The Three Wishes of Death
“Tuesdays with Morrie” just might be the greatest book I’ve ever read. Mitch Albom began as a sports writer, but has morphed into an author that is somehow relentlessly positive. The book I am thinking of here is “The Five People you meet in heaven.” That book got me thinking in a round about way about death. Each of us reaches of moment of mortality when we realize we will die someday. More importantly, we realize that those that are closest to us will also die one day. One way or another we have to come face to face with our own mortality and the mortality of those we love.
This isn’t about the five people you meet in heaven, but the three people you actually want to die. It could seem like these three folks are all the same, but they aren’t. The first kind is one we have all run into at one time or another. They are suffering. They are in incredible pain or their life is not nearly what it once was. Sometimes they are suffering from physical ailments or disease. Sometimes it is psychological or spiritual in nature. We want them to no longer feel any pain. A wish of death in that moment is not intended with malice or anything other than the love we feel for that person.
The other two aren’t that. The other two might be a reflection of us as much as them. The first is the rich uncle, aunt, or distant relative each of us imagines that we have. We don’t know them or don’t really care about them, but we each imagine them leaving their millions to us for some reason. They would put us on easy street and we don’t lose anyone we particularly care about. That is pure fantasy. We somehow convince ourselves that their money and inheritance is worth more than their lives as it pertains to us. Again, any of us that honestly feel this way are not exactly living our finest moment.
Then, there’s the third kind. It has nothing to do with money and it has nothing to do with mercy. Simply put, our lives would be better and easier if they were not around. We hate to create it like a balance sheet, but the net negatives greatly outweigh the net positives. In most cases, we can’t necessarily even see net positives. They may or may not be there based on the person, but we have all come to that calculation at some point.
The cruel irony is that those of us that have that feeling have it because we are better than that. We recognize that our existence impacts others’ existence. We make people’s lives better or worse on a daily basis. Some don’t have that internal struggle. They just don’t care. Other people are not independent entities into themselves. They exist only to enrich that person’s life. They are an extension of them and not their own person. When that person goes, the people in their life are just happier. A weight has been lifted. I can’t think of a more soul crushing thing to say about anyone.
So, when I say that no one will shed a tear when the ex-president goes I don’t do it gleefully. I can’t. Melania will definitely be happier. His children will likely never admit it, but their lives will become easier. Those in his orbit will breathe easier. The entire GOP might throw a private party for themselves. Anyone that actually knows the ex-president personally will be happier when he goes than they are now. I can’t think of a sadder commentary than that. I know Mitch would be disappointed in me that my mind went to the dark. Maybe I will come up with something more positive next time.
The ancient Romans were OK with two types of suicide. The first was when the enemy had you surrounded and it wasn’t going to end well if you were captured. The second was when you had made a major screw up, that everyone knew about. If you would kill yourself, society would take care of your family. I can imagine a certain person in both scenarios, but he’d be too chicken.
1It is just incredibly sad. Who knows if he had had a normal childhood if it had turned out differently. I imagine many thought of his father the same way. I just can’t imagine an existence where people are actually happier when you go. I can imagine a ton of people not caring. I think most of us gave up on the junior high dream of being universally loved and lauded by all. However, imagine people being happy you’re gone. It is just incredibly depressing imagining people getting to that point with any of us.
2Thank Nick, good stuff!
Did you know we are the only species that is born knowing we are going to die? But not to worry because dying can’t be that bad, because millions of people are still doing it!
To help prepare for the unavoidable day, and try and remove some of the psychological fear, I did a ‘death inventory’ about 10 years ago but feel like it’s time to update it. Been feeling those fears creeping in a bit.
3I’m not religious, but have always believed it’s bad karma to wish anyone dead; so I strenuously resist doing it even when it seems that a person’s death would be to the betterment of the world. Having said that, there’s a category of people I think of as “I won’t be sorry when they die”. Clearly TFG is in that category, as were Rush Limbaugh & Antonin Scalia. Other members include Vladimir Putin, Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, Alex Jones, Ron DeSantis, etc etc. it’s getting to be a pretty big category.
4Jill Ann @ 4,
Is it wrong to say that I’ll relish reading their obituary?
5I don’t know why but I thought “The Great Gatsby” was your favorite book.
6Nick,
On a parallel track, some mornings I get up and half expect the headline to read:
TRUMP SUICIDE
Because there’s a micro- or should I say nano-chance that all of the things you mentioned in your last paragraph break through from Trump’s subconscious to his conscious mind, and he can’t live with that moment of truth.
7John Steinbeck in “East of Eden”
There was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the name of virtue, and I have wondered whether he knew that no gift will ever buy back a man’s love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise and, just beneath, with gladness that he was dead.
There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize those fears. This man was hated by the few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, “What can we do now? How can we go on without him?”
8We read it in junior English every year Buttermilk Sky. Carraway is my favorite character from that book. Basically an okay guy that observes a lot but doesn’t do quite enough to prevent the worst. I feel like that sometimes. It’s hard not to look at the world around us and not feel like a failure at least some of the time. I don’t like what the recent movie with Toby McGuire and Leonardo Decrapio did to his character. I guess I always liked Sam Waterson better.
9Moral development is a fascinating topic in psychology. I honestly couldn’t say whether he was born this way or whether his father drove it out of him. I don’t look at sociopaths/psychopaths as evil. Good and evil are cultural constructs that become variable absolutes. I prefer to say they have no empathy and therefore do everything in a self-interested way. So, even good is not for good’s sake but to further an agenda. In that kind of a brain I just don’t see any real insight into self. Others would have to exist and I just don’t think he’s wired to see the world that way.
As a younger man I think he compensated some as most sociopaths/psychopaths do. He knows what is appropriate to say and what people want to hear. As he ages, cognitive decline ultimately dulls that level of knowledge and “insight” to where he says what he’s thinking without that filter. This only gets worse. Most people lose their filter when they get older but they have empathy and that prevents horrific events. They simply say what’s on the brain more often. Some of that is honest to God cognitive decline and some of it is not giving a crap anymore. Who’s to say which is more prevalent.
10@ Papa, #5
You, me, and Clarence Darrow, who gets credit for saying something like that, first.
11@Lex #3
I believe there are many other species on earth that are as much or more in tune with the cycles of the universe than humans; they just cannot share their insight with us.
@Jill Ann #4
As I wrote that sentence my category was growing fast
All leads me to wonder if we have given those species good reason not to share any spiritual insight with us. Yet
12While in general I am against the death penalty, there are some people just as dangerous in prison as outside of it. This extreme punishment is not on the table in the current 4 indictments, but my fear remains as long as his mouth is moving. He is simply an overwhelming threat to our humanity and democracy. I would not miss him and I might be persuaded to dance at his funeral.
13I was just talking with my husband on this very subject yesterday. I felt the same that karma would come and get me because of thinking such dark thoughts about someone I really don’t know personally but has caused so much anxiety and tension for me in the last 6 years. I told my husband that I
14couldn’t understand why with all the innocents that have been gunned down in that last year that that criminal of an expresident hasn’t even had an attempt made on his life. He posed that perhaps when all you know are criminals, professional courtesy. smh
RobertinAstoria @ 12
Yes I agree. Also knowing how us humans project our selves on everything, I don’t think they have human ‘judgement’, they have purpose.
15My daughter and I are teaching my grandson that people who hurt others are hurting themselves; my seven decades on the planet suggest that there’s a lot of truth in that.
That doesn’t excuse the P.O.S. who is his father nor the degree to which that man has injured my daughter (not physically but psychologically and financially), but it goes a long way toward explaining how he got the way he is.
And we don’t see any chance that he will ever recognize that the only way he can ever be happy is if he learns to deal with that hurt and learn not to hurt others.
He’s a long, long way from being alone.
16I don’t wish Trump dead. Rather I hope he is imprisoned and furthermore that he live to be 100 or more years old. Even if he goes to Club Fed, he will be deprived of what he seeks the most: attention.
17