A Good Death

An essay for the Soaring Twenties Social Club Symposium on Death

This essay is a contribution to the monthly Symposium of the Soaring Twenties, which features essays, stories, poems, visual art and more from various contributors. This month’s theme is “Death”.

In Norse mythology, the gods are doomed by prophecy to fight a battle at the end of the world against demons and giants. The gods lose, and are killed. This is called Ragnarok.

This myth inspired a well known writer, Tolkien, when he created the Anglo-Saxon like people of Rohan in his Middle-earth, for their tenacity to fight even when things seem completely lost. Tolkien found it fascinating how the old Norse gods would fight in Ragnarok, even while they knew they were destined to lose the battle.

This fascination echoes in the general fascination and awe people (more often men) feel towards what we might call a warrior's death, being killed in battle fighting for your people or cause. There is something  romantic about it. Something in this act, this sacrifice and struggle against insurmountable odds, garners respect and even a morbid envy. "I wish I could give my life in battle for something worthy".

Now, at this point I should point out that I find war and anything associated with it utterly horrendous. I'm very much against the glorification of anything involving war, combat, violence or battle. As my favourite local contemporary writer penned: "People start wars. Wars end people."

But it's hard not to feel like something was lost when most of the world's civilizations became enlightened enough (for the most part) to drop warrior virtues as an essential element of it's values system. That people long for a noble struggle becomes obvious when one sees likely well-meaning but misguided youths online glorifying, for example, ancient Spartans (a bunch of bronze-age Nazis not above killing their own baby if it had one leg slightly shorter then the other) just because they see in them a symbol of this warrior ethos of combat for a worthy cause.

It seems to me there is in many peoples soul a warrior-shaped hole, by which I don't mean people want to fight and kill others, but are yearning for righteous battle, a cause to fight and die for. We look at the story of Ragnarok, of the god's doomed tenacity, and feel called to imitate. But how? How in a world which correctly abhors violence of any kind to reach a warrior's death?

As it happens, there is a kind of eternal battle going on. Well, not really eternal, but, as far as we know, as old as life. It's the battle of life against entropy. Now, the most honest definition of entropy is that it's a number in physics that can be used by physicists to calculate other numbers in physics. But in less formal terms, it seems to be a representation of disorder, chaos and uncertainty. Of things falling apart. And things really do fall apart. Societies collapse, bodies go frail, ecosystems get disrupted, buildings deteriorate, rooms get messy and all life, eventually, dies. Entropy is a force ever gnawing on life's attempts to create order, organize, develop functional complexity or simply function continually. It's inevitable, and on an individual level, it cannot be stopped. We all will die. Additionally, according to some theories, the fate of the Universe is to eventually succumb to entropy and cease to be in what is called the "heat death" of the universe. We of course cannot be sure what the fate of everything is in the longest run, but we are quite aware of the fact that all life must die.

Yet, even humans, life aware of it's own limitation and ultimate defeat by entropy in the form of death, keeps going. Keeps trying. With full knowledge of the futility of living, we live. I know I will die. I know that even the possible positive effects my life will have on the people around me, with luck even on generations after me, will eventually disperse as if they never happened. Yet knowing all this, and despite all pain, suffering and injustice that gets thrown my way, I keep living, keep trying. Surely a rational person would just end their own life? Why go through the farce if you know it's ultimately in vain?

But then, why did the old Norse gods fight?

Maybe it's stupidity. Maybe it's misguided evolutionary instinct, a wonderful self delusion. Or maybe, in the battle against entropy, in the battle we know we are destined to lose, is when life is most alive. We truly become what life is, what we are, a process that combats this ever-decaying force that permeates the Universe, when we fight despite these losing odds. Rooms get messy, we clean them. Buildings deteriorate, we fix them. Societies collapse we rebuild them. Outrage grips our societies, we still try to show kindness. Life overwhelms us with obligations, we still find time to meet with friends. Or go dancing. Things fall apart, but we pick them up.

And if we keep fighting like this until the very end, meeting death's scythe with a smile, well... isn't that a warrior’s death? But of a warrior that fights not other human beings, but that fights this eternal enemy: decay, disorder, chaos, apathy and, ultimately, death.

***

I was, for the first and hopefully not last time, in Prague. I was there to indulge on a loved hobby of mine, swing dancing, attending a festival. On one of the evenings of the event, I found myself on a side of the dance floor along with an elderly couple, they must have been in their late 70s if not older. He was as vital as any young man, with slick back white hair and carefully groomed moustaches, dancing both the less intense and the most jumpy and tiring dances, bouncing around with dancing partners a third of his age. She, a small thing with neat hair, could only dance the more measured ones, and when appropriate songs came on the set list, they would dance those together.

At the end of the evening, I met them again at the cloak room, where they were getting ready to leave, changing from dancing shoes into walking ones. It was a truly touching scene to see him bending down to tie her shoes, as she couldn't do it on her own. Here were two people who were not letting entropy get in the way of their life, of their aliveness. She can't tie her own shoes, yet she came to dance. It wouldn't be a surprise to me if dancing even the dances she could handle was accompanied with pains and aches, but she did it anyway. Old age was no excuse, no reason not to do what she enjoyed as much as she could. She was fighting entropy all the way. Odin would be proud.