An absolutely amazing article, Liza! I was absolutely blown away by this piece! Indeed, writers and other artists are the only ones who can really truly achieve immortality. They fear death because they have a passion and a lust for life and everything beautiful in it. This is why they have this fascination with the last days of one's life and the afterlife. I can think of so many examples of this I've observed in real life. A Christmas Carol explores this a little bit when the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrouge what the future will look like if he continues with his mean, miserly and selfish behavior. He sees the grave of Bob Cratchit's sickly son Tiny Tim and then is show his own. The men digging his grave comment on how his grave is quite lonely as no one came to his funeral. The ghost then sends him to his fiery end in the pits of h**l before he wakes up and realizes he's been given a second chance. Edgar Allan Poe touches on it many times in The Masque of Red Death, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, The Murders of the Rue Morgue, and The Oblong Box. Frankenstein and Dracula definitely touch on it as well. The former discusses why man shouldn't play God and the perils that come from bringing a person back from the dead. Let's just say it doesn’t go so well. Dracula is of course about the immortal Count Dracula who sleeps in a coffin during the day and then at night emerges to drink the blood of his helpless victims so he can continue to stay young and live forever. He has an army of basically zombies who are neither alive nor dead and will roam the Earth forever as his undead servants doing his bidding. Returning to Edgar Allan Poe (who else?), The Tell-Tale Heart follows an insane murderer who goes around butchering innocent people. He is haunted day and night, by the spirits of his victims. Henry James' The Beast in the Jungle lives everyday fearing something terrible is going to happen to him. Zora Neale Hurston's Sweat where a husband is killed by a snake, he taunts his wife with. The story that follows is all about an abused widow coping with the death of her abusive husband. Lastly, I would use the example of Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro about a man on vacation trying to change careers. But he gets injured, fails to treat his wound and slowly wastes away from gangrene. At the end of the day, the ultimate desire of man is to live forever, transcend death and be remembered for all times. This is for example why those who helped build the pyramids did all that back breaking labor or why the cast of The Wizard of Oz were honored to work on the film and kept going even though they worked under horrific conditions,
and all suffered some sort of physical or mental damage.
Sebastian Junger's latest book is about his experience with death. He literally lost all of his blood and the transfused him at the last second. Somehow, he's still an atheist after seeing his father on the other side. I mean, sure, science might be able to explain the biology of it at some point, but I believe that we are connected to something much larger than biological mechanisms. That our brains are more like antennae than computers.
How many artists have said that they don't create anything, that they are an antenna or a conduit to something else?
An absolutely amazing article, Liza! I was absolutely blown away by this piece! Indeed, writers and other artists are the only ones who can really truly achieve immortality. They fear death because they have a passion and a lust for life and everything beautiful in it. This is why they have this fascination with the last days of one's life and the afterlife. I can think of so many examples of this I've observed in real life. A Christmas Carol explores this a little bit when the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrouge what the future will look like if he continues with his mean, miserly and selfish behavior. He sees the grave of Bob Cratchit's sickly son Tiny Tim and then is show his own. The men digging his grave comment on how his grave is quite lonely as no one came to his funeral. The ghost then sends him to his fiery end in the pits of h**l before he wakes up and realizes he's been given a second chance. Edgar Allan Poe touches on it many times in The Masque of Red Death, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, The Murders of the Rue Morgue, and The Oblong Box. Frankenstein and Dracula definitely touch on it as well. The former discusses why man shouldn't play God and the perils that come from bringing a person back from the dead. Let's just say it doesn’t go so well. Dracula is of course about the immortal Count Dracula who sleeps in a coffin during the day and then at night emerges to drink the blood of his helpless victims so he can continue to stay young and live forever. He has an army of basically zombies who are neither alive nor dead and will roam the Earth forever as his undead servants doing his bidding. Returning to Edgar Allan Poe (who else?), The Tell-Tale Heart follows an insane murderer who goes around butchering innocent people. He is haunted day and night, by the spirits of his victims. Henry James' The Beast in the Jungle lives everyday fearing something terrible is going to happen to him. Zora Neale Hurston's Sweat where a husband is killed by a snake, he taunts his wife with. The story that follows is all about an abused widow coping with the death of her abusive husband. Lastly, I would use the example of Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro about a man on vacation trying to change careers. But he gets injured, fails to treat his wound and slowly wastes away from gangrene. At the end of the day, the ultimate desire of man is to live forever, transcend death and be remembered for all times. This is for example why those who helped build the pyramids did all that back breaking labor or why the cast of The Wizard of Oz were honored to work on the film and kept going even though they worked under horrific conditions,
and all suffered some sort of physical or mental damage.
I’m not sure writers are more prone to the fear of death than anyone else-it’s just that the process of writing itself takes on a life of its own, a momentum that can lead anywhere, and that eventually feels inevitable. Edmund White once wrote that his sister marveled at his great memory when he wrote about their Texas childhood in one of his memoirs, but he knew that his memory was no better than anyone’s, and may have even been worse- it’s just that he was the one who sat down to write about their past. I think something similar happens when writers deal with the subject of death-their feelings are no different than anyone’s, but they are the ones with the ‘voice’, and that is what gets noticed.
"When you dream you do not know that your dreams are not real"
I am an artist and I have died. I died on the kitchen floor and was brought back by the paramedics in the ambulance.
Universal to my experience was fading light and voices painted in grey that were far away, unwavering but hushed.
Death is quiescent, a calm so peaceful that you realize there is nothing to fear. You float above and look down at your body then look up again and rise. Muted colors grow dim and you move toward a light far in the distance.
Great article, nicely done! And a seldom-seen reference to 'Symposium'; a favorite -
An absolutely amazing article, Liza! I was absolutely blown away by this piece! Indeed, writers and other artists are the only ones who can really truly achieve immortality. They fear death because they have a passion and a lust for life and everything beautiful in it. This is why they have this fascination with the last days of one's life and the afterlife. I can think of so many examples of this I've observed in real life. A Christmas Carol explores this a little bit when the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrouge what the future will look like if he continues with his mean, miserly and selfish behavior. He sees the grave of Bob Cratchit's sickly son Tiny Tim and then is show his own. The men digging his grave comment on how his grave is quite lonely as no one came to his funeral. The ghost then sends him to his fiery end in the pits of h**l before he wakes up and realizes he's been given a second chance. Edgar Allan Poe touches on it many times in The Masque of Red Death, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, The Murders of the Rue Morgue, and The Oblong Box. Frankenstein and Dracula definitely touch on it as well. The former discusses why man shouldn't play God and the perils that come from bringing a person back from the dead. Let's just say it doesn’t go so well. Dracula is of course about the immortal Count Dracula who sleeps in a coffin during the day and then at night emerges to drink the blood of his helpless victims so he can continue to stay young and live forever. He has an army of basically zombies who are neither alive nor dead and will roam the Earth forever as his undead servants doing his bidding. Returning to Edgar Allan Poe (who else?), The Tell-Tale Heart follows an insane murderer who goes around butchering innocent people. He is haunted day and night, by the spirits of his victims. Henry James' The Beast in the Jungle lives everyday fearing something terrible is going to happen to him. Zora Neale Hurston's Sweat where a husband is killed by a snake, he taunts his wife with. The story that follows is all about an abused widow coping with the death of her abusive husband. Lastly, I would use the example of Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro about a man on vacation trying to change careers. But he gets injured, fails to treat his wound and slowly wastes away from gangrene. At the end of the day, the ultimate desire of man is to live forever, transcend death and be remembered for all times. This is for example why those who helped build the pyramids did all that back breaking labor or why the cast of The Wizard of Oz were honored to work on the film and kept going even though they worked under horrific conditions,
and all suffered some sort of physical or mental damage.
Sebastian Junger's latest book is about his experience with death. He literally lost all of his blood and the transfused him at the last second. Somehow, he's still an atheist after seeing his father on the other side. I mean, sure, science might be able to explain the biology of it at some point, but I believe that we are connected to something much larger than biological mechanisms. That our brains are more like antennae than computers.
How many artists have said that they don't create anything, that they are an antenna or a conduit to something else?
An absolutely amazing article, Liza! I was absolutely blown away by this piece! Indeed, writers and other artists are the only ones who can really truly achieve immortality. They fear death because they have a passion and a lust for life and everything beautiful in it. This is why they have this fascination with the last days of one's life and the afterlife. I can think of so many examples of this I've observed in real life. A Christmas Carol explores this a little bit when the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrouge what the future will look like if he continues with his mean, miserly and selfish behavior. He sees the grave of Bob Cratchit's sickly son Tiny Tim and then is show his own. The men digging his grave comment on how his grave is quite lonely as no one came to his funeral. The ghost then sends him to his fiery end in the pits of h**l before he wakes up and realizes he's been given a second chance. Edgar Allan Poe touches on it many times in The Masque of Red Death, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, The Murders of the Rue Morgue, and The Oblong Box. Frankenstein and Dracula definitely touch on it as well. The former discusses why man shouldn't play God and the perils that come from bringing a person back from the dead. Let's just say it doesn’t go so well. Dracula is of course about the immortal Count Dracula who sleeps in a coffin during the day and then at night emerges to drink the blood of his helpless victims so he can continue to stay young and live forever. He has an army of basically zombies who are neither alive nor dead and will roam the Earth forever as his undead servants doing his bidding. Returning to Edgar Allan Poe (who else?), The Tell-Tale Heart follows an insane murderer who goes around butchering innocent people. He is haunted day and night, by the spirits of his victims. Henry James' The Beast in the Jungle lives everyday fearing something terrible is going to happen to him. Zora Neale Hurston's Sweat where a husband is killed by a snake, he taunts his wife with. The story that follows is all about an abused widow coping with the death of her abusive husband. Lastly, I would use the example of Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro about a man on vacation trying to change careers. But he gets injured, fails to treat his wound and slowly wastes away from gangrene. At the end of the day, the ultimate desire of man is to live forever, transcend death and be remembered for all times. This is for example why those who helped build the pyramids did all that back breaking labor or why the cast of The Wizard of Oz were honored to work on the film and kept going even though they worked under horrific conditions,
and all suffered some sort of physical or mental damage.
How about this one! https://open.substack.com/pub/johnnogowski/p/eveline-a-life-thats-frozen?r=7pf7u&utm_medium=ios
I’m not sure writers are more prone to the fear of death than anyone else-it’s just that the process of writing itself takes on a life of its own, a momentum that can lead anywhere, and that eventually feels inevitable. Edmund White once wrote that his sister marveled at his great memory when he wrote about their Texas childhood in one of his memoirs, but he knew that his memory was no better than anyone’s, and may have even been worse- it’s just that he was the one who sat down to write about their past. I think something similar happens when writers deal with the subject of death-their feelings are no different than anyone’s, but they are the ones with the ‘voice’, and that is what gets noticed.
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –
Emily Dickenson.
Mine is below:
Death is an old friend
Who stops by now and then,
Whispering of eternity
In a voice as soft as wind.
He does not badger,
He does not chide,
Knows no fury,
Knows no pride.
One day, he'll come for me,
In a carriage dark and still,
To carry me where shadows sleep,
Beyond the reach of will.
"When you dream you do not know that your dreams are not real"
I am an artist and I have died. I died on the kitchen floor and was brought back by the paramedics in the ambulance.
Universal to my experience was fading light and voices painted in grey that were far away, unwavering but hushed.
Death is quiescent, a calm so peaceful that you realize there is nothing to fear. You float above and look down at your body then look up again and rise. Muted colors grow dim and you move toward a light far in the distance.
My body may perish but my work is immortal...
I never thought of death as a matter of passion ,also by having children is a form of immortality great for you Lisa
Don't thank me, thank Plato
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis