This is why I can't study
Sometimes I have days where one big thing in particular weighs down on me, keeps coming into my mind. Today, it is death.
I'm not wondering where we go when we die. I believe that is something too big for humans to grasp. Rather, seeing as though it's El Dia de los Muertos in Mexico right now, I'm wondering why here, in North American culture, death is so scary and terrible. In Mexico, they are celebrating the lives the dead ones left behind. They are honoring them. They are decorating, lighting candles, feasting, celebrating about death. Death isn't a cause for fear. It's not something to run from or ignore. It's another part of a cycle. It's natural. It's cause for celebration--to recognize and honor and praise.
And here we are on the other side of a holiday dedicated to how afraid we are of dead things. How death is this eerie realm no one wants to touch. I wish we remembered death. I wish we saw it as a natural occurence rather than a tradgedy. I wish we hung up flags, lit candles, brightened rooms, and danced about it.
I think we associate our fear of age with our fear of death. I think our obsession with beauty is because of our fear of age because of our fear of death. If death was beautiful, would age be beautiful, be celebrated, be worth something? Would beauty be how colorful your altar is on Dia de los Muertos?
Today I feel like death is worth nothing here. Someone takes his own life because the best way to run away from life is to outsmart death--to get to you before death gets to you; to leave no cause for celebration, because nobody likes death.
There, death is worth your face among candles and sugar skulls and brilliant crepe paper. Death is worth the life that you gave it.
Here, death is worth the time that you ran from it.
We could learn a lot from this culture. They know how to embrace the things we so readily shun.
Here's to the brilliance your death may cause. Here's to the life I will give when I die. Here's to the dancing that better occur at my funeral.
I'm not wondering where we go when we die. I believe that is something too big for humans to grasp. Rather, seeing as though it's El Dia de los Muertos in Mexico right now, I'm wondering why here, in North American culture, death is so scary and terrible. In Mexico, they are celebrating the lives the dead ones left behind. They are honoring them. They are decorating, lighting candles, feasting, celebrating about death. Death isn't a cause for fear. It's not something to run from or ignore. It's another part of a cycle. It's natural. It's cause for celebration--to recognize and honor and praise.
And here we are on the other side of a holiday dedicated to how afraid we are of dead things. How death is this eerie realm no one wants to touch. I wish we remembered death. I wish we saw it as a natural occurence rather than a tradgedy. I wish we hung up flags, lit candles, brightened rooms, and danced about it.
I think we associate our fear of age with our fear of death. I think our obsession with beauty is because of our fear of age because of our fear of death. If death was beautiful, would age be beautiful, be celebrated, be worth something? Would beauty be how colorful your altar is on Dia de los Muertos?
Today I feel like death is worth nothing here. Someone takes his own life because the best way to run away from life is to outsmart death--to get to you before death gets to you; to leave no cause for celebration, because nobody likes death.
There, death is worth your face among candles and sugar skulls and brilliant crepe paper. Death is worth the life that you gave it.
Here, death is worth the time that you ran from it.
We could learn a lot from this culture. They know how to embrace the things we so readily shun.
Here's to the brilliance your death may cause. Here's to the life I will give when I die. Here's to the dancing that better occur at my funeral.