Post Conscious

Today I talked to someone I haven’t seen for a while. In London, you can feel intense isolation but an encounter can make you feel strangely at home. Mr. O had told me about the death of his mother and how the funeral has been delayed due to political circumstances unraveling in his home country. Because of this delay, he is caught in a mental limbo – he wants to move on with life but cannot do so without a proper ritual of farewell for his mother. My condolences go to him, but more than that is my gratitude for the realization that death is waiting for me, too.

A day before I met him, Ms. R mentioned in one of our seminars that Sartre said death is the only thing that is certain. Three days before this seminar (about a week ago from this post), I sat down with another friend, Mr. C, and our conversation took on the inevitable ‘what happens in the afterlife’? Inevitable because we have this kind of mutual understanding. Three months before this, Mr. C let me borrow his book about afterlife speculation – not that we have an exclusive interest on death – it’s all coincidental.

Today I am addressing my subconscious by reliving parts of this conversation I had with Mr.C.

I let my question circle gently across the table, “What’s in your mind when you think about what comes after death?”. I didn’t want clouds or meadows to follow as an answer so I pushed on like my question was rhetorical. I continued with the subtle grimness under the froth of humor and perhaps his pint, “I think about one big argument between me and my Maker. There is no one or nothing else there, just me and my Maker. One big argument.”

“Haha! Well wouldn’t we all like to ask questions. I have many questions I would like answered myself. Why this and that!”, he answered. Then he began delicately, “Someone I know has recently passed. I got to talk to him and have been able to communicate through his wife. Wonderful person.”

I roll the silence out … a kind of carpet for the conversation.

“Then I wrote an e-mail to his wife to read to him if she didn’t think it would offend him. I said a lot of things, but at end of it I told him to not think negatively and forget all that is bad. It is all the past now. I told him, if he could, then speculate … speculate wildly. Then if there is some way he could let me know from the other side, please send me some sort of signal”.

At that moment I immersed deeper into the silence I had paved down for his words. His words walked on them and gave life to my silence. This struck me as strange because were in fact talking about death. Before this, I never thought about the moment just before death … I just think about what comes after death.

Death is inevitable, that much I know. But what if I never get to experience the moment before death? What if I get hit by a bus later? My last moment would be the tarmac … a flash of red … a look of disbelief … some violent screams … and even I cannot experience that. My death would be impersonal even to myself or even worse just another event someone else wants to forget. Funny this, I have always imagined my death to be easy but meaningful – in an unexplainable way – like the passing of summer.

Death can be sudden, this I always forget. If I remember to drink each cup of tea everyday thinking that death waiting at the end of each empty cup – I wonder if life would be more meaningful … or meaningless? This is neither a defeatist mentality nor a go-go-go life hugging attitude I’m alluding to here. Rather it calls for a new state of mind. That of wild speculation.

From today and for as long as I can remember I will, like the poet on his death bed had been told to, speculate … and I will speculate wildly. Thank you, again, Mr. C.