Death, particularly in Western society, is a subject that is not easy to grapple with. Even writing this piece was difficult. But still, it remains a constant part of our existence. So naturally, humans have come up with ways to deal with deaths’ refusal to die.
From Asia to New Orleans, cultures all over the world have developed burial rites, rituals and celebrations around death and the dead, many of which being extremely intricate and sophisticated. In Mexico, Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is celebrated on November 1-2 and is a time when the souls of the dead are reunited with their living families. Characterized by parades, food and drink, and costumes, it bears a similar resemblance to Halloween. Originally a pagan holiday, Samhain also includes feasting, dancing, and the sharing of stories of those who’ve passed on to the next life. In Madagascar, Famadihana involves unearthing the dead and replacing old burial clothes with new ones. This time is also one of celebration where living family members are reacquainted with deceased ones and share stories about them in their honor.
With a robust death culture in the East, you’d be hard pressed to find the same in the West. In fact, death rituals and elaborate beliefs have ceased to exist here. Instead of celebration and/or reverence around death, western society fears and avoids it. Where other cultures revere their elders, western culture reveres its youth. Where death and mortality in other cultures is an important and natural part of life, western culture sees death as the inferior and scary sibling of life. Where death is celebrated or mourned in community, death in the west has been relegated to the privacy of a home or chapel and is expected to be kept within the family.
Any conversation around death is discouraged. People who’ve lost are expected to grieve quickly and move on. They are told to keep their mourning private only discussing it with a therapist or close friends and family. Those who are bold enough to mention it in public are expected to only do so in passing so as to not make others uncomfortable. When death is discussed in the public sphere it’s done through ghost stories and spooky imagery about souls who have passed on sending us a clear message; don’t remember the dead, be afraid of them.
This hasn’t always been the case. During the Middle Ages, Renaissance and in ancient Rome wearing dark or white clothing was a common tradition during times of mourning. When the Bubonic Plague ravaged Europe the overwhelming amount of deaths and the risks that came with touching dead bodies made it difficult to continue certain traditions. Many of these included bathing the body and laying out in the open to allow final goodbyes to be said. Instead, mass graves were dug up for those who had passed on due to the plague.
It wasn’t until the Victorian era when transparency around death began to make a comeback. Because mortality rates were so high, open discussions around planning for your funeral were common in society. Mourning rituals including dress codes and distinct periods of mourning were also very present with those who grieved being allowed to as many years as required to mourn. Unlike modern times, mourning was often public with those who grieved wearing a lock of the deceased hair after a certain period of time had passed.
Death rituals were also present during early America. After a death, celebration and feasting occurred during the wake and somber and quiet ponderings took place during the funeral. The night before the burial, the body was watched over by friends and family. Grieving continued to be a public affair, with eulogies being printed out in newspapers and wakes being communal events. A growth in population meant increasingly elaborate death rituals and exchanging gifts and lavish funeral services amongst those wealthy enough to afford it became common practice.
Things began to change when advancements in medicine led to a decrease in mortality rates. With the results of these breakthroughs being less death, the focus shifted to preventing death altogether.
As a result, life has become something we cling to sometimes against our best interests. We’ve invested countless dollars into creams and serums to help us look younger and workouts and diets to help us live longer. Although living longer certainly has its benefits, we’re not just maintaining our fitness levels for our health or even a better quality of life. We do it in hopes of staving off death for as long as possible. In doing so we’ve created people who are unable to reconcile and handle it.
The inability to do this has haunted me all of my life. It popped up upon hearing the news one of my classmates I had been taking organic chemistry with had died. The sudden death of Cameroon Boyce and Angus Cloud both young and upcoming actors both shocked and scared me. Although I had never met any of these people, their deaths reminded me of the fragility of life and my own mortality. In these moments, I found myself unequipped to deal with the distress that came with really facing death as a possibility for myself.
Not only has this culture abandoned us to mourn alone, but it’s done so without the tools to mourn properly. We’re left with family members who don’t know how to let go of loved ones on life support, leaving machines to keep alive a body a soul may no longer be occupying for far too long resulting in both them and the patient suffering. We’d rather have a dangerous pregnancy be carried to term regardless of the physical or financial risks it poses to the mother. Even if a pregnancy is discovered to be nonviable in the minds of many, a life of pain and struggle for mom and baby is a much better alternative to never having existed at all.
In our endeavors to prolong life, everything around us has become disposable as we struggle to find things to give it purpose. Capitalism encourages a consumerist mindset that we buy into eagerly. Hoping to find fulfillment we invest in clothes, beauty products, homes, cars, and vacations and when that doesn’t work we just buy more stuff.
With the advent of AI, the real world is beginning to resemble a dystopian one. In the Netflix show, Altered Carbon, humanity has unlocked the key to immortality by creating objects called stacks. A person can download their consciousness into one making it so that as long as their stack is undamaged they can live forever even when their body is. In this world, the uber-wealthy live obscenely luxurious lives but the relationships they have with each other are more gruesome and callous as they treat even their bodies as replaceable. The characters indulge in incredibly gory sex acts, watch couples tear each other apart in bloody duels, and relationships gone way past their expiration date become toxic and poisonous. They are terrified of dying but the sweet taste of life dissolved on their taste buds a long time ago.
As I’ve gotten deeper into my spirituality I’ve begun to appreciate universal equilibrium and what must be done to maintain it. Until humans crack the code of how to live a more harmonious life there is no other way around a simple fact; to be anti-death is to be anti-life. Accepting an eventual death as a part of life is a crucial part of our humanity. Not in a nihilistic way that declares life as not worth valuing because we’re all going to die anyway, but in a respectful way that recognizes that there is a beginning and end to everything.
With that said, I’m very uncertain about how to end this piece. I understand this could make those profoundly affected by death angry. Being told that you will never be able to interact with your loved ones again in some philosophical bullshit article I can imagine is very enraging. But I wonder if these people would feel the same if we lived in a society more accepting of their grief. What if people didn’t go quiet with discomfort when death was mentioned? What if people were allowed to grieve for as long as they needed? What if we allowed death to hold as much weight publically as we did life? I wonder if instead of candy and horror movies, Halloween was a way to honor death. Would people be as mad in the face of commentary like this?
Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween
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