Creating death
https://childfreevoices.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/creating-death/[🡕]
Today, I was reminded of something important. It’s something that I’ve written about in various places before. When people read it, they often find it depressing or nihilistic, and really, thinking that says a lot about them. It means that they can’t cope with death as it really is, a horrific experience and a certainty.
Of course everyone knows, on an intellectual level, that they won’t live forever. But that doesn’t mean that they really acknowledge it. But they don’t like to think about. They don’t like to think about what it means. And they don’t like to realize that nothing they do to make themselves happy now will ever do anything to prevent it or to minimize their final suffering later. It makes them uncomfortable to really deal with the matter of death. And because of this denial and dismissal of death, the cycle is allowed to perpetuate.
Your parents killed you. They don’t acknowledge it, and maybe you’re uncomfortable acknowledging it, but it’s true. They killed you. They knew before you were brought into this world that you would inevitably suffer and die, but they forced you into existence anyway. It wasn’t a favor to you that they did so; you never asked to be born and had no say in the matter, and if you never existed there would be no “you” to miss anything, just like all of your hypothetical siblings who never existed. Your parents knew that your fate was sealed from the moment that you were born, but they did not acknowledge it. Your suffering and death is completely unnecessary, your parents have caused it. They have brought more pain and death into the world than there otherwise would have been.
Your parents do not take responsibility for this, of course. But it is their fault just the same. We would characterize their actions as malicious, but the truth is, they were not thinking of you at all. They were only thinking about themselves, what suits their egos. After all, it’s unlikely that they’ll actually still be around to witness the consequences of their decision, your death, so they can just ignore it and they do just that. Parents bank on the unlikelihood that they’ll actually see their offspring die. Why do you think that one rationale for abortion is that a given child born would be severely defective and die early? The parents will have to see it and will have to know that they’ve inflicted it if they chose not to abort while in possession of this knowledge. But we all die, so what’s the difference? The difference is the parents actually seeing and having to live with what they’ve done. And so here it is. It may not mean anything to you now, but when you’re on your deathbed, it may just occur to you that all of the anguish you’ve ever suffered, all the toil you’ve ever endured, and all the times you ever struggled, and your eventual death, was all because of the petty whims of someone who is likely long dead by then.
Few people understand death. Most people have not witnessed the death of someone up close, at least not before breeding. And even those that do are unlikely to really think to hard about what it means. And so they breed anyway. By the time they know what death is, it’s much too late to prevent inflicting it on others. Your parents were killed by their parents, who were killed by their parents. It goes on because no one is comfortable with really acknowledging the inevitability of death. People are so unwilling to imagine their own end, or the world without them. So they don’t. That’s why they’re here and that’s why you’re here.
A few years back, I watched my grandfather die of cancer. I was only present for his final days and can only imagine what others who were with him for longer saw and felt. But those few days were enough. I’ve thought this before, but in my discomfort I wished that I could push the grim thoughts aside. But now, I can not deny the truth any longer. In the presence of what moaning creature was once my beloved grandpa, I could no longer deny the truth. His suffering was entirely avoidable if only he had never existed in the first place. Some woman, long dead, who no doubt had looked him in the eyes many times and told him she loved him, had killed him. His fate was sealed the day he was born. He lived and died because someone else thought his existence would bring her pleasure. Is anyone’s ego really worth that, the existence, suffering, and inevitable death of another?
I realized looking at him that I would see this same scene again. I will watch many other people die in this way. The details may vary, but the end is the same. Each and every person who you or I ever met or will ever met will suffer and die, all because someone else thought that their existence would bring them, the parents, some short-term egotistical satisfaction. I knew too that some day it would be my turn. One day, I would be know such unimaginable pain and dread as must come at the end, and then whatever horrific feeling dying really is. Maybe I’d go like my grandfather, in a diaper on a hospital bed, unable to eat or drink, slowly losing all grip on reality and eventually becoming little more than a breathing husk, moaning out in agony until someone ups the morphine dosage and grants me oblivion once again, all while everyone around either weeps or tries to ignore me, all guiltily wishing that I’d just go soon so at least the suffering would at last end. Or maybe the details will be lightly different, it matters not, it’s all the same.
For no matter what future your parents imagined for you in academics or career or other achievements, death is your true future. It was the one thing that was always certain, but yet it never considered. Your parents have killed you, reader. There is nothing that we can do about it now. We were never given a say in our own existence and what it means: death. Sure, we can find our ways to enjoy our time, make the most of what we have, and we may as well. But we should never ignore that life means death, lest we doom others to the same fate.
I am preaching to the choir here on this blog, but I shall proceed anyway. The only way to avoid the deaths of your offspring is simply not to force them into being in the first place. Acknowledge that, if you have children, no matter what you do and no matter what kind of parent you could possibly be, you are only giving life in as much as you are giving death. Those children would suffer and die and it would all be because of you and your selfish whims. Could you really doom someone to such a fate, know that you’ve done so, and look that person in the eyes and claim to love them, hoping that they would never realize what you’ve really inflicted upon them? I could not.
Realize that life means death. Your parents killed you. And you, you may not have the power to really save lives, but you do have the power to at least prevent more deaths. Don’t kill anyone by making them live. Coping with death, really understanding death, means acknowledging this.
Oh, and now that we understand what it really means, happy Mothers’ Day.