Article: Death: The Final Frontier - Pt.1

Stanley Mouse
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Covid-19 has brought death to our doorstep.

But America is a particularly death-denying culture. We avoid thinking about it and when possible, and avoid discussing it in all but the most euphemistic terms. We are protected from witnessing the reality of dead bodies by well-meaning undertakers and funeral directors who dress, coiffe, and carefully apply makeup so that the deceased appears more life-like. If and when we see them, we can say, "how natural and at ease they seem."

I recall working as a hospital orderly in my early 20s. When a patient died, we were instructed to close all the ward doors, while another orderly held the elevator, so that we could whisk the corpse down to the basement morgue without anyone being the wiser.

If the predictions of social scientists, historians, futurists, scientists, and other thoughtful, sober-minded folks are at all accurate, the degree of death we will be witnessing en masse in the next decades will make the presumed 613 thousand American and 4 million worldwide deaths due to Covid look like a drop in the bucket. We would be wise to realize that the American Empire has now entangled the world, and that it, itself, is in its death throws.

From this perspective it makes sense to be as prepared as one can be for one's own and others' demise. While very few of us want to die, in a sense we are fortunate to have access to deep teachings regarding this inevitable event. It is said that one can not prepare for death; however, this is far from the truth. There is much that we can do on many levels to ready ourselves for our demise, and for what may be next - after our identification with this body has come to an end.

But, first and foremost, we will need to marshal our courage in the face of what for most of us is a frankly frightening topic.

(Article changed on Aug 02, 2021 at 11:01 PM EDT)