vicarz: (Sushi girl)
vicarz ([personal profile] vicarz) wrote2010-07-28 08:27 am

Celebrate my death

I've died, and I want you to revere what you remember and know about me. I mean I am still alive, but I've changed a lot over the years. I'll die, but in 20 years I may not be much like who I am today. If I die in 40 or 60 years you may precede me, not know, or not care as the years separate us. If I die in 40 or 60 years I'll just be "some old guy." My death will be expected. It will not be me, not me today.

News flash - some old guy died today. You don't know him, but if you knew him you wouldn't know him 20 or 40 years before he died. He changed a lot.

I was looking at memorials, libraries, and statues dedicated to someone's name. The name plastered on the wall...means nothing to me. Did he like puppies? Was he fat? Did the family have bar-b-ques? Were the liberal or conservative? Did they yield in traffic? Did they eat waffles? I know nothing of the person, and even if I researched I'd just get that information that reads like a resume.

I have a resume, and it says nothing about me that I care about. I want my friends to remember that I slept around, helped sometimes, tried to help but wound out aggravating instead, apologized a lot, joked a lot, yielded in traffic, and sometimes ate waffles soaked in syrup. All of that is going to change. The me of 20 is dead, or greatly changed. I was a person at 20, but I've lived more than 20 years since then. I may live as long as I have lived in total, again.

The thing is, I'm alive now and I'm me now. If you're going to hold me up as someone worthwhile, as someone you love, as someone you emulate, or if you're going to troll and trash anyone who has a positive opinion of me - the time to do that is now. Today. If you're going to mourn my loss, you should not wait until some other event makes it more obvious - such as the death of some old guy in 40 years that we don't know yet. In 40 years I'll have been dead a long time and nobody around you will know whom you are talking about.

I'm going to try and mourn each one of your little deaths today.

[identity profile] thesaucemonster.livejournal.com 2010-07-28 12:46 pm (UTC)(link)
A "little death" (la petite mort) is a euphemism for an orgasm.

[identity profile] vicar.livejournal.com 2010-07-28 01:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Yep, that was on purpose. Been thinking of that since the sex museum video room.

[identity profile] grymnir.livejournal.com 2010-07-28 01:05 pm (UTC)(link)
by this logic we die each night and are reborn every morning.

Who are you again?

[identity profile] vicar.livejournal.com 2010-07-28 01:16 pm (UTC)(link)
and further the you that wrote that comment is also dead, though you haven't changed much since then unless a foreign object has penetrated your skull.

[identity profile] grymnir.livejournal.com 2010-07-28 01:30 pm (UTC)(link)
it wasn't my skull...
damn...I need a new chair.

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_blackjack_/ 2010-07-28 02:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey Hereclitus, your shoes are wet!

[identity profile] vicar.livejournal.com 2010-07-28 03:07 pm (UTC)(link)
and I want rubbers to stop it!

[identity profile] slyx.livejournal.com 2010-07-28 03:45 pm (UTC)(link)
I can costume this angst...

[identity profile] alumiere.livejournal.com 2010-07-28 09:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Philosophical thoughts. Interesting, good points. Something I'm struggling with in my head (and have been for a while); stupid body.

Eventually I'll have time to write about it more. In the meantime, thanks. Another reminder to live in the now.

[identity profile] fitfool.livejournal.com 2010-07-29 12:24 am (UTC)(link)
I've attended a couple of really great funerals and I had wished at the time that we could've done this while they were still alive so they could hear all these stories and hear how much they were loved and missed. Maybe that's why we make bigger deals out of birthday parties for the elderly...

[identity profile] panthergirl.livejournal.com 2010-07-29 03:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Is there a song about this? If not, there should be...mentally reviewing Jim Croce...
railwaymadness: (Default)

[personal profile] railwaymadness 2010-07-29 04:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Isn't this what all birthday parties are about? Or is that just me?

[identity profile] freja999.livejournal.com 2010-07-30 01:55 am (UTC)(link)
nothing clever to say.