Saturday 15 May 2010

Death......

Hello to you all! On this bright and beautiful day I thought that I’d gather you all round and have a little chin wag about death.

Before I start, please don’t panic and think you have suddenly stumbled in to some sort of Emo blog where I will wittering on about the latest angst filled band who sing songs that are, like, totally written about me (and I if I had to listen to that shit on a daily basis, well, it’s no wonder they all end up cutting themselves. I’d have topped myself long before the first chord began playing), or worry that I will spend this entire blog moaning about how no one gets me or understands me because I'm soooooo deep (but seriously, they don’t. And it really bums me out man).

Nope, not gonna do any of that. But I am going to talk about death because it is a bit of a taboo subject. No one likes to talk about their own mortality and yet it’s something that we just can’t really avoid. You’re going to die. That's right, you, reading this right now, you’re going to die. And that person over there, they are going to die as well. All of you, you’re going to die. Even me (and seriously, can you believe it? Me? What a pisser!).

Most of the time we go through life blissfully unaware of our own mortality until it suddenly hits us right in the centre of our mindscapes and blows out our gaskets. Normally this happens about three in the morning when you suddenly sit bolt upright in bed and shout “Holy fuck, I’m going to die one day!” and then hide under the bedcovers whimpering.

As the months get pulled from the pages of our life calendars and the years start rushing by faster than you can hold on to them, you start having a nasty thought running round your head: Need to do more stuff and make it count. So you end up bungee jumping from bridges, leaping out of planes strapped to a stranger called Steve with a fake look of fun smeared all over your screaming facehole, or just simply start getting parts of your body pierced that really shouldn’t be. You start to cram in all this living in to whatever time you think you have left because you feel you have too. Everything must be done right this minute, otherwise you will just end up hurtling towards your own demise and the only thing that you would have really acheived with your life was assembling an Ikea Runtra coffee table.

All that new found life living sloshing round in your life like piss in a bedpan seriously sounds like hard work to be honest. Rock climbing, scuba diving, watching the sunrise in Kenya, nipple piercings, I mean, what's wrong with having a nice cup of tea on your sofa? And if you really want to live on the edge, crack open the McVites chocolate digestive biscuits every now and then, you only live once, right?

How I Would Like To Go Out.

1) Heroic.
Picture the scene. A burning building with a huge crowd outside. A woman screaming that her kid is still inside. Suddenly I stumble out, kid in one arm, Mr Fluffy the kitten in the other. And as I pause heroically with the flaming building burning behind me in a cinematic way, and the kid saying “Oh my god, you rescued me, you are like, such a hero!”, I collapse on the floor dead.  

Cue all the men in the crowd to shake their heads wistfully and mutter “What a guy” whilst fighting back manly tears. Half the women in the crowd fall to their knees in agony and wonder why there wasn’t time to sex me up, and the other half get so turned on by the thought of sexing me up that they start to lesbian up on each other.

So in amidst this maelstrom of suppressed male emotion, free flowing female emotion, and quite frankly, pretty graphic lesbian porn, you would have my crumpled body laid out heroically on the ground with my hands on my hips and a small smile on my lips and Mr Fluffy meowing sorrowfully to the heavens.

Now that my friends is the way to go.   

2) Old Age And In My Sleep.
The way we all want to go. I would shuffle across my warm and cosy bedroom, surrounded by my memories and things, to climb in to my huge comfortable bed for my final sleep. Maybe I would even take a moment to ponder and think: I’ve had a good life. And then I would close my eyes for the final time and sleep forever.

That's my ideal way to shuffle off this mortal coil and what I am aiming to do. Though I would have to make sure I had someone to check in on me every morning otherwise I might not be found for six months and then I would just be a skeleton wearing a nightcap, and that would look ridiculous.

3) Death Bed Scene.

Tradition dictates that on your death bed you have to do something profound. Those that know me well and read this blog realise that I can’t really do profound. I can however do childish and immature, so if I ever end up in this situation, that's how I’m going to play it out.

So as all my loved ones gather round for my final words, I might just say something to mess with their heads: I just want to state for the record that you’re all bastards, or if I disliked the woman that my son married, I would point a shaky finger at her and say: I know about the poison and then snuff it as the rest of my family look at her with evil eyes.

What? They would all laugh about it in the end. Oh Dad, he was such a kidder……

Ways In Which I Wouldn’t Like To Go Out.

1) Hit By A Bus.
When you die you shit yourself. Doesn’t matter what way you leave this world, its a given fact that at some point you will soil your undercrackers. So in the morning when you are running for the number 62 bus and end up getting run over by it, that attractive redhead that you make sexy face at every morning as you sit opposite her, she will see your pathetic body lying on the ground, most probably with pants filled with poo.

That really how you want to be remembered?

2) To Be That Man Who Dies In The Incredibly Stupid Way.
You know the one? You read a report in the paper about someone dying and one half of your brain thinks: Oh no, that's terrible, while the other half goes: What a moron.

Normally it’s a question of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A local man was killed today when was caught between a collision between a lorry carrying oats and a milk tanker. He died under two tonnes of porridge.

Or you could be the idiot who breaks into the lion enclosure at London Zoo, walking over to the pride with arms open wide and saying “I want to hug the pussy cats.” 

No dignity in that. No dignity at all.

I myself had the 3am wakeup call many years ago. It suddenly hit me that I was going to die one day and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Freaked me out if I'm honest. So I made a vow to myself to grab life with both hands, shake it around a little, and then maybe even give it a little affectionate pinch on the cheek.

My philosophy now is to live life to the full, to maximise every opportunity, carpe diem. In fact I am so pumped up right now just writing about it that I want to storm something with my shirt off.

I am of course lying. 

Chocolate biscuit anyone?

15 comments:

aladdinsane12 said...

Dan, you're bringing me down, man! No, not really.

I like the heroic way to go- porn, emotions, a burning house, a kitten; those things should all be present at my death. One of my friends always talks about going out in a ridiculously awesome way (i.e. flaming motorcycle into a pit of alligators, etc.) At least you'd get talked about.

Have you ever read the "Darwin Awards" books? They basically chronicle real life people's stupid deaths. I thought they were hilarious until I actually read one about someone I knew...then I stopped reading them.

Unknown said...

Only you could make us laugh at death!

hope said...

So I guess you can imagine my distaste at having to write the occasional check to one of my Hubby's archery vendors....their name is actually "Grim Reaper."

I vote for the big sleep, personally. :)

But if you don't start commenting occasionally to our witty replies, we're going to think you're plotting our demise. ;)

Kim Ayres said...

Unfortunately I'm pretty convinced I'm going to die by someone else's stupidity.

You may or may not remember a few years ago - it was during some world cup or another, and England were playing Germany so all the old "2 world wars and one world cup" stuff was going on, when in fact half the UK's population wasn't even born when England won the world cup.

Anyway, I think Germany won and a bunch of England fans went on the rampage and killed this guy because he was German.

Only it turned out he wasn't even German - he was Dutch.

And it's that kind of stupid bloody idiocy that's going to get me killed. I'll be stabbed or shot by someone who has mistaken me for someone else.

CAM said...

I usually think (peevishly when woken at some ungodly hour) "I want to die peacefully in my sleep - how in hell am I meant to do that if you keep waking me up...my percentage chance of being asleep when death comes drops considerably...bugger off."

Nikonda said...

I think the thing to do is, have the 3 a.m. moment, do all your big thinking about getting the most out of every day ... then try not to worry about it ever again.

Nice post - an amusing take on a very serious topic. Reassuring to know you young people think about mortality, as well as us coffin-dodgers ;)

Tony Spunk said...

Hey man! I figure I'll be checking out as the meat in a two-lady sandwich. Okay, really I just hope that's how I go out, because wouldn't that be neat? So long as it's dignified and I don't have a thorny rose protuding from my asshole or something like that, I think it'll be okay. No dude wants to kick it with flowers in his rectum. Except maybe Cat Stevens or whatever he's called now. That dude would celebrate it I believe.

Amber said...

I hope I die one of those ironic deaths like Marie Curie who discovered radium and then died of aplastic anemia from prolonged exposure to radiation. I guess in a way that's a heroic death, though.

mapstew said...

I think about death ALL the time! (That is, when I'm not thinking about sex, or music, or food, or friends, or family, or blogs, or FB, or beer, or 'there IS more beer yeah?' or checking myself out naked in a full length mirror in good lighting!) But otherwise it's death! (or bagpipes, I like bagpipes. And Feta cheese! Yum!) :¬)

Dan said...

Aladdin- Flaming motorcycle, pit of alligators. I'm sold matey, seriously. That’s my dream ticket!

Eva- I also make funny faces at fear.

Hope- I have been crap at replying to comments, haven't I? Seriously, they are called the Grim Reaper?

Kim- Dying at the hands of someone else’s stupidity, I can so relate to that. Even more so if they were dressed as a clown.

CAM- Sounds more like an embolism is coming your way. Sorry about your sleep loss bud.

Nikonda- I'm not really fit to do much big thinking at 3.00 in the morning. Hope the post wasn't too morbid!

Spunky Dude- Somehow I picture you going out in a whorehouse in Alabama with a dwarf called Trixie and maybe a mule thrown in for good measure as well? But that may just be my mind playing with me.

Amber- Ironic deaths, never thought of those. Not a bad way to be remembered, not stupid, and kinda makes you go "Hmmmmn" I like it.

Mapstew- I was following all the way up to "Checking myself out naked" Then I ran away.

hope said...

I apologize for nagging. :) I so offended your blog that when I tried to do so yesterday, it ate my apology.

And yes, I actually do have to write checks to a vendor named Grim Reaper. Kinda creepy.

Have a great weekend!

Jessica said...

I work in medicine and although death is not common, it is present. I think when you work around it, you view it differently than others. Still a little worrisome, but an unavoidable fact.

Really changes the mood during the happy hour conversations when you're drinking with non-medical types...

Anonymous said...

Nice post...Loved the heroic way of going out :)

Anonymous said...

Interesting post :] Personally I wouldn't mind going out as a complete joker, like 3) Death Bed Scene.

A quick question mostly related,

What is you view on what occurs after death?

Once your dead, your dead right? Or do you believe in something more?

Miss OverThinker said...

Dan, I missed your writing and you.. of course, this post was sitting in my google reader for almost a month, I just couldn't get around to it.. I know what a sin that was! ;)

Your writing is still as entertaining as I remember.. on the death front, I really never think about it - it will happen when it will happen..