You Cannot Avoid Death But You Can Learn to Deal With It
Learn how the Gothic can give you a different perspective
I know I have already talked about this topic in another article. But I can’t help it. I just love talking about death, because I just hate the idea of disappearing forever.
When I was little, I would say to my mum:
If I am here now, why do I have to go? What’s the point?
To which my mother always replied:
Because from the moment there’s life, there’s death -Juanita Pérez
My grandma felt the same way about death. She used to verbalise this to my mum every time they met.
My 7-year-old has a similar feeling. It must be a family curse.
When he was 5 he started crying one night. The thought of dying got him very upset for a few weeks.
‘Why do we have to die?’- he said in tears while sitting up on his bed.
My heart broke. He had inherited the anguish created by the thought of not experiencing his life any longer.
During the following days, he was asking the ages of every member of the family and working out who was going to go next.
The only uncertainty is the when
Death is the one thing we can all be sure of. It’s the one thing that lurks all the time. However, some of us live in this obsessive race against it.
But what is it that we actually feel when someone close to us dies: is it grief, rejection, guilt, acceptance…?
We all have different ways of handling the “thought of death”. I want to call it that because death itself happens in only one instant. It’s the transition that gets the name. After it, we are talking about something else. I don’t think there’s a proper name for “the after and eternal moment” unless you fancy a bit of the ghostly.
Death comes with many symbols and rituals but it also brings the living together even if it’s for the last time. You know how it is with siblings who don’t see eye to eye and other family affairs.
I actually like Sally Prag’s approach, which is to not worry about the inevitability of death. She prefers to listen to the here and now, which is to enjoy what we have, to its essence.
So maybe death has more than one purpose, which is to make us value more even those things we take for granted such as the sea, the sun, and the other lives around us like our pets and animals in general.
This is Sally’s full article:
My personal obsession might become yours too
As an independent scholar and investigator obsessed with death in all its cultural forms, I analyse how the concept of death can change the way we perceive life.
Death is not only present when we cease to exist. Physical change is also a way of dying, and physical change happens when we give birth, with age, we go through illnesses that destroy our bodies, but it can also take place when we lose a job and even when coming back from holidays.
Isn’t it disturbing to go back to that routine that you hate? I remember working in an office and feeling buried alive. It was horrible.
It is in the Gothic that I find peace
Why do you think so many people like immortal monsters such as Vampires? We haven’t stopped talking about them and creating stories around them since the beginning of our journey roaming Earth.
This Gothic monster for excellence represents everything we love and hate at the same time and it has the ability to adapt to new times. It’s not only immortal in itself but also in time.
In a way, the vampire is the only one of its kind to be immortal and still make sense when it speaks, unlike the zombie.
One way of projecting our fear of dying is precisely through the creation of fictional characters that have the ability to do the opposite to us: live forever.
We actually feel better about being mortal by making the immortal pay for its daring nature. That is, by making it an outcast, the other, pushing it to the outskirts of society and most of all making it filthy and unworthy of God.
However, in fiction, not all is fiction. The vampire figure, like many other “fictional characters”, also has a non-fiction origin. But this should be dealt with in another article.
For now, I would like to ask you about your attitude in front of death:
Are you easygoing and enjoy every minute of your day without thinking about the last days of your life? Are you in full denial, or do you feel somehow there’s still hope, you know, with science and all that? And last but not least: Do you feel some kind of relief through fiction?
Let me know in the comments. I’m profoundly curious about other people’s perceptions.
Key message: You certainly cannot avoid death (yet), but you can learn to deal with it in different ways and, strangely enough, fiction is one of them.
Thanks for reading
As well as worrying about death, I talk about the Gothic all the time. Check my online magazine: “You Are Gothic But You Don’t Know It,” and learn more about your dark side through Gothic literature, films, TV series, music and all those places where your Shadow- Self lurks and gain clarity in your projects.
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