Don't Celebrate My Life

My best friend from childhood killed himself this summer. We hadn't kept in touch really, but we would occasionally run into each other when I visited my parents in my hometown over the years. Regardless, his shadow casts very, very large over my formative years.

As seems to be a growing practice, his church held a "celebration of life" service for him. Not a "funeral," but a "celebration of life." When my mother told me this, I briefly remarked that I suspected that it was just a euphemism, but she disagreed, arguing that it was a categorically different event. I worry that this trend is part of (or at least parallel with) the positive thinking movement. (For an excellent takedown, see Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-Sided.) I worry, too, that this is part of the death negative movement that has increasingly dominated American culture for generations. (For solid death-positive work, see Caitlin Doughty's Ask a Mortician). Funerals, wakes, and other traditional mourning rituals serve social and psychological functions. They make us happier in the long term but only by allowing us collectively to be sad in the immediate term. Celebrate the lives of the living; mourn the deaths of the departed.

When I die, I give you permission to mourn, to be sad, even depressed. The pain of loss is not something that can be wished away by focusing on the "good times." Our brains need time to process loss. It is time that shouldn't be avoided by taking a pill or thinking happy thoughts. We are radically social animals, and the ultimate rupturing of a social relationship is the permanence of death. This is why I hope that you will weep when I pass, that you will rent garments, as some translations of the Bible put it. I hope these things because they will help you ultimately to move past my death in a way that no celebration of my life could.

--

Just to be clear, I am neither depressed nor suicidal. I'm doing quite well mentally and emotionally.

If you are struggling, know that my world is better with you alive in it. Call (1-800-273-8255) or chat online with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You are loved.

*The Purge*: Crime, Violence, and Ritual?

I just saw the preview for this movie today for the first time.



I'm excited about it because it has that same Lottery/Hunger Games-thing going on. Am I unrealistic in my hope that this film might be a statement on the criminal justice system and violence and perhaps even race?

Reza and the Full Body Scan

I saw this tweet from author Reza Aslan a couple days ago that made me think:

RT @rezaaslan: Experts tell me backpack bomb going off at security line in LAX or JFK would kill WAY MORE than a bomb going off on a plane, no way to stop
[approx. 6:55 PM Tuesday 6 September]

Others have noted the following before, but it's worth repeating. While the purported purpose of safety procedures (say that three times fast) is increased safety, it often does not match up so well to its intent. Case in point, forcing people to stand around, densely packed into a confined area essentially makes them easy targets for would-be terrorists, an ironic and unintended consequence. Now that we know it, will we change it? That is highly unlikely but not for the reasons that most would expect. It's not about institutional inertia or bureaucratic inefficiency. Instead, we have to look to the safety procedure itself. Irrespective of whether it actually makes us safer or not, the ritual of airport security helps us to maintain the irrational, shared belief in our safety. Flying in an airplane, as mundane as it has become for a large chunk of the population, is still an unnatural act that creates a great deal of anxiety, especially when we consider the history of symbolic violence done in midair by religious and political extremists/marginalists. If we didn't have these rituals, we all might suddenly realize how irrational the entire situation was and stop traveling by air, and if enough of us started thinking this way, our economy and larger social organization would suffer.