Mortality

This is my second trip to Europe this summer. And while I have been to London, my most favorite city in the entire world, once before, it is my first trip to the United Kingdom Isles. But as most would realize, I have been to France and Germany this summer already. A summer spent filled with European excursions is bound to have some profound effect on the way I think. As for me, I have just become more European than before, but more on that later.

In Europe there are a lot of graves. A lot of people over the years have met their end to disease, famine, war, age, and so forth. Death seems to linger everywhere one goes in Europe, and the UK is no exception to that generality. Just because England does not share the same killing fields of Verdun and Normandy as France, or death camps of Germany an most of Eastern Europe, does not mean a lot of men and women did not fall in UK.

I am afraid of death, or more specifically, dying young and not accomplishing all my dreams. I am not entirely sure of a heaven, although I truly hope there is one. (On a different but not wholly unrelated topic, I recently watched a really interesting Stanley Kubrick  movie that has given more insight into this frame of mind. Paths of Glory is a wonderful portrayal of the horrors of World War I and the atrocities committed by everyone in the conflict. In one scene, the evening before a suicide mission, one soldier tells to his comrade his theory about death and the way we humans view it. He thinks that we are not afraid of death, because if we were afraid of dying we would not be able to get up everyday. The fact of the matter is that everyone dies and each day inches closer and closer to our impending doom. We are afraid, however, of dying painfully. I agree with this theory, but I am more afraid of dying without living out everything I hope to do and dying with regrets.(

But to me, heaven can be found on Earth: on the tops of mountains, in the cafes in the cities for people-watching, in a large Frappucino on a hot day, in a long run through the woods, and curled up in my bed watching a good movie. On Sunday's, while my friends and peers at Clemson head to their weekly church session, I can usually be found on the top of mountain or n a long run through the woods. It i my solace and my reason to live. Dying means losing these brief fleeting moments of happiness. I am aware of my mortality and scared because of it.

That being said, being around death in a place so old got me to thinking. Mortality. One's awareness of life and death. The plain fact of just dying, and then being nothing is completely mind blowing to me. The thought of not knowing what is out there in the Universe, or able to find out the mysteries of even the earths past seems cruel to me.

In a way it is cruel. Dogs and cats, for example, who do not think (at east in the deeper ways we do,) also do not suffer worrying about the future or about death. A dog or cat might live, say, only 15 years, and yet they are much happier than we are and they don't obsess about death. How would you feel if you knew from the time you were young that you would probably live only 15 years? Of course, animals are unaware of their 'deadline' and I wonder who has the upper hand in this equation.

This got me to thinking about some of the graves we passed along the way. 4 year-old boys that fell victim to the plague, countless other children that did not get graves because of poverty. The thing that I wonder is if this boy should really be pitied. Was he even aware of his own mortality? It’s doubtful. He died with no expectations and hardly anything solid to hold on to. He probably had little to hold onto and look forward to anyway. Sure his parents had stuff for him to look forward to, but I doubt very much if he had anything himself.

It's a morbid thing to think about, I realize. There is no right or wrong about death, only that it is.