are you ready to die

If I die today, someone is going to find a lot of really explicit photos, videos and other recordings that will most likely shock those who love me most, to death. Bill Hicks once said that he thought it would be funny if his family found the porno wing of his house after he died. He made light of the situation, but for some people that isn't too far from a reality. In my case, there is no porno wing, but there are things that I have around that probably need to be censored before my end.

Of course, you never know when the end is near and being out of position when the end comes could make things difficult for those who have to sort through your stuff when the time comes. I think of this quite a bit when I am driving in my car, hundreds of miles from home, tired behind the wheel and not sure if I am going to pass out, hit a tree and die. All I think about in that mania is, If I die here, someone is going to find, blah, blah, blah - have a stroke and die on a pile of my secrets. This line of thinking has brought me to today's question... How ready can you ever be to die?

The only true way to know you are ready to die is when the quality of life you are experiencing is decreasing and the future only shows more of the same. If your brain is still with you (and it is always with you - Terry Shaivo can tell you all about that) then the last part to go will be the final question that your brain never asks itself, which is - Now? Most of the time, your brain will hold out, creating or justifying reasons for life. Clinging to remote possibilites and wishful thinking. That is because you are alive and that is what your brain enjoys more than anything - Living. Your brain wants to live. It wants to see, smell, touch, taste, hear and experience all it can. It wants all the variables that life has to offer and is not ready to call it a day until all those options are exhausted. Never being able to exhaust them all is what forces the brain to continue to press on. When you get in a terrible accident and fall in to a coma, your brain fights back and won't let the body go because it feels there are things it still wants to do. It works to heal the body so that it can get back out there and do some more. This is true of people suffering from a long illness as well, they hold on to the belief that they will get better and they will be able to continue to do everything possible. Curiosity keeps us alive. It's harder than you think to end it all. Your brain is full of switches that have to be turned off before it will let you get to that point.

Your brain does know when it's licked. It does know when the quality of life you were living is no longer an option. It sees the future without arms, legs, ears, eyes, taste and functional speech and it tries to justify a happiness in that world. If it finds one, it will fight to keep you alive, if it does not and only feels that life will be less than satisfactory, it will shut down and start taking the long, slow steps toward the end.

We see the end in many different ways. For some, heaven is on the other side and a glorious life without physical joy will be found on clouds. Not the clouds that destroyed New Orleans or the one that hangs heavy over San Francisco in the morning, no these are magic clouds and you can do anything you didn't do on earth.. When you die. Then there are those that feel you come back to life after you die, in another body, but back to life nonetheless. You have things to learn and you were slack on this last attempt. Your soul finds a new baby and, without any memory of what you did in the last body, you start over again, hopefully you will learn what it is you needed to learn and then you will.... You will... I don't know, become a Shepard? My favorite option of what lies beyond death is this... Decomposition. You start to resemble a wilted flower, and then you resemble soil. Then your body becomes a place where flowers can grow. I like that.

You will never be ready to die. Not in war, not in marriage, not in depression, not in happiness, not in church, not in anything. You will live until your brain decides it's time. When that day comes, will you have your things in order? Will you discard your naughty photos before you lose the ability to do so? Did you tell everyone everything you were supposed too? What will become of the mess you leave behind? Who is in charge of cleaning it up? How much of it can we clean up and how much of it do we have to keep? Was there something that you were working on that needs some further attention by someone else? What is to become of your remains? Who knows where to find the information about what to do? Who are you passing the reins of your life too to complete the steps you didn't take? What messages can you share now that you couldn't share before?

I would hate to think that the message I am going to leave is that I enjoyed a lot of couples over the years and for some reason I never was able to hold a camera still when I was on top.