Better late than never - answer to a two year old comment

This is a letter I wrote to someone who left me a comment 2 years ago which I only just found now:-I'd like to know what do you think?

Hi Isabella,

You wrote this comment on my article 'The Creation of Fire' like two years ago! And you asked me a question

"Death makes all of our attempts at life utterly meaningless, laughable, ridiculous almost, yet we continue, most of us with our singularly particular neuroses."

i'm curious why someone like you, who spends so much time in nature, would say that? isn't death just part of the cycle?'

which I never answered because at that time my father was dying of cancer and my mother was recovering from injuries caused by him crashing the car the day he found out he had cancer... so I was kind of preoccupied.

It's a lovely question and I wanted to say a belated thank you... In answer to your question I go on in the article to say:- 'Nature has a wonderful perspective on death, one that it is continually sharing all the time, it does not consider it either bad or good. Death just is, death just happens, the same way shit happens. Nature does not personalise it, it is us who take it personally. Nature does not ignore life or avoid it, or desire it. Nature simply is and does...' Which in a way is a reflection that as you say death is part of the cycle.

The point I was making is that in any moment our life can be extinguished which renders all our 'activity' fairly redundant and apparently without import - it's a leveller. I say apparently without import because we confer great meaning on our unknown spans of life, of course we do - but we fail to attach great meaning to death; we thrash with and flounder in and fight with it, but in many of our day to day lives it doesn't bear thinking about and perhaps it should. The nature of nature is impermanence. It gives me great freedom to know that I can be plucked from my reality without a moment's notice, and also I consider a sane perspective; that death balances the gift of life, like the apex of a pendulum's swing. When we fail to grant death its place in our day to day life, we fail to have truth and we fail to give life its import; life is so precious when standing next to death. When we deny death and avoid it and live with our eyes shut we are automatically neurotic. Which was why I pointed it out in this manner as rendering 'our attempts at life as meaningless, laughable and ridiculous', like our discussing of the price of peas when someone is pointing a weapon at us.

We have just been adopted by a cat, everyday she brings us various bits of mice and birds and leaves them on our doorsteps as offerings. Mice who up until their early demise in the jaws of a cat were busy fetching food and building nests for their young - the difference between mice and men is that the mice are much more aware of the cat in any given moment than we are of death. I guess still not aware enough though. Death shocks us all, death takes us by surprise; it is amazing how often the dying man's face, including my father's has a look of surprise on it - as though we never knew.

Had we all known perhaps we would make different choices about what is important and what isn't... When do we never know really, that death is bearing down upon us? Would I stand there still and wonder for as long about which make up looks best, or whether to paint the dining room green or lilac? Would I spend more time with my loved ones, would I help more folk that crossed my path?

Thank you for your comment, it's prompted me to think about this a bit more. I hope this answers your question and I'd be interested to know your thoughts. I like your blog and your poems.

Warm regards,

Louise Brookes

PS - you wrote...

'very interesting article. reflecting deeply on who we are - cells and all - how we extend ourselves into our surroundings, are how we are all part of nature is something that we don't do nearly, nearly enough of. (well, obviously YOU do, so perhaps i should exclude you from that "we" :))

by the way, you say

"Death makes all of our attempts at life utterly meaningless, laughable, ridiculous almost, yet we continue, most of us with our singularly particular neuroses."

i'm curious why someone like you, who spends so much time in nature, would say that? isn't death just part of the cycle?'

Isabella Mori answered my letter here on her blog in an article called 'Of Mice, Death and Neuroticism'. She is a a psychotherapist in Vancouver, Canada. She has been working in the field of mental health, counselling, psychotherapy and movement therapy for 15 years and enjoys helping people build better lives.