What Makes me Different
First thing is first. I'm not trying to make myself seem "special" or anything. I just feel like maybe I've looked at things differently for a long time and I think I'm starting to zero in on what it is. Maybe someone else is like that and this will help them. Also this post is going to sound very goth because it focuses on my approach to death and how I think about death. It started with reading an article on the BBC's website called What if We Knew When and Wow We'd Die?. This discusses an important topic. How different people think about death and how that affects their approach to life. It speculates how people would react if death were a more concrete event that we knew exactly when and how it was coming.
Instead, many people probably would choose to check out of life and cease to contribute meaningfully to society - not necessarily because they are lazy, but because they are overtaken by a feeling of pointlessness.
Brandon Ambrosino, What if We Knew When and Wow We'd Die? available digically on the BBC Website, March 14th 2016.
I feel like going "Oh my god that's so me!" I have an overwhelming sense of ennui about things and-- quite honestly-- question why I bother. Maybe it's depression. Maybe it's just how I am. However reading this seemed to open my eyes somewhat to the fact that a pre-occupation with death is not typical of the baseline 'adult' as such. That is, I think about death a lot. Usually a bit every day. I ask questions like "is this how I die?" or "I wonder if I won't wake up tomorrow." As of yet I always have. I have figured out it would take about five medium-sized cats to eat my corpse before it started to smell. This is all quite natural for me. It's my idle thoughts. However I've been increasingly understanding that this experience is not the typical experience-- that idly contemplating death is not what most people do.
I'm not trying to make myself sound deep or mysterious or poetic. I know this reads like a sixteen year old goth kid who writes black poetry on black ink and only eats bread sandwiches because they're empty like his life. Maybe, however there's someone out there who also has a real pre-occupation with death-- or mortality. Maybe this is what Emily Dickinson was on about. One of my favorite poems is a parody of her works titled Skinny Domicile. I'm getting use out of my blockquotes this time.
I have a skinny Domicile--
Its Door is very narrow.
'Twill keep--I hope--the Reaper out--
His Scythe--and Bones--and Marrow.
Since Death is not a portly Chap,
The Entrance must be thin--
So--when my Final Moment comes--
He cannot wriggle in.
That's why I don't go out that much--
I can't fit through that Portal.
How dumb--to waste my Social Life
On Plans to be--immortal--Skinny Somicilein Anagram Poetry on hte Modern Humorist website, May 4th 2000. Falsely credited to Emily Dickinson for the joke.
Perhaps that inclusion is ancillary to my argument. Perhaps this is just a meandering stroll down my thoughts. I'm just trying to-- eventually!-- understand myself and hopefully help someone else understand themself as well.