Learning to Die in the Anthropocene by Roy Scranton
“Death begins as soon as we are born. From our first moments in the world, blinking and crying in the light, we fly an unwavering arc to the grave. We are mortal, material, corporeal beings, blessed with quickening but doomed to decay. In a very important sense, we don’t need to learn anything at all about dying: it’s the one thing in life we can absolutely count on getting done. But while dying may be the easiest thing in the world to do, it’s the hardest thing in the world to do well—we are predisposed to avoid, ignore, flee, and fight it till the very last hour. We are impelled in our deepest being to struggle against it. Every time you feel hunger or taste ambition, every time your body tingles with lust or your heart yearns for recognition, every time you shake with anger or tremble in fear, that’s the animal in you striving for life. We fall into the world caught between two necessities, compelled to live, born to die, and reconciling them has forever been one of our most challenging puzzles. The pieces just don’t fit together.”
-Roy Scranton, 2015
