The Virus of Death
I'm really worried, lets not beat about the bush here, by the expected H5N1 bird-flu outbreak - whether it will be called Bird-flu, H5N1, or something more exotic if/when it happens (the Hong Kong Fluey? Shouldn't joke...) - we'll have to see. Of course, scientists now know that the Spanish Flu of 1918 was itself an avian flu - unlucky Spaniards got the blame, when it was our feathered friends (enemies?) who were the culprits. Actually, that's not strictly true - Spanish Flu got its name because of the high numbers of deaths reported in Spain from the virus. Anyway, this is what scares everyone the most I think (it's what scares me), thinking that we could have something on that scale on our hands.
I think there's probably a lot that can be gleaned, if only in order to prepare ones mind for such a disaster (if that's possible), from studying that outbreak in 1918. We sat and watched the PBS documentary Secrets of the Dead:Killer Flu last night, and very cheery it was too (not). I've ordered this book also, and will post any possibly helpful or insightful points here as I read.
I think what I got most from the program is probably something not a lot of people would take from it, and I would describe this as a sense of the tragedy of old age! Maybe it's because of my religious upbringing, but I just don't - can't- see any sort of death as being natural, as opposed to one that is unnatural. Death to me seems unnatural'.' [period] This is what I mean: an old lady was interviewed who was alive in 1918, who could remember her mother dying from the Spanish Flu. The program kept flicking between the old woman's face and the face of a young victim of the flu. Now, here's my point: the old woman looked - looks, as she is alive - no less destroyed, in fact more destroyed - than the influenza victim. Why should this be any less sad? I think that an advanced, perhaps immortal species, lets say, would be more horrified by the old woman's face if they happened to receive this one program across space - "uuugh! What's happened to her!" - than by the face of the deceased victim. Two faces of death I would call them, neither one more natural than the other. Except we do view the old woman's "condition" - old age - as natural, and I suppose by any definition it is, for it's the only thing we've ever known. Well, even if this is the case, I feel no less sad looking at her than I do looking at any dead persons face, and we all have those faces, don't we? In the way that we are not our faces, that it is the unchanging person inside us that dies - we all have the same death, and so death is never more or less tragic for any of us.
I can't help thinking that death is a virus, unseen, which has come from who knows where, and that may yet disappear from our species. Is this because I've been brought up being told it comes from here and will disappear whence it came? I want to believe it.
What I'm getting at in a roundabout way is that any death annuls life completely, as if I/you were never here, no matter how or when that death takes us. There's no such thing as a good innings (as I've said before). If there is no prospect of eternity in our future, then life is futile - at least in the way that the life enjoyed by someone in Norway who lived 400 years ago, who is not remembered, who has no gravestone, was a futile life. He or she may as well never have existed. Only eternity can make sense of eternity, anything less than an eternal existence is no existence at all, in my opinion.
So the predicted pandemic worries me, but only in the way that life worries me, knowing that I will die. Given that it doesn't matter when and where I die, I think the thing is to be prepared to die, anywhere, at any time. This doesn't mean accepting it with a shrug, or not trying to live as long as possible - a seemingly irrepressible instinct. Should I then try and get hold of some tamiflu, whatever the cost? Should I be buying tinned corned beef and toilet paper, knowing that the virus could cause economic collapse, and that the lorry drivers who bring our supermarkets food are just one weak link in a long weak chain? I don't know. Should I buy a gun to protect my family from people after our food, or worse, just in case things get really bad? I don't know.
It's weird and incorrect I know but the image that keeps springing to mind when I think of this pandemic is that of a group of Africans sitting around a TV in some remote village watching us die (for a change). Think about that. I know that Africans have just as much chance of dying (perhaps more given the high H.I.V. infection rate) as us, but there you go. Thinking about the TV, a major source of our information on this subject: things on the TV just don't seem as real as real life to me, especially when fact and fiction are mixed up so well. TV death seems less real than real death too: past death (Spanish Flu guy), present death (starving Africans) but especially future death all seem unreal. This is how I think about future death: the bird flu pandemic could be likened to watching the weather on TV, and being warned that the place you live is in the path of a hurricane. Even though it's a lovely sunny day outside, you've still got to get the hell out of there, or if you can't, you've got to prepare yourself. You have to picture what will happen: the windows blowing through, the roof blowing off, people around you dying, perhaps you dying, and try to prepare for all that. It may seem so unlikely given the situation outside your window, but you've got to SEE it happening to you, really put yourself in that position, convince yourself that it's not unlikely, but just the opposite - see the future reality, see the future death - to be the most prepared. The satellite image of the moving hurricane is like the new cases of avian flu popping up on maps of Europe, getting closer and closer, if and when the pandemic strikes. We are ALL in it's path if that happens, there's nowhere to evacuate to, so we need to prepare ourselves, mentally if nothing else.
To finish on a positive note (no pun intended), the possible futility of life needn't in my opinion mar the enjoyment of it, it may even heighten the value of the time we have to enjoy, precious as it's limited supply makes it. Kurt Vonnegut gives us a nice way to look at things - here's an extract from a recent interview:
"In A Man Without a Country, he repeats something his Uncle Alex used to say when they were sitting under an apple tree, chatting and drinking lemonade.
I think there's probably a lot that can be gleaned, if only in order to prepare ones mind for such a disaster (if that's possible), from studying that outbreak in 1918. We sat and watched the PBS documentary Secrets of the Dead:Killer Flu last night, and very cheery it was too (not). I've ordered this book also, and will post any possibly helpful or insightful points here as I read.
I think what I got most from the program is probably something not a lot of people would take from it, and I would describe this as a sense of the tragedy of old age! Maybe it's because of my religious upbringing, but I just don't - can't- see any sort of death as being natural, as opposed to one that is unnatural. Death to me seems unnatural'.' [period] This is what I mean: an old lady was interviewed who was alive in 1918, who could remember her mother dying from the Spanish Flu. The program kept flicking between the old woman's face and the face of a young victim of the flu. Now, here's my point: the old woman looked - looks, as she is alive - no less destroyed, in fact more destroyed - than the influenza victim. Why should this be any less sad? I think that an advanced, perhaps immortal species, lets say, would be more horrified by the old woman's face if they happened to receive this one program across space - "uuugh! What's happened to her!" - than by the face of the deceased victim. Two faces of death I would call them, neither one more natural than the other. Except we do view the old woman's "condition" - old age - as natural, and I suppose by any definition it is, for it's the only thing we've ever known. Well, even if this is the case, I feel no less sad looking at her than I do looking at any dead persons face, and we all have those faces, don't we? In the way that we are not our faces, that it is the unchanging person inside us that dies - we all have the same death, and so death is never more or less tragic for any of us.
I can't help thinking that death is a virus, unseen, which has come from who knows where, and that may yet disappear from our species. Is this because I've been brought up being told it comes from here and will disappear whence it came? I want to believe it.
What I'm getting at in a roundabout way is that any death annuls life completely, as if I/you were never here, no matter how or when that death takes us. There's no such thing as a good innings (as I've said before). If there is no prospect of eternity in our future, then life is futile - at least in the way that the life enjoyed by someone in Norway who lived 400 years ago, who is not remembered, who has no gravestone, was a futile life. He or she may as well never have existed. Only eternity can make sense of eternity, anything less than an eternal existence is no existence at all, in my opinion.
So the predicted pandemic worries me, but only in the way that life worries me, knowing that I will die. Given that it doesn't matter when and where I die, I think the thing is to be prepared to die, anywhere, at any time. This doesn't mean accepting it with a shrug, or not trying to live as long as possible - a seemingly irrepressible instinct. Should I then try and get hold of some tamiflu, whatever the cost? Should I be buying tinned corned beef and toilet paper, knowing that the virus could cause economic collapse, and that the lorry drivers who bring our supermarkets food are just one weak link in a long weak chain? I don't know. Should I buy a gun to protect my family from people after our food, or worse, just in case things get really bad? I don't know.
It's weird and incorrect I know but the image that keeps springing to mind when I think of this pandemic is that of a group of Africans sitting around a TV in some remote village watching us die (for a change). Think about that. I know that Africans have just as much chance of dying (perhaps more given the high H.I.V. infection rate) as us, but there you go. Thinking about the TV, a major source of our information on this subject: things on the TV just don't seem as real as real life to me, especially when fact and fiction are mixed up so well. TV death seems less real than real death too: past death (Spanish Flu guy), present death (starving Africans) but especially future death all seem unreal. This is how I think about future death: the bird flu pandemic could be likened to watching the weather on TV, and being warned that the place you live is in the path of a hurricane. Even though it's a lovely sunny day outside, you've still got to get the hell out of there, or if you can't, you've got to prepare yourself. You have to picture what will happen: the windows blowing through, the roof blowing off, people around you dying, perhaps you dying, and try to prepare for all that. It may seem so unlikely given the situation outside your window, but you've got to SEE it happening to you, really put yourself in that position, convince yourself that it's not unlikely, but just the opposite - see the future reality, see the future death - to be the most prepared. The satellite image of the moving hurricane is like the new cases of avian flu popping up on maps of Europe, getting closer and closer, if and when the pandemic strikes. We are ALL in it's path if that happens, there's nowhere to evacuate to, so we need to prepare ourselves, mentally if nothing else.
To finish on a positive note (no pun intended), the possible futility of life needn't in my opinion mar the enjoyment of it, it may even heighten the value of the time we have to enjoy, precious as it's limited supply makes it. Kurt Vonnegut gives us a nice way to look at things - here's an extract from a recent interview:
"In A Man Without a Country, he repeats something his Uncle Alex used to say when they were sitting under an apple tree, chatting and drinking lemonade.
"Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.' "
It is a saying he now carries around with him, and he urges everyone to "please notice when you are happy." "
posted by John Doran-Armstrong at 1:45 PM
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