Sleep Life to the Fullest

*Editor's note:  I am probably about to contradict a lot of things I wrote in my previous post about death, so true if you believe it's true, not true if you don't believe it's true, check at home.*

I hate the phrase "I'll sleep when I'm dead".  Why on earth would you want to do that?  First off, how do you know that you can sleep when you're dead?  Or that sleep has the same sensation and satisfaction as a good sleep-in till noon while you are still alive?

A friend of mine told me recently that when he has only a couple years left in his life he is going to stay awake as much as possible.  In my opinion, that is a terrible idea!  So you'll spend the last years of your life, which are probably already a questionable experience to begin with, sleep deprived and cranky, just because you want to "live life to the fullest"?  

Why not spend those last few years enjoying the feel of pillows and blankets and sheets and all that good stuff?  I mean, they call them restless spirits for a reason, people!  

What if in the afterlife, there is no sleep?  What if you spend eternity as a half-awake, half-asleep, exhausted, cantankerous wraith?  And its all because you didn't enjoy sleep when you could have, because you shunned sleep as a living being.   

See, this is why I don't believe that God wants us to deny ourselves.  Some religions forbid certain foods, men touching women and so on.  I think God (whoever and whatever that is) wanted us to eat good food when we want to eat it, fuck who makes us happy and enjoy the presence and company of our fellow man, because in the end, all we have is each other.  We have what we gave to the rest of the world, not what we denied ourselves.

Although I do know what my own personal hell would be, if the afterlife does come down to that.  I would be exhausted and trapped in Times Square on New Year's Eve.  Oh, and I have to pee.  And I am surround by tourists and someone has stolen my wallet and it's cold and awful and there is no escape!  For the rest of eternity.


Damn, this got all philosophical again.  Next time, irreverence all the way!

But Seriously, Folks . . .

I'd like to talk about death.

Over the past couple years I have come in contact with death.  It's made me wonder why it is such a taboo subject.

I am a firm believer that death is a part of life.  It is not a punishment, it is no retribution for something we have done.  It is like being born, or going through puberty, it is another transformation of life.  

Don't get me wrong, death can be very sad.  When my granddad died I was inconsolable for months.  The deep and abiding knowledge that someone I loved so completely was no longer on the same plane as me cut me to the quick, it hurt me in a way I had never been wounded before.   Knowing that I would never get the shy but incredibly loving hugs he would give, or hear that same story he told about WWII over and over again or see the way he would be as quiet as possible at family dinners, not because he didn't want to talk,  but because he wanted to get as much food as he could before my grandmother could yell at him was the closest to despair I had ever felt.  

But that was me, that was the living's response.  Granddad was ready.  He left quietly and full of love.  He was freed from the confusion and weakness that comes with age and is somewhere else, in some other form.  And while I miss him desperately, I would never wish him back to where he was.  His happiness is just as important as mine, and coming to understand that not only can we not prolong death forever, but we also, in the end, don't want to.  Living forever is not an attractive prospect.

I also have to take issue with the way media portrays death, especially if it comes at the end of a long illness.  Often we read that someone "lost their battle against cancer".  They make the deceased come across as if they were a loser, someone who wasn't good enough to win this epic struggle against an all knowing and inherently evil disease.  I hate to break it to you, but it is just a disease.  It has no agenda or dastardly plans.  A person does not lose to cancer or heart disease or AIDS or anything else.  Living with a disease is, once again, like birth, like puberty - it is another state of being and yes, it is not comfortable or dignified or somewhere anyone wants to be, but it is there.

We don't lose when we die.  We may be overcome by disease, but the disease isn't evil, it is just the way it was made.  We aren't being punished by a gathering of cells or a virulent virus.  

We are being asked to move into another state of being.  

I'll write something irreverent and insolent next, promise.