, "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." (He also said "If smoking is not allowed in Heaven, I shall not go." I don't smoke, nor do I believe in an afterlife for that matter, but I could easily substitute "smoking" with "reading comics". That would be a deal-breaker for me.)
Death is not the problem, nor is getting older. The problem is when you get really, really old. If people tell you that they'd like to live to be a hundred, it means that they haven’t thought it through. Living to be a hundred is not a blessing, it's a curse. Can you imagine being trapped in a body that is just falling apart?
(I also think that immortality, if there was such a thing, wouldn't be such a great idea, even if your body remained young. I think that after a while it would drive you cuckoo.)
I have this colleague. Really nice guy. A while ago I asked him what he was up to for the weekend. He said he had to go to Luton because his father-in-law had passed away. His father-in-law was in his late seventies and in very good health.
One morning he got up from bed, made himself a cup of tea and sat on the couch to watch some tv. (That's exactly my routine too.) He never got up from that couch. He had a heart attack and died on the spot. You might think that's really sad, but I think the guy was lucky. That's how I want to go. My dream death, if you will. (That's right, I have a dream death. You don't?)
I don't fear death, but I do fear ending up in an old people's home. (I also fear spiders and psychopaths with chainsaws.) Yes, I suppose there's always a remote chance of being looked after by some cute Filipino nurse, but even that would only cheer me up marginally. (Just to be clear, when I say "Filipino" I don't mean a dude. That's the word for both genders. I don't make the rules.)
Being toothless and pooping in a nappy is ok when you're a baby. After that it's a little bit sad. My motto is: no bladder control, no life. I can already see my coat of arms: a rampant lion wearing a nappy and a Latin inscription that says Urinaria Non Imperium, Non Vita. (If that's wrong, blame Google Translate.)
Quick digression: for about a year after my son was born, every conversation between my wife and I revolved around poop. “Did he poop? Why didn't he poop? Is he constipated? How much poop did he make? Was it soft? Was it hard? What colour was it? Does he have diarrhoea?” Good times.
Perhaps one day I'll share with you the wonderful story of that day when my son peed, pooped and puked on me all within a very short period of time. (I still maintain that babies know exactly what they're doing. Their timing is impeccable.)
The way I see it, the best thing to do in life is to take each day one at a time. Going to sleep at night (or, in my case, 8.30 pm) is a little bit like dying, and waking up in the morning (or before sunrise in my case, I live in a permanent state of jet-lag) is a little bit like being born. Every day we start afresh. It's a wonderful thing. And if you can wipe your own bum, that's a pretty good start.
M.
A quick addendum. I can almost hear some of you saying
"How can you possibly know what happens after we die?" And the answer is, I don't. No one does.
However, I find it very peculiar that usually the people who ask me that question (how do you know?) are not agnostics, but people who have a different, alternative, and rather detailed idea of what happens after we die, despite the fact that they can't provide any evidence for that either.
I’m sure you’ve all heard those stories of people who are clinically dead for a few minutes and then, when they come back to life, they tell stories about a tunnel and a beautiful light at the end of it.
The problem I have with those stories is that they always happened to a friend of the brother of a schoolmate of the son of a cousin of a colleague of the daughter-in-law of the boss of the neighbour’s cat.
I had this colleague who had some serious health problems, although he wouldn’t go into details.
Once he was taken to hospital. He was put in a room, with a nurse and his partner by his bed. He then blacked out. When he regained consciousness, the room was full of nurses and doctors, all rushing around, and his partner was in tears.
He was later told that his heart had stopped beating. For a short period of time, for all intents and purposes, he was dead. If that had happened in his home or on the street, he would never have told me the story.
Did he see a tunnel and a beautiful light? He felt nothing and remembered nothing. This is straight from the horse’s mouth. Make of that what you will.
Many people believe that, after we die, we will be reunited with our loved ones. It's a wonderful idea. I mean that. I lost my dad when I was little, and my paternal grandparents, well, they were just the best grandparents anyone could hope for. Would I like to see them again? Yes, very much so. I can't think of anything that I'd like more. I just don't think it's going to happen.
Even when I did believe in an afterlife, I used to wonder what age people would be when they're there. For me, my grandparents were always old, obviously, and in a weird way I liked that, but I'm sure they didn't like being old. Is everyone in his or her prime in Heaven? But wouldn't it be weird to hang out with your parents and grandparents and everyone is in their twenties?
I know it sounds selfish, but I would expect my father to be older than me, and my grandparents to be older still. But what about their grandparents? I assume my grandparents would want to meet their grandparents. How old are they gonna be? It makes no sense.
But that aside, the idea of being reunited with our loved ones presents a problem for some people.
Years ago I was flicking through an issue of the National Geographic, and there was an article about Myanmar (or Burma). There was a photo taken outside a Buddhist temple. Sleeping on the temple steps, in bright daylight, there was a little kid. He couldn't have been more than just two or three years old. He was all dirty. He was wearing a filthy t-shirt and filthy shorts. No shoes.
That kid was all by himself. He had no one to love him or take care of him. When he wakes up from his nap he has to find a way to get some food. I cannot imagine what the life of that poor little kid must be like. When he dies, who is he going to be reunited with, the parents who abandoned him?
And what about the children who are beaten, tortured and starved to death by their parents? Is God going to give them a surrogate family in Heaven while the real parents burn in Hell? And even so, how could that possibly make up for all that pain and suffering? When people ask me "Do you believe in Hell?" I always say "Yes, I do. It's right here on this planet. Just take a look around."
It's true, I don't know what happens after we die. No one does. But precisely because of that, let's not waste too much time thinking about it. What we know is that we're here right now. Maybe we can't change the world, but what we can do is to make the life of the people around us a little bit better, even if it's just with a smile or a kind word.
