A Mun!
![thedailywhat:
Serious Ink of the Day: 81-year-old Joy Tomkins of Downham Market, Norfolk, wanted to make sure no one tried to bring her back from the dead, so she did what any normal grandmother of six would do: She had “Do Not Resuscitate” tattooed on her chest.
“I do not want to be half dead, I want to be fully dead,” said Tomkins, who suffers from arthritis, Reynard’s disease, and diabetes. “I’m afraid the medical profession will, with the best of intentions, keep me alive when I don’t want to be alive.”
Despite her wishes, a General Medical Council spokesman said Tomkins’ ink will likely be ignored. “Mrs Tomkins’ tattoo would not be enough information by itself for a doctor to make this decision on in an emergency.”
The tattoo, of course, is just a backup: Tomkins has a living will that says the exact same thing.
[mirror.]
It’s funny this showed up on my dashboard because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about death (from natural causes). It started with the passing of Jack Layton and how his death triggered a wave of sympathy and mourning in Canada. He was a great man and surely his contribution to Canada surpassed whatever political platform he stood upon. He is a source of sheer optimism and infectious pride for our country. Despite his energy, newspapers were flooded with the word ‘loss’ or how Layton ‘lost’ his battle against cancer and it had me thinking about the conventional words and thoughts that surround death in this culture. We often say ‘sorry for your loss’ to close friends and relatives of the passed, but I feel these words/sentiments are grossly mis-aligned from the ‘truth’. Death should be a celebration. At what better moment can a life be more celebrated than at the crossroads of life to death? That may not make sense to you and I realize this will fall on resistant ears and minds, but I’ve become a supporter of letting a life pass at the moment the ‘universe/god’ deems it to be appropriate. I think Jack left with intention. He did NOT give up any fight or lose any battle with a disease. His family, friends and Canada have NOT lost anything. He instilled and empowered an entire nation, inspired the masses (and continues to do so) and he will forever be a part of Canada.
I attended a wake today for a family friend who passed suddenly at 43. I appropriated myself with usual funeral convention and remained mostly stoic, taking caution not to offend by smiling too much. As much as my instinct wanted to, I didn’t feel it was my place to impart my thoughts on death. No part of me would ever fully understand the other minds in the room and a funeral doesn’t seem to be a time to share unconventional wisdom on death. At any rate, I was talking to my uncle (not related, but I refer to most family friend elders as uncle or aunt) and he was describing the extreme lengths of treatment administered to save his nephew. His description was heartbreaking and the attempts to save his life sounded desperate, chaotic and at times obscene. First I thought of the irony that the hospital’s over-treatment may have accelerated his death and then I thought about prolonging life in general.
Our health system is designed to save a life at nearly all cost and I don’t discount that effort. Sometimes, a brush with death is meant to be JUST that. BUT, perhaps there is ALSO real value behind acknowledging universal intention. Death is a part of all life. The moment we lose our fear of it and release any attachments we might have to that person’s physical body/presence, is the moment we accept. Acceptance is the key to all happiness. The most difficult aspect of death is the inability to accept the change.
It’s impossible to ever ask the dead what they were thinking upon death, but there must be choice involved. I hope the world will someday abandon traditional images of death as this sweeping dark force that steals away our lives. I think death is a decision and the time to physically leave this world is, at least, calculated at some subconscious level by the individual and or the universe. The conscious and rational mind has little place in this process (either as an outside viewer trying to make sense of death or as the dying)
And then there’s this notion of time and its correlation to fulfilling life.
(My opinions on all of the above and foregoing may be over-staying your mind’s welcome…but imma keep going cause it’s midnight and what else have I do to at this time but think!)
OK, so TIME. The sadness associated with death seems to also correlate much with time. The longer one lives and the later they pass, the more we feel that that person has lived a fulfilled life. But, time is a human construct. We’ve created it in an attempt to organize our lives, chronologize (ha! made up word) history, make future plans, mark our moments etc. but it’s a concept that really has nothing to do with a fulfilled life. The lower the number and frequency of ‘life experiences’ on earth does not equate to a less purposeful or meaningful life, nor should it be seen as a loss of opportunity to fulfill life. A ten year old child is not any less or more valuable than a 60 year old.
I’ve been reading a lot of eastern philosophy and I’m drawn to these teachings that when you live a moment in your life, all that should ever matter is that exact moment. Don’t frame it against your past or your future. Don’t contextualize it. Don’t judge it or anyone. It is what it IS and LOVE it for ALL that it is. The moment it passes, you move past it and you’re on to the next with 100% of you and your attention. It’s difficult in this age with as many distractions that exist, but this is the ultimate goal.
Back to my original train of thought and my discomfort with how ‘time’ governs our view of a life lived. To reference my previous point (and in an ideal world we all put it to practice), if you consider this concept of ‘living completely from moment to moment’ a 10 year old life is not any less or any more well-lived than a centenarian. If all that matters is now, what does TIME matter?
Respect universal intention, stop over-intervening with a threatened life and learn to accept and celebrate death however and whenever it happens.
And with that…I’m falling asleep. Maybe I’ll wake up, maybe I won’t.
Shanti Shanti, folks.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr7whsvFIW1qzpwi0o1_1280.jpg)
Serious Ink of the Day: 81-year-old Joy Tomkins of Downham Market, Norfolk, wanted to make sure no one tried to bring her back from the dead, so she did what any normal grandmother of six would do: She had “Do Not Resuscitate” tattooed on her chest.
“I do not want to be half dead, I want to be fully dead,” said Tomkins, who suffers from arthritis, Reynard’s disease, and diabetes. “I’m afraid the medical profession will, with the best of intentions, keep me alive when I don’t want to be alive.”
Despite her wishes, a General Medical Council spokesman said Tomkins’ ink will likely be ignored. “Mrs Tomkins’ tattoo would not be enough information by itself for a doctor to make this decision on in an emergency.”
The tattoo, of course, is just a backup: Tomkins has a living will that says the exact same thing.
[mirror.]
It’s funny this showed up on my dashboard because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about death (from natural causes). It started with the passing of Jack Layton and how his death triggered a wave of sympathy and mourning in Canada. He was a great man and surely his contribution to Canada surpassed whatever political platform he stood upon. He is a source of sheer optimism and infectious pride for our country. Despite his energy, newspapers were flooded with the word ‘loss’ or how Layton ‘lost’ his battle against cancer and it had me thinking about the conventional words and thoughts that surround death in this culture. We often say ‘sorry for your loss’ to close friends and relatives of the passed, but I feel these words/sentiments are grossly mis-aligned from the ‘truth’. Death should be a celebration. At what better moment can a life be more celebrated than at the crossroads of life to death? That may not make sense to you and I realize this will fall on resistant ears and minds, but I’ve become a supporter of letting a life pass at the moment the ‘universe/god’ deems it to be appropriate. I think Jack left with intention. He did NOT give up any fight or lose any battle with a disease. His family, friends and Canada have NOT lost anything. He instilled and empowered an entire nation, inspired the masses (and continues to do so) and he will forever be a part of Canada.
I attended a wake today for a family friend who passed suddenly at 43. I appropriated myself with usual funeral convention and remained mostly stoic, taking caution not to offend by smiling too much. As much as my instinct wanted to, I didn’t feel it was my place to impart my thoughts on death. No part of me would ever fully understand the other minds in the room and a funeral doesn’t seem to be a time to share unconventional wisdom on death. At any rate, I was talking to my uncle (not related, but I refer to most family friend elders as uncle or aunt) and he was describing the extreme lengths of treatment administered to save his nephew. His description was heartbreaking and the attempts to save his life sounded desperate, chaotic and at times obscene. First I thought of the irony that the hospital’s over-treatment may have accelerated his death and then I thought about prolonging life in general.
Our health system is designed to save a life at nearly all cost and I don’t discount that effort. Sometimes, a brush with death is meant to be JUST that. BUT, perhaps there is ALSO real value behind acknowledging universal intention. Death is a part of all life. The moment we lose our fear of it and release any attachments we might have to that person’s physical body/presence, is the moment we accept. Acceptance is the key to all happiness. The most difficult aspect of death is the inability to accept the change.
It’s impossible to ever ask the dead what they were thinking upon death, but there must be choice involved. I hope the world will someday abandon traditional images of death as this sweeping dark force that steals away our lives. I think death is a decision and the time to physically leave this world is, at least, calculated at some subconscious level by the individual and or the universe. The conscious and rational mind has little place in this process (either as an outside viewer trying to make sense of death or as the dying)
And then there’s this notion of time and its correlation to fulfilling life.
(My opinions on all of the above and foregoing may be over-staying your mind’s welcome…but imma keep going cause it’s midnight and what else have I do to at this time but think!)
OK, so TIME. The sadness associated with death seems to also correlate much with time. The longer one lives and the later they pass, the more we feel that that person has lived a fulfilled life. But, time is a human construct. We’ve created it in an attempt to organize our lives, chronologize (ha! made up word) history, make future plans, mark our moments etc. but it’s a concept that really has nothing to do with a fulfilled life. The lower the number and frequency of ‘life experiences’ on earth does not equate to a less purposeful or meaningful life, nor should it be seen as a loss of opportunity to fulfill life. A ten year old child is not any less or more valuable than a 60 year old.
I’ve been reading a lot of eastern philosophy and I’m drawn to these teachings that when you live a moment in your life, all that should ever matter is that exact moment. Don’t frame it against your past or your future. Don’t contextualize it. Don’t judge it or anyone. It is what it IS and LOVE it for ALL that it is. The moment it passes, you move past it and you’re on to the next with 100% of you and your attention. It’s difficult in this age with as many distractions that exist, but this is the ultimate goal.
Back to my original train of thought and my discomfort with how ‘time’ governs our view of a life lived. To reference my previous point (and in an ideal world we all put it to practice), if you consider this concept of ‘living completely from moment to moment’ a 10 year old life is not any less or any more well-lived than a centenarian. If all that matters is now, what does TIME matter?
Respect universal intention, stop over-intervening with a threatened life and learn to accept and celebrate death however and whenever it happens.
And with that…I’m falling asleep. Maybe I’ll wake up, maybe I won’t.
Shanti Shanti, folks.
WOw. It’s been a long time since I’ve put face time into Tumblr. After a trip to Havana earlier this year, I became turned off by social media. Subsequently, I closed my youtube channel, twitter, flickr, scribd (whatever the F that is), severely up’d my privacy on facebook and eliminated any other platform that would reveal information about me to the public at large. Albiet, I kept my Tumblr account. On the whole I remain anonymous here.
I’m not sure why I value privacy so much. I think it’s more that I don’t want to be type casted a ‘certain’ person. Sometimes I party and am loud and boisterous. Other times, I like the solitude of my guitar and the sound of the breeze. I make friends that subscribe to both sides of me and maybe I’m self conscious that when the ‘other’ side reveals itself, I’ll lose ‘real life’ followers? OK, NO that CAN’T be true. If it were, I need to seriously reconsider some friendships. I don’t know where the paranoia stems from. Perhaps, I’m just still trying to figure out the ‘me’ that I want to reveal to the world. For now, this is what you get.
Back to the trip to Havana. I never tumbled about it, but this trip changed my life. I met some amazing people, in particular a man I am never going to forget. We’ll call him Larry. Words can’t do him justice, but he was incredibly handsome, tall, bohemian-like and this mysterious jungle of ethnicities, Chinese included! He spoke 6 languages fluently and was working on his 7th (Hebrew). He devoted himself to Tao Te Ching’s writings and proved to be a very deep thinker.
In the moments we got to know each other, I couldn’t believe how much this man lived so ‘presently’ and in the ‘immediate moment.’ He inspired me. He grew up poor in Havana, endured two kidney failures and relatedly, two kidney transplants, faked a marriage to a Norwegian girl for healthcare access and to gain access to the world outside Cuba, divorced her with complications, separated from his family for 6 years (coincidentally, meeting him in havana was his first visit to Cuba since he left 6 years prior)and yet embodied this exuberance and spirit for life that I’ve yet to EVER see in any of my ‘more fortunate’ Canadian peers.
Of course Larry swore against facebook and youtube. His new experience in Norway didn’t impress him (in terms of the prevalence of social media, that is). He had an unadulterated passion for studying languages and he retained his latin roots for dancing and singing, of which he also demonstrated fluency. Every moment on the computer, interwebbing, facebooking, youtubing, flickring, tweeting… he considered the opportunity cost of physical and real emotional connection. The purpose of ALL this in life is to connect with other human beings. I don’t doubt, we get that. I think that’s why social media has exploded and will continue to expand. We want to relate to each other, share each other’s happy moments and triumphs. We like looking at wedding pictures, new babies and the latest lady gaga. BUT, seeing pictures of milestones in your acquaintances’ lives will never equate to that new inside joke you make with Bridgit on your backyard patio or catching your parents dancing to Lionel Richie in the kitchen at 2:13pm on a Tuesday afternoon or how the sun, for a brief moment, danced over the maple trees at dusk.
SO… however petty you may view a moment with another person or thing (ref. maple trees), understand that that ‘in the moment’ connection is a bajillion times more qualified than whatever you get from your news feed. (Unless, this person is a total DICK, but I’m inclined to think we’re generally good)
I’m not sure how to say this without hurting any potential feelings, but I have a real beef with the way most people choose to deal with life. If I could sum it up into one word it would be VICTIMIZATION.
Hate to sound cliche, but it’s nothing new that life is hard, struggles are inevitable and we’re forced to live on a planet that consistently rotates in a certain direction whether we like it or not. We have no control of certain aspects of our lives, TRUE. However, don’t conflate that inability to control some things into a general inability to control most everything - thus absolving all responsibility for who and what you are/become. I’m referring to society’s inclination to victimize themselves in order to escape the realities of life, taking charge, grabbing the reigns even if it means leading yourself off track for a bit.
The escape from reality to veer into the proverbial path of convenience is evident in so many ways we make choices. Like how we pop pills for instant fixes, i.e. bandaid solutions to muzzle the symptoms of your body’s signals to you that something is awry. Asthma or eczema flaring up? Maybe you’re eating too much shit and processed foods! Or maybe you’re not exercising enough! Or the tendency of psychologists to coin a new condition in order to classify one as a ‘victim’ to, yet another, ‘disorder’. ADD, for instance, was never a condition until the early 80s and suddenly every 1 in 4 kids is a ‘victim’. Parents choose to give their children the relevant drug and thus escape the reality of what’s at play - that reality being, kids (and sometimes adults) need to learn how to work HARD. In my opinion, the main reason attentions are deficit is because we have a billion alternatives and stimulants to steal our attention away from what we really should be focusing on. TV’s on, internet beside you, blackberry ringing… but that’s no reason to put yourself into a category of disability. Take the REIGNS, people!
The inconveniences make you who you ARE. If you think about the times in your life you most ‘grew’ or ‘matured’ it was likely a product of a broken relationship, facing life threatening illness, living aboard, being alone, or whatever. I guess what I mean in all this ramble bamble is “Quit labeling yourself a VICTIM to displeasures and take the call of LIFE!” (Ha, cheese) It’s the taking charge part that makes you a better person, a person that more people will like, a person that impresses future employers, a person that raises better kids blah blah.
I’m OUT.
