Mokokoma Mokhonoana's Blog: Essays by Mokokoma Mokhonoana - Posts Tagged "old-age"
Gone Too Soon
The death of a loved one alone is “painful” (or, so we are programmed). The death of a toddler hurts, for most, a couple of times more than that of an elderly.
The cause being that, I presume, we believe that being an elderly equals to having lived. Which is arguable. For there are, as we all know, 80-year-olds who have lived one year 80 times.
But that’s not what I would like to explore with this essay.
I am sure that we can all agree on the “Gone” part of the title of this essay; when it is used to refer to someone that is no more. It is the “Too Soon” that I’d like to address.
It is safe to presume that embedded within the “Too Soon” is the average lifespan of a human being. That is to say, “Too Soon” means “way before reaching the number of years that an average person is expected to live.”
(Keep the word “expected” in mind. It is the gist of my second point.)
This is yet another example of human beings being fooled by their tools.
Statistics are the underlying cause of our unenlightened usage of “Too Soon,” when referring to the death of a young one.
As a second point, I think that we are hurt, not by people, things, or, life, but by our expectations from people, things, or, life.
I am sure that the reader can see how this links with the previous point.
When a kid dies, we get hurt, not because they died (we all know that every living organism shares this destination), but because they died before reaching the “average” age that we expected them to reach.
It is mostly the realization that the grown-up that we hoped the kid will be, and, the things that we hoped the kid will accomplish, will never be … that causes us agony.
Logically, (ironically, by the aid of statistics), we all know that life inevitably gives birth to death. However, our blind reliance on statistics blinds our logical mind’s eyes.
(Within statistics lies an odd paradox. Statistics shows that an average person lives for, say, 70 years. While statistics shows that, in some cases, believing the previous statistic is misleading.)
Because of what statistics tells us (that an average lifespan is, say, 70 years), we call anything way below 70 years as “Too Soon” — and, at times, “unfair.”
We foolishly expect nature to work as per our desires and expectations.
Our being the cause of our suffering (through having expectations) isn’t limited to our relationship with death. Our relationship with others too brings us suffering … whenever those people do not do or behave as our expections.
More often than not, at the core of an about-to-be a divorcee’s hurting lies her having expected death to be the only thing that would lead to her losing her husband (“till death do us part?”).
To halve the number of times that you get hurt, halve the number of expectations that you have from people, things, or, life.
(Life is deadly. The second life is … death is inevitable.)
I guess, from the phrase “Gone Too Soon” one can presume that, once dead, those that have survived abortion are said to have “Lived Too Long.”
© Mokokoma Mokhonoana [ mokokoma.com + @mokokoma ]
The cause being that, I presume, we believe that being an elderly equals to having lived. Which is arguable. For there are, as we all know, 80-year-olds who have lived one year 80 times.
But that’s not what I would like to explore with this essay.
I am sure that we can all agree on the “Gone” part of the title of this essay; when it is used to refer to someone that is no more. It is the “Too Soon” that I’d like to address.
It is safe to presume that embedded within the “Too Soon” is the average lifespan of a human being. That is to say, “Too Soon” means “way before reaching the number of years that an average person is expected to live.”
(Keep the word “expected” in mind. It is the gist of my second point.)
This is yet another example of human beings being fooled by their tools.
Statistics are the underlying cause of our unenlightened usage of “Too Soon,” when referring to the death of a young one.
As a second point, I think that we are hurt, not by people, things, or, life, but by our expectations from people, things, or, life.
I am sure that the reader can see how this links with the previous point.
When a kid dies, we get hurt, not because they died (we all know that every living organism shares this destination), but because they died before reaching the “average” age that we expected them to reach.
It is mostly the realization that the grown-up that we hoped the kid will be, and, the things that we hoped the kid will accomplish, will never be … that causes us agony.
Logically, (ironically, by the aid of statistics), we all know that life inevitably gives birth to death. However, our blind reliance on statistics blinds our logical mind’s eyes.
(Within statistics lies an odd paradox. Statistics shows that an average person lives for, say, 70 years. While statistics shows that, in some cases, believing the previous statistic is misleading.)
Because of what statistics tells us (that an average lifespan is, say, 70 years), we call anything way below 70 years as “Too Soon” — and, at times, “unfair.”
We foolishly expect nature to work as per our desires and expectations.
Our being the cause of our suffering (through having expectations) isn’t limited to our relationship with death. Our relationship with others too brings us suffering … whenever those people do not do or behave as our expections.
More often than not, at the core of an about-to-be a divorcee’s hurting lies her having expected death to be the only thing that would lead to her losing her husband (“till death do us part?”).
To halve the number of times that you get hurt, halve the number of expectations that you have from people, things, or, life.
(Life is deadly. The second life is … death is inevitable.)
I guess, from the phrase “Gone Too Soon” one can presume that, once dead, those that have survived abortion are said to have “Lived Too Long.”
© Mokokoma Mokhonoana [ mokokoma.com + @mokokoma ]
An Open Letter to the Terminally ill
So, somebody in a white coat told you that you are dying?
Life sure is a bitch, isn’t it?
Well, that depends on what you mean by “life.” And what you mean by “bitch.”
Do I feel sorry for you?
No, I don’t.
Instead of being “humane,” I would rather run the risk of adding one more person to the list of people who are of an opinion that my opinions are a cancer to the minds of those who consume whatever seemingly random statement that was produced by my pen, mouth,keyboard, or, graphic tablet … by being philosophical. Instead of feeling sorry for you, I would rather remind you of a rather obvious fact of life. Hopefully, that will add value to whatever years, months, days, or, hours, that is left of your soon-to-only-exist-in-the-minds-of-those-who-know-you life.
Here goes:
Finally, life is forcing you to be fully present, or, to at least be more present than your average civilized man; to stop worrying about the tomorrow that you might not even see; to try to squeeze life out of every single breath; to emancipate all the opinions that were imprisoned by some mental tyrant called procrastination, or, the fear of being unpopular; to finally see that there is more to life than making a living.
While we, the not terminally ill, keep promising ourselves that we will, tomorrow, do, what we promised ourselves to do tomorrow, yesterday.
While we, the not terminally ill, toil to double our chances of getting a salary increase; merely to triple the odds of us realizing a decrease in the number of people who are not envious of the number of seconds that it takes our car to reach a hundred kilometers per hour.
While we, the not terminally ill, keep telling people what they would like to hear, at the expense of what we truly feel or think, all in the name of belonging, remaining employed, remaining sexually active, increasing the number of our Twitter followers, or, decreasing the number of Facebook friends who do not “like” our status updates. (As I have once aphorized, “For the most difficult way to be retweeted,or, liked: be thought-provoking. For the easiest way: quote Oprah, Rev.Run, or, the Bible.”)
While we, the not terminally ill, sit back while some beast called civilization squeeze as much energy as it can squeeze out of us … using rough, not to mention unnecessarily long, hands called office hours … to feed its insatiable profit-obsessed appetite; before it discards those whom it cannot exploit further. A stage otherwise known as retirement.
Having said that, even we, the not terminally ill, are dying.
That is to say, life is a terminal disease. To be living is to be dying. An aphorism that I have already published is ad rem. Here goes: “With every single day that you ‘survive,’ you get a day closer to your death.”
In addition to that, an innumerable number of we, the not terminally ill, will die before you, the terminally ill, do; regardless of how near your death is. As a matter of fact, some of we, the not terminally ill, who were alive whilst you were reading the last paragraph, are no more. (That might sound insignificant, but I doubt that the thought of your death being near would have been as terrifying as it is likely to be, if every single member of the human race were to die the second you do.)
Moreover, there are countless healthy human beings who, like you, the terminally ill, are on the verge of death. People suffering from some crippling disease called old age. A disease that ultimately converts a once active person into a spectator of life. For, while getting older might come with abilities, being old comes with disabilities. As I have once aphorized, “A man who lives long enough will be a boy twice.”
The moral of this “heartless” letter? Simple.
In a word, the, at first glance, seemingly exclusive title of this letter refers to every single human being—including the so-called illiterates.
To sum up, we are all terminally ill. For, if the living aren’t killed by some terminal disease, other human beings, accidents, etc., some patient disease called the passage of time will. And that also applies to infants, nuns, firefighters, presidents, CEOs, priests, and, virgins.
Until then, L.I.P. (Live in peace).
© Mokokoma Mokhonoana (mokokoma.com + @mokokoma)
Life sure is a bitch, isn’t it?
Well, that depends on what you mean by “life.” And what you mean by “bitch.”
Do I feel sorry for you?
No, I don’t.
Instead of being “humane,” I would rather run the risk of adding one more person to the list of people who are of an opinion that my opinions are a cancer to the minds of those who consume whatever seemingly random statement that was produced by my pen, mouth,keyboard, or, graphic tablet … by being philosophical. Instead of feeling sorry for you, I would rather remind you of a rather obvious fact of life. Hopefully, that will add value to whatever years, months, days, or, hours, that is left of your soon-to-only-exist-in-the-minds-of-those-who-know-you life.
Here goes:
Finally, life is forcing you to be fully present, or, to at least be more present than your average civilized man; to stop worrying about the tomorrow that you might not even see; to try to squeeze life out of every single breath; to emancipate all the opinions that were imprisoned by some mental tyrant called procrastination, or, the fear of being unpopular; to finally see that there is more to life than making a living.
While we, the not terminally ill, keep promising ourselves that we will, tomorrow, do, what we promised ourselves to do tomorrow, yesterday.
While we, the not terminally ill, toil to double our chances of getting a salary increase; merely to triple the odds of us realizing a decrease in the number of people who are not envious of the number of seconds that it takes our car to reach a hundred kilometers per hour.
While we, the not terminally ill, keep telling people what they would like to hear, at the expense of what we truly feel or think, all in the name of belonging, remaining employed, remaining sexually active, increasing the number of our Twitter followers, or, decreasing the number of Facebook friends who do not “like” our status updates. (As I have once aphorized, “For the most difficult way to be retweeted,or, liked: be thought-provoking. For the easiest way: quote Oprah, Rev.Run, or, the Bible.”)
While we, the not terminally ill, sit back while some beast called civilization squeeze as much energy as it can squeeze out of us … using rough, not to mention unnecessarily long, hands called office hours … to feed its insatiable profit-obsessed appetite; before it discards those whom it cannot exploit further. A stage otherwise known as retirement.
Having said that, even we, the not terminally ill, are dying.
That is to say, life is a terminal disease. To be living is to be dying. An aphorism that I have already published is ad rem. Here goes: “With every single day that you ‘survive,’ you get a day closer to your death.”
In addition to that, an innumerable number of we, the not terminally ill, will die before you, the terminally ill, do; regardless of how near your death is. As a matter of fact, some of we, the not terminally ill, who were alive whilst you were reading the last paragraph, are no more. (That might sound insignificant, but I doubt that the thought of your death being near would have been as terrifying as it is likely to be, if every single member of the human race were to die the second you do.)
Moreover, there are countless healthy human beings who, like you, the terminally ill, are on the verge of death. People suffering from some crippling disease called old age. A disease that ultimately converts a once active person into a spectator of life. For, while getting older might come with abilities, being old comes with disabilities. As I have once aphorized, “A man who lives long enough will be a boy twice.”
The moral of this “heartless” letter? Simple.
In a word, the, at first glance, seemingly exclusive title of this letter refers to every single human being—including the so-called illiterates.
To sum up, we are all terminally ill. For, if the living aren’t killed by some terminal disease, other human beings, accidents, etc., some patient disease called the passage of time will. And that also applies to infants, nuns, firefighters, presidents, CEOs, priests, and, virgins.
Until then, L.I.P. (Live in peace).
© Mokokoma Mokhonoana (mokokoma.com + @mokokoma)
Essays by Mokokoma Mokhonoana
(A selection of a few published writings by Mokokoma. For more writings: http://mokokoma.com)
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