How Sad the Song: An Atheist Ponders His Mortality

To the dumb question “Why me?” the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?

— Christopher Hitchens, Mortality

Death has been on my mind a good deal in the past year. I wrote two articles on end of life planning: Letting Go of the Balloon: End of Life Planning for the Overwhelmed and How Much Do You Want to Know Me? Preparing to Write My Obituary. I also explored how it feels to be in my sixties and took a look at how many years may be left to me. These are important topics and I enjoyed the challenge. But what of death itself? What do I think and feel about the fact that one day I’ll no longer be here? That’s what I want to address in this post.

The Stilling of the Pool

In an interview for The Guardian published in May 2011 (coincidentally the month Fran and I met) the late theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking expressed his views on the idea of an afterlife. “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail,” he said. “There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” It’s a view very close to my own. I’m not afraid of the dark.

For me, death represents neither more nor less than cessation. The point beyond which the person ceases to be. My earliest experience of death was at the age of eighteen when my father died. He had been in and out of hospital for months. I remember walking from the ward one day certain I wouldn’t see him again. He died within days of that visit, I think, though my memory isn’t clear on that. I’m reminded of the opening lines of Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger (L’Étranger): “Aujourd’hui Maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.” The most common English translation is: “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.” I’m unsure how I felt at the time, but I do know there was no sense of my father continuing in any way. He was remembered, mourned, and missed by those of us who were still alive. But my father, Norman William Baker, wasn’t there any more. He wasn’t anywhere. He simply wasn’t.

Decades later, a close friend died. She was in her early forties, one year younger than me. Way too young, as they say. I felt shock and profound loss, but as with my father there was no sense of her still existing in any way. This certainty was so profound I couldn’t write, speak, or even think the words “my friend is dead.” The is in that sentence implied a continuity that to me was blatantly untrue. I couldn’t say my friend was dead because she wasn’t anything. It was the same years later when my mother died. My father, my mother, my friend aren’t off somewhere “being dead.” They no longer are. And when my time comes I won’t be somewhere being dead. I won’t be. No afterlife, thank you very much. No spirit world. No continuation. No meeting those who’ve gone before.

This idea of death as annihilation might seem terrifying but I don’t find it so. It does, however, beg the question: what exactly is annihilated? What ceases at the moment of death? What was there before death that no longer is? We use a range of words to convey the something that makes us what we are. Words like consciousness, personality, essence, spirit, or soul. None of them help very much. We use them to label something about a person — what makes us unique — but they say nothing about what that something is.

Many years ago I read Yatri’s Unknown Man: The Mysterious Birth of a New Species. One line from the book has remained with me. In response to the question “Who am I?” the author offers, “I appear to be the process of reading this book.” That was my introduction to the idea of life, my own included, being not stuff but process. Movement. Flow. Patterns.

Quantum Field Theory (QFT) posits everything as fluctuations in quantum fields. What we think of as an electron is a localised excitation in the electron field. A photon is a localised excitation in the electromagnetic field, and so on. I’m not a physicist by any means but this representation of reality as waves is comfortable to me. Comforting, even. Popular explanations of QFT invite us to imagine these localised excitations as ripples on a pond. We’ve all thrown stones into a pool of water at some point in our lives. We’ve watched the ripples fan out across the surface, interacting with others until they fade to stillness. No one ever asks “Where did the ripples go?” We understand they weren’t material objects. They were patterns in the surface of the water. The water is still there, its surface alive to the possibility of further ripples in the future.

Likewise, everything that is me, everything I mean when I think or speak of myself, everything others mean when they think or speak of me, is not stuff but process. Movement. Flow. Patterns. Death is not a thing in itself. It’s our label for the process by which the ripples of our life fade into stillness. Every thought. Every memory I hold dear at the point of death. The patterns of connection, interraction, friendship, and meaning. All of it. Where did my father go when he died? My mother? My friend? Where will I go? These questions are as meaningless as asking where the music goes when it’s no longer playing. That song we love so much, the melody that evokes feelings so visceral we’re transported back in time, aren’t objects we can point to. They are movement. They exist as long as the waves that carry them are flowing. And so it is with us.

Explicable Without the Hypothesis

This post is subtitled An Atheist Ponders His Mortality but so far I’ve said nothing about god or religion. I’m grateful to my friend Paul Saunders-Priem for reminding me that there’s no necessary connection between belief in an afterlife and belief in god. Most religions include the belief in some form of continuation beyond death but as he put it, “Just because someone believes in the afterlife doesn’t mean they are religious or believe in God. It is entirely possible that life after death is a physical thing.” That’s why I feel it’s important to be upfront about my atheism. I don’t believe in an afterlife and I don’t believe in god. The one informs the other.

To be clear, atheism isn’t an alternative belief system. It’s defined solely by the absence of belief in a god or gods. As American science writer and historian Michael Shermer puts it, “There is no atheist world view.” This might be hard to grasp, especially if you’re a person of faith. But we’re all atheists when it comes to other religions. If you’re a Christian you know what it means not to believe in Allah or Zeus. If you’re a follower of Islam you know what it means not to believe in Vishnu or Wotan. As English actor Ricky Gervais pointed out during an interview with Late Show host Stephen Colbert, the atheist simply denies the reality of one more god than the believer.

Atheists rarely claim to be absolutely certain of their position. British scientist and educator Richard Dawkins made this clear in his book Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide to Atheism.

When people say they are atheists, they don’t mean they can prove that there are no gods. Strictly speaking, it’s impossible to prove that something does not exist. We don’t positively know there are no gods, just as we can’t prove that there are no fairies or pixies or elves or hobgoblins or leprechauns or pink unicorns.

Dawkins’ atheism is founded in the lack of compelling evidence to the contrary. In an interview with Mehdi Hassan he declared, “I’m an atheist in same way as I’m an aleprechaunist, an afairyist, and an apinkunicornist.” Challenged to say if he equated his lack of belief in god with his lack of belief in fairies and leprechauns, Dawkins replied “The evidence for both is equally poor.”

British-American author and journalist Christopher Hitchens made the equivalent point in a 2009 debate with American philosopher and Christian apologist William Lane Craig. The question being debated was “Does God Exist?”

Now it’s often said [...] that atheists think they can prove the nonexistence of God. This, in fact, very slightly but crucially misrepresents what we’ve always said. [...] We argue quite simply that there’s no plausible or convincing reason, certainly no evidential one, to believe that there is such an entity. And that all observable phenomena, including the cosmological one to which I’m coming, are explicable without the hypothesis.

My stance is far less scholarly and well-reasoned than those of Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, but I agree with them on this. I find no personal, philosophical, or scientific need for there to be a god or gods, and am unconvinced by arguments to the contrary. I’m as certain there’s no god as I’m certain there’s no continuity of the self beyond death. Which is to say, utterly and completely certain.

The Facts of Death

Everyone knows about the facts of life — the basics of sex education concerning puberty, sexual activity, and reproduction. The facts of life are taught in our schools, whispered in the playgrounds, stumbled into online, and — ideally at least — shared by parents with their children. But what of the facts of death? Where and how are they taught?

What does it mean to die? What is it like, not merely to think or talk about death but to do it. Because that’s what “we’re all going to die” means. Every one of us will experience what it is to die. You. Me. Everyone. I’m reminded of an episode of the British TV drama series Sharpe, based on the Napoleonic War novels of Bernard Cornwell. A wounded Sergeant Major Harper is duped by the formidable Irish priest Father Curtis into marrying his long-time partner Ramona before he supposedly succumbs to his wounds.

Curtis: “I now pronounce you man and wife. Now, get up and kiss the bride.”

Harper: “I thought you said I was going to die, Father!”

Curtis: “Sure, we’re ALL going to die, Patrick.”

I’ve never witnessed the moment of a person’s death and have no direct experience on which to draw. The closest I’ve come are two short books by end of life educator and author Barbara Karnes: Gone From My Sight: The Dying Experience and The Eleventh Hour: A Caring Guide for the Hours to Minutes Before Death. They’re written for those who will die — which is to say all of us — as well as for those who will be present in the weeks, days, and hours before a loved one dies. The facts of death are presented with compassion but they’re nevertheless hard for someone like me who hitherto had never thought much about what dying involves. I’d naively likened a good death — one experienced without unmanaged pain, injury, or trauma — to falling asleep. Drawing on her many years of experience, Barbara Karnes makes it clear there’s a great deal more to the physical process of even a good death than that. It’s not all pretty, but it is all honest and real. It’s what I needed to hear and I commend her books to anyone wanting information on what happens when the body is close to death.

It’s difficult to express how it feels to have even this modicum of understanding. This is what my body will go through, what I will experience, at the end of my life. My final days and hours. My final breath. The final beat of this heart. It’s a strange feeling. Not scary exactly, but strange. Sad, perhaps.

Of course, an ending free from pain and illness is by no means guaranteed. How must it be to face death on those terms? I’ve yet to watch it, but the documentary series Take Me Out Feet First has been recommended to me. It describes and discusses Medical Aid in Dying (MAID), a program currently available in several U.S. states. MAID allows a terminally ill, mentally capable adult with a prognosis of six months or less to live to request a prescription for medication they can self-administer so as to die peacefully in their sleep. I’m conflicted on the merits of such programs, sometimes described as assisted dying or death with dignity. Readers may be aware that a change to the law in England and Wales — the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill — is currently making its way through the UK parliament. A separate assisted dying bill is being considered in Scotland. I may return to the topic in a future post. For now I will say that I fully support the right to end one’s life under certain circumstances, as I support the work of the hospice movement in managing end of life care. My concerns relate to the circumstances under which such provisions might be made available, the availability and funding of alternatives including hospice care, and the legal and medical safeguards. These are not theoretical or philosophical questions. They are questions about the very real and often not very nice facts concerning the ending of life.

There are many paths through life, each unique to the person walking it. But all paths lead to one inevitable destination. What options do I want to be available to my friends and loved ones when they get there? What options do I want to be available for me when my time comes?

It’s Only Life After All

Talking with family, friends, and colleagues has helped me understand more about my thoughts and feelings concerning the end of life, and appreciate there are few things more personal than how we approach the death of loved ones and prepare for our own. Fran shared two anonymous quotations with me which I want to include. The first is a reminder to live life purposefully, because we can never say when that final day will come.

One day, you are going to hug your last hug, kiss your last kiss and hear someone’s voice for the last time. But you never know when the last time will be, so live every day as if it were the last time you will be with the person you love.

It reminds me of this cover by British singer-songwriter Jasmine Thompson of the Meghan Trainor song “Like I’m Gonna Lose You.”

In the blink of an eye
Just a whisper of smoke
You could lose everything
The truth is, you never know.

Such reminders are welcome, because there will be a day that dawns without me in it. A final entry in the diaries I’ve kept since I was fourteen years old. Life will go on without me. That’s no easier a realisation for me than it was for Christopher Hitchens, here debating the question “Is there an afterlife?” with Sam Harris, David Wolpe, and Bradley Artson Shavit.

It will happen to all of us, that at some point you’ll get tapped on the shoulder and told, not just that the party’s over, but slightly worse: the party’s going on, but you have to leave. And it’s going on without you.

Fran pointed out to me that this is less of an argument for introverts who never felt comfortable at parties while they were alive! English comedian, writer, and actor Bob Mortimer expressed it in more homely terms. “I don’t feel scared about death, I just feel so frustrated and sad to think I won’t see how stories end. My children’s story. My wife’s. The football. All the stories going on in the world that you’re going to miss the end of.”

The second quotation Fran offered me speaks of legacy, the only sense in which it can be said we survive our death.

IF AN ARTIST FALLS IN LOVE WITH YOU, YOU CAN NEVER DIE.

During a wonderful conversation about end of life planning that included favourite music tracks and photographs, my desire for either a pyramid entombment or a Viking long-ship burial, whether or not human ashes are a risk to wildlife (they are), and open casket viewings (no thank you), my friend Jen brought things back to centre with five words she knew I’d recognise: “It’s only life after all.” The reference is to the Indigo Girls’ 1989 song Closer to Fine.

I’m trying to tell you something ‘bout my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It’s only life after all.

The song reminds me that there’s no more (or less) meaning or purpose to my life than I choose there to be. As I’ve written elsewhere: life is not a lesson, though you can choose to see it as such. Life is not a trial, though you are free to live yours as though it were.

I’ll close with four words of mine from a long time ago. When my father died someone asked if I wanted to contribute to his eulogy. The only words I could find were “How sad the song.” I don’t remember if they were used or not. It doesn’t matter to me either way. But it may be that I understood more of what had just happened than I realised at the time.

 

Photo by Sasha Freemind at Unsplash.