Dying At The Right Time
Morgan Rempel wonders whether there is a good time to die.
How on earth to grasp let alone grapple with this as something that was a “good” thing for him or a “bad” thing. He’s barely in his mid forties when everything starts to fall apart for him [both physically and mentally] but at the end how much in touch was he with all the things that death would take away…or the fact that he was tumbling over into the abyss that was oblivion. He never had to stare into the abyss as most of us will.
Me, I’m all for dementia before I go. But just not yet.
Our problem here though is we have no idea what it was like to be inside his head over those 11 years. Was there considerable more pain than pleasure, considerable more suffering that satisfaction? You tell me. Based on everything you have garnered in regard to his condition. Even afflicted physically and mentally, one can still have access to things that make life worth living. It’s just that there are so many different variables to consider in so many different sets of circumstances isn’t it really all rather futile for philosophers to tackle it? Other than in intellectual contraptions like the authors?
Of course this too is just the reflection of but one man who, based on the life that he lived, had come to think this. Others may be quite content to weather the storm given lives that to them are still worth living. In fact, an aphoristic assessment of this sort reminds one that Nietzsche basically divided the world up between “one of us” [the ubermen] and “one of them” [the flocks of sheep].
So, what are other men and women obligated to “recognize”? Not being apples, for example.
And here one can well recognize why the Nazis might be drawn to this sort of thinking. And then taking it as far as the Final Solution for the “apples” that they insist are hanging on the branches far longer than they deserve to.
“The consummating death”? Is this something philosophers have any business at all addressing.