On death

The week before my twenty-first birthday I found myself face down in the parking lot of my apartment. I remember only the way the pavement sparkled in the light of the street lamp and thinking “is this going to hurt.” The man holding a sod-off shot gun to my head was patting down my pockets to make sure he didn’t miss any of my goods. He had my purse in his hands already but he figured I must have had something hidden in my jacket pockets and even my shoes. There was no cliché of my life passing in front of my eyes. There wasn’t time for that. The only thought was of death. What is death like? What if no one is watching and in these next few moments what if I become nothing?
Martin Heidegger said death is not inevitability but a probability. He thought it was redundant to describe death as a termination that will happen because of course death will happen. It is not a question if it will happen it is a question of when. “Death is an activity that can happen at any moment.” Death is not something that happens at the end of a life when all is said and done, it can happen in the middle of life when accomplishments are only in the works. Perhaps this is why we have Diem to carpe.
The cold steal of a gun never goes away. Eight years later I can still feel it both above my right eyebrow and at the crown of my head. It feels like doom. Without even being fired you can feel the bullet piercing the skull. You can imagine it traveling through the hemispheres of your brain. And when confronted by that gun whether fired or not the bullet becomes lodged inside of you. Counseling does not carve it out. Stepping out into the world again does not stitch it up without scars.
Everything in the world exists by following certain laws. Is not that our lives are planned out for us as in predetermination but that there is causation. When a ball is thrown it will descend at certain intervals because of velocity and gravitational pull. Every plant life goes through a process of growth and decay. These are physical laws and why should our time spent here be exempt from them? Are we not to decay? Should decay come only once we have bloomed are is it possible that we will never sprout?
The robber hid behind the cars. He had followed me for months mapping out when I went to and returned from work. Every Tuesday evening I worked at Pier 1 Imports for extra cash. He knew I’d be home late tonight. When he approached I said “Hi” assuming he was one of my neighbors. He gave no care if I was a good person. His only concern was that I seemed weak. Too weak to fight back at least.
B.F Skinner developed the notion of behavioral momentum. It is the notion that given certain genetic material and certain environmental conditions that the path of a person’s life could be mapped out under the laws of causation. So, if someone had an aggressive gene and was raised in a violent neighborhood then he would have no choice but to become violent himself. If I grew up in the same neighborhood but I had a genetic marker of kindness then it is possible that I would not be violent and try to change my environment to suite my genetic makeup.
Once he had finished patting me down I waited for the shot. I prepared for the pain, the nothingness. “Step, step step….” He ran away. I was alive.
Socrates believed that death was the separation of the soul from the body. The body is concerned with that of materiality and desire while the soul was concerned with thoughtfulness and reasoning. “The soul reasons most beautifully when she is all by herself separate from the body.” In death the soul can find the truth.
It took me 6 months to be able to be alone during the day. It took me 3 years to be able to be alone at night. I did not die. But I have found myself questioning my life and death ever since. I find myself admiring one quote of Socrates but am plagued by it….”others are apt to be unaware that those who study philosophy rightly are in preparation for death and dying.”… Did I miss my chance for truth?