You are only a man. You accomplishments, your wealth, your stature, not even the people you surround yourself with can save you from Death. Walter Breuning, the oldest man who lived to see 114 years of the human condition, gave his fellow man this piece of advice, "We're all going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you're born to die." And at first, I thought to myself, wow, oh my goodness, he's right. But I thought a little more. No, no that's not quite right. We were born to live but man in his infinite wisdom traded life for death. But the fact that we were born to live is irrelevant now, because we will die. No one can escape the death of the body, it will happen. If there is one thing I can promise you, it is that you will die. But if you really think about death, it's not all that scary. I'm not saying a thought of death in passing isn't scary, but a real time to think about the prospect of death. Death is an event. What happens after death, the uncertainty- that is what stirs the primal fear in all of us.
Thoughts of an afterlife has had the imagination of man running wild for thousands of years. To think that "this is it" has never satisfied any man who has ever really thought about death. And if this is the conclusion one man comes to, he is a very sad and lonely man indeed. Only the angriest of men can deny the spiritual hunger within. The people of the Orient rest their faith in coming back again as a different life form, or reaching Nirvana, or what have you. It doesn't matter what sect of people you interview; each of them will try to produce an explanation to mask their fear of what happens when it is over.
In today's society, I believe that we have either purposefully distracted ourselves so much to avoid these big questions, or have been deceived by the novelty of passing entertainment into simply not thinking. In actuality, it's probably a bit of both. After WWII, when post-modernism reared it's ugly head, perpetuating the belief that nothing had meaning, and that truth was a relative issue, people had to distract themselves from their own despair. I can think of absolutely no better example of the downhill spiral of despair that humans face when they have no hope in anything, than art. Let me show you.
This is a painting title Liberty Leading the People; July 1830 by Eugene Delacriox.
It was painted during the Romantic period when man was infatuated with capturing the emotion of an event. You will notice that most art, such as this, finds its roots in the Renaissance and High Renaissance, which preached the Humanistic value that "Man is the measure of all things." Even though most Renaissance men where humanists, you can see by the mere execution that they believed in something. During this time of art, artists received an education in classics and mathematics.
One of my favorite Renaissance paintings is by Mosaccio. The inscription above the skeleton reads "I was once that which you are, and what I am you will also be." I love this painting, but I also find it ridiculously creepy.
Now, let's usher in the post modern art.
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| Francis Bacon |
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| Wolfgang Schulze |
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| Barnett Newman |
Art, which was once a medium of exploration into the state of man and his destination had been reduced to a journey into the absurd. Man once had a divine direction in his search for God and his own meaning. By the time the existentialists had come, God was dead and man had tried to find a replacement; at the same time, collapsing in on himself only to find a void that no amount of contemplation could fill. The created would try to look within the created to find his answers. In short, man cannot fill a space within himself that he did not create. I look at Schulze's work and understand- when man no longer believes he has a divine purpose for existence, then why bother at all?
Is this truly what Schulze believes man to be? He himself believed that humanity was on the same plane as the bacterium that would destroy him if given the chance. Newman said, "his subject matter was 'the self, terrible and constant." So, that is man yes? Terrible and constant. A random accident. A terrible thing to experience, no direction, no hope.
If I had an existentialist with me in this room, he would argue that God is just a bandaid to make reality seem ok. I would love to ask the existentialist where his thoughts came from. Newman himself believe in what he called "the sublime." An existentialist would call me a fool for saying that I had hope in "nothing." If he is right, then yes, I lived, but I hoped. The existentialist cannot reduce the most basic of human emotions to something so pointless and irrelevant. In his own way, the existentialist hopes, or he lacks hope. Either way, he will still 'feel'- and most certainly be miserable in the process. Have we become so lost, that to even 'feel' is irrelevant? What kind of society does this perpetuate? One without responsibility. For once man takes his creator out of the picture, he has license to do whatever he wills without consequence. I still find it funny though that even in the midst of this, the great existentialist philosophers tried to figure out morality. I ask them, why does it even matter to them?
So I return to my original point. If what our pervading philosophy says is right, then YES, we must distract ourselves. Death is knocking, and if this is it, better not to think about anything else than what you are doing at this moment. So plug in the ipod, buy yourself a fancy car, and climb that ladder. Turn on the tv, watch the depressing news, and try not to wonder about the accident of your existence. But, if you refuse to believe this world is it, then you have some shaping up to do. If there is a God, you can guarantee he has some expectations of his creation. Just like the baker has expectations of a cookie, or a potter is pot. Man cannot create himself, and therefore, he cannot create his own purpose. That is why I am not afraid to die. I know that when I do, I'll be living with my creator for eternity. Because I believe this with every fiber of my being, I had best listen and live like my creator designed me to.
To me, it seems like everything is moving so fast. The more man believes he is a pointless accident, the more he will behave like it.
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