As promised, this is the final essay in a series of essays. If you’re just arriving here, as I know some of you are (hey!)—start with this one on authenticity, and then this one on deservedness and karma. Then come back here, to this final one on life and death (rebirth). I intended to write a few more, but alas. I am called to other things. Thank you one million suns for taking your time to read my words and heart.
Last essay I dove into the depths of the inescapable intra-connectedness that is life. To be alive is a wild, wild thing. And it need not be perceived from a lens of entitlement, deservedness and needing to be saved, instead we could think of it as a strange gift, hand wrapped by the animating life force itself. We are at once the gift and receiver of the gift. Looking back at my last piece, I feel I used many words but still failed to express the ultimate point I was hoping to make. Perhaps it wasn’t quite formed yet, I’m not so certain it ever will be. These writings are my attempt to understand and critique and revere—the world, my setting and myself—as best I can while I have the privilege of a hungry, curious mind and soft animal fingers that can punch keys.
So on that note, let me begin again. I’ve now described authenticity as our state of being—whatever that is *right now*—and our acceptance of it which allows for our choice from it. And then I argued against the concept of deservedness; that whether good or bad things happen to us, we wholly deserve them. Again, to deserve is to be worthy of—punishment or reward. Which isn’t to say that our attitudes and choices don’t bring about our best and worst lives, or that we shouldn’t take a sense of pride in the beauty and achievement we create for ourselves—or even in the chaos we create. Having expectations, standards and celebrating one’s efforts is, in my opinion, a wonderful thing. So too is facing qualities we don’t prefer about ourselves with honesty and dignity. It is when said qualities are lorded over others’ as a way to condemn or withhold resources or opportunity that it becomes problematic and/or a ploy at control.
I obviously think we all “deserve” love, food, shelter, opportunity for growth and community. But I also think we don’t deserve such things, precisely because I believe these things inherently belong to everyone. Deservedness is so often a way we mark others from not being allowed to the basic riches of life, and this way of thinking settles us deeper into our own entitled egos.
Ultimately, I want to convey that we are cosmic equals entangled together in an unescapable web of birth and death (rebirth), of cause and effect1, and so much more that we do not yet know, will never know fully, and cannot name with accuracy anyway. And how this could be viewed as a wonderful, mysterious adventure—an invitation more so than a sentence—although there is a luminous death (rebirth) sentence awaiting each of us. Being cosmic equals does not make us all the exact same—in fact the opposite is the case. We are each a singularity within a greater whole. Our genetic code, while inherited and similar and shared, not just with one another but with everything, is uniquely our own. We bear different strengths and weaknesses, and this is a rather good thing. Biodiversity breeds a healthy ecosystem for life to flourish, while assimilation and homogeny are the death of it. (These dance). We’re all just here, together, each capable of receiving the bounty of life and so too the horrors and pains of life. And anyone who deems that they are more entitled to or deserving of this bounty and that others others are more deserving of its pains, is, well, lying.
And yet…
I grapple with believing that we as an entire species are ever (anytime soon) going to reach some fully non-violent, life-loving utopia where we all share and commune peacefully. All 8 billion of us, just getting along and vibing. I am not unaware or dismissive of the animal that we are, and I refuse to be. It’s not that I don’t want to believe in the 8-billion-people-utopia being possible, but at this moment, I would have to make a grand, sweeping denial of our violent, territorial, and aggressive animal instincts of which are still high and alive in us as a species—especially, apparently, in the people who “run” the world. And while I do find that some of us are perhaps becoming more compassionate, understanding and less violent overall, I sometimes wonder if utopia would actually be all it’s hyped up to be… especially for anything other than our own species. What about the rest of life on Earth? They belong here, too. Are they included in the human utopia? Because there is no way to figure ourselves out while overlooking or flat out denying the other life forms and broader ecosystems we share and belong to.
I want to admit, humbly, that I don’t actually know what’s best for the species as a whole, or more broadly—life as a whole. When I say “we need to do <insert generalized sweeping statement>” I really mean I do. We are so vast and complex, and at once so maddeningly simple, I cannot claim I genuinely understand us enough to know what’s best for all of us. And this is why I think it’s so important for us to listen to the needs of one another, and to do our best to meet them and be honest if we can’t. This is why it’s so important we stop assuming what works for us will verifiably work for other people, whether it’s our friend suffering a heartbreak, or a collapsing nation on another land with a whole other ecosystem. We can share and offer our ways of being to others, but assuming they are what’s best for others is not always correct.
I don’t take on the task of saving the whole world—don’t we see how this is yet another form of colonization? I don’t think it needs saved to begin with (which isn’t to assert there isn’t work to be done or choices to be made). This was a lie sold to us millennia ago—all this saving talk. In fact, I imagine the more we leave things alone (or better yet, learn to work with them) the better off they may be2. But aside from that, it would be wise for us to stay humble. To kneel naked before gob as often as possible. For life is an insurmountable force that is going to keep on keeping on long after humans have ceased or become whatever else it is we are going to become. Evolution is constant, even though it blooms and dies, blooms and dies. And so if I’m really honest, I find I can only, truly, commit to practicing what is best for me, and what is best for me cannot be wholly examined if I am not also cultivating a deep consideration towards how what is best for me also affects the people and environment closely surrounding me, since they are the context that supports me.
I can only do my best to make a “utopia” of my immediate life, which still very much requires the participation of many other lives, right down to the food I eat. I mean really, where do I begin and end in relation to everything else? And what is “utopia” anyway? The etymology means literally “no place”, which tracks since this world where we all get along, have no problems or conflicts, and all mutually support one another never seems to arrive in the present. Certainly not across the globe for all people, everywhere at once. But that’s the thing, how we frame our problems and conflicts is as important, if not more so, than the problems and conflicts themselves. I find we are constantly trying to be rid of our problems, like violence, death, human suffering and human error. And for good reason. But if we think about it more carefully, maybe these aren’t problems so much as predicaments.
To make a helpful distinction that’s literally changed my life: a problem is something that has a solution, whereas a predicament does not. A predicament is described as a difficult, unpleasant and embarrassing situation, of which we can develop responses but not solutions. And I’m coming to find our major “problem” is we think our condition as mortals is a problem to be solved, when in fact it is a cosmic predicament of which we are entangled. Our “problems” will not go away and they do not have a singular root. They are the root system itself. We are a glorious, divine predicament!
Which brings me to death, and our utter “problem” with it. That it happens. That it happens to “innocent” people, whether unfairly or unjustly. That it’s going to happen to us, even though some days that feels as far from the truth as can be. But death isn’t a problem to be solved, it’s a part of life. The predicament is that we are alive, and to be alive is a wild, wild thing comprised of both being and non-being. The predicament is that we will die (be reborn3—not sure what this means in a literal sense but I do trust it as true), that everything we know, and even our very bodies, will no sooner be dust. The predicament is that life eats life to live, and thus never dies because it feeds itself in a constantly renewable frenzy. We are not a problem, not our life and not our death. There is no solution to being a living and dying mammal, other than, perhaps, to make the most out of the experience by accepting and enjoying and grappling with this weighty, yet common as air truth.
And this is my issue, I’m understanding, with why certain things in wellness culture4, and in popular beauty standards, and in the Western (which is also not just Western but global) notion of “a good life” bother me so deeply, even though I wholly participate in them (I literally just bought $70 dirt water to heal my gut for crying out loud), is that they each place more value on our growth, our utility, and our appearance while excluding the other fundamental truths of ourselves—which is that we are an animal who is prone to illness and will inevitably die (be reborn).
I am pro-death. Which is not to be confused with pro-murder, or war, or prison industrial complex, or punishment. I am pro-death in that I honor and revere death as part of life. Life is the ultimate opportunity, death is the ultimate equalizer. The yin of the yang. The femme with the masc. Each living being gets a chance at life before it is fed back to the animating force. These are the rules, and I am truly beginning to feel it’s my life’s dharma to honor death and to do my best to help others honor it, too.
I know there are cultures on this Earth, right now, and in all times, who also cherish and honor death; who acknowledge and lovingly confront that we are aging and dying beings who need care above all else. And they may not be the richest or fastest or most recognized cultures, but when I hear of them, I get a tickle in my chest that reminds me there are other ways of honoring life than the ones I was taught and conditioned to believe as fundamental fact see: constant progress. Which isn’t to assert that I condemn my own conditioning. To be born in the empire of capital and freedom is not something I loathe in myself but am learning to relate to with gratitude, not in an entitled way, but that this is my lot and it is up to me to face it—the good with the bad—and only in doing so can I be liberated further.
I know my place in the world came from a violence and suffering I have not yet known. I know it’s come from a resilience and love and trust just the same. It seems these qualities are part of (at least for now) life’s rebirth (death) process—how can we make them more bearable for one another? How can we practice as doula’s to one another as we navigate life AND rebirth?
…
I am not certain of what is going to happen to this world, other than it will go on until our very sun consumes it. I am not certain that this world is not hell, (sometimes), but also heaven too. I am not certain how I will die, or if it will be painful, or warm in my bed—or where I go afterwards. And nonetheless, while I am here, I am choosing to live with as much conviction as I can muster. Not towards what I can gain or what will certainly happen, but that I belong nonetheless. That we belong because we are—not because we have to prove we are. I choose to live with my chest forward, my heart centered, my light beaming, my darkness faced. I choose to trust, hard as it is, in things that seem far-fetched and downright impossible—like the 8-billion-people-utopia—because I am learning that regardless of what is present now, trusting the possibility of something in the future is the only way it comes about—never with any guarantees.
What I’m saying is, is that we cannot fully honor life and all of its glory until we learn to honor that death is part of it. And I think once we do this as a society, and maybe one day as a species, we will actually begin the deeper work of what it means to be alive. And that maybe, one day, to live a good life will be to make sure each of us die a dignified death.
A world that knows how to die (be reborn) is a world that knows how to live again and again.
I will be jumping more into cause and effect in the coming weeks, and how I actually find this a very limiting way of looking at reality.
Remember during covid when the humans were shut in doors and “nature was healing?” lol
I keep saying rebirth or reborn after death because death sounds so final, but I do believe that we go back to the Universe and will be recycled again into something. I’m not sure what, if that’s another human life—I doubt it. But if I am the animated ash of stars, one day someone or something will the animated ash of me. *sigh*
I critiqued the West and wellness culture quite a bit last essay. There’s also a lot I love about the West and wellness culture. I critique the West and especially Western wellness culture because even though I love and participate and celebrate in these things, I also grapple with their huge overlooking of death, stillness, and darkness. Which is why I critique them, because I want them to be better and truer.