To Live Is To Die Slowly

[Maxaatiri]

This is the belief of influential Swahili author Euphrase Kezilahabi. Would you agree?

 

Translation:

 

The truth is that we human beings are dying slowly. Many people think that death

comes unexpectedly. This is not true. Since a human is born he/she begins to die

slowly even if he/she considers him/herself being well. His/her days are being cut

off one by one. The grave is just our last step. Kazimoto (the protagonist), while we are living we

are dying slowly, therefore to die is to live.

 

Ukweli ni kwamba sisi wanadamu tunakufa pole pole. Watu wengi wanafikiri

kwamba kifo kinakuja mara moja. Hili ni jambo la uwongo. Tangu mwanadamu

anapozaliwa anaanza kufa pole pole ingawa yeye anajiona yu sawa. Siku zake zinakatwa

moja moja. Kaburi ni hatua yetu ya mwisho tu. Kazimoto, tunapoishi

tunakufa pole pole, kwa hiyo kufa ni kuishi. (Kichwamaji (water head)206)

 

 

Anyone who knows of Gilgamesh will remember this:

 

Oh Gilgamesh! Why dost thou run in all directions?!

The life thou seeketh though shalt never find

When the Gods created man the gave him death

Life they kept in their own hands

Fill thy belly

night and day rejoice

make every day a festival!

 

Is the fact that life is short a comfort to you? Does death frighten you or do you see it as your final destination and nothing more. A place to neither embrace nor fear?

[Ibtisam]

The fact that life is short is a comfort ONLY if you think you are going to a better place. Since known of us can KNOW for sure where we are going or what I await us, it is more of transition. Bit like standing at the platform waiting for a less crowded train to pull up, but more often than not you get pushed on randomly and suddenly, and you just hope you land gracefully without getting hurt or hurting someone, on your feet with your bag. It would be a comfort if I KNOW that at the next stop everyone gets off but me and I will get 5* treatment, but since it is just as likely that there might be a stampede, then it is just a necessary transition where I am hoping to get from A-B with the least damage and surviving the journey but landing a good spot in the end.

 

I fear and look forward to death in same measures, I always had the feeling that I would die young, but I'm still here for the time being. I embrace it because there is no alternative (not like you can run away,) but I am trying to fill a little good bag at least, bigger than a take away, while trying to keep the weight of the other suitcase.

 

Maxaatiri, depressing or too much thinking at least, is that for uni?

[Maxaatiri]

Yes, I was reading this for uni and it genuinely made me think. I agree with you that for Muslims we should both fear and look forward to death in equal measures, I mean its only another representation of our relationship with Allah no? The only thing we are fearing and hoping for is his wrath and His Mercy.

 

But I always feel that every day I am, granted, closer to death, but I am also closer to where I am supposed to be, that life is a cruel joke at times. Yes we get tested and that is the point of life,yacni to pass the test and move on...but the process rather than the purpose is what intrigues me most. That we are born to eventually die, that living is actually dying slowly, regardless of anyone's belief, this remains true.

[Ibtisam]

^^But it wont' make sense any other way, if you died to live (though this is in effect what real jihad was)still though can't see how else it could be.

 

I don’t agree that living is dying slowly. That is only valid if you look at death as the end of it all. I think death is just a continuation of your life as your soul does not die, and once you are judged then pretty much for eternality you are continuing on living (or if you’re in hell, living and painful deaths in cycle)

 

Think of death as the next stage of living.

[Maxaatiri]

It doesnt have to make sense the other way around, thats not my point. My point was that the process in which we enter and leave this world is one of the constant depletion of life, regardless of what you gain, it is all lost again (but for the sins/ajar). I just find that a fascinating process. Not only are we dying a little bit every second of our lives, but eventually we could lose all of the things we have learnt whilst alive (dementia). In that situation you have lost your past and are so far into your future that you are near the end destination before the completely new/different life begins. In the West we are supposed to hope for a long life, in Islam we hope for the next life. In both however, we are still obsessed with death as something of an end, not a new beginning. Death is not simply a new beginning because we do not get a second chance.

 

I see your point with the soul not dying, but I see my soul as a part of me, and not my entirety as I am now. What dies is the me of right now, what is resurrected is a combination of my eternal self and the self I am now having gained the experience of life and death. I guess the point I'm finding hard to make is that after death we only have the consequences of our actions when we were alive to deal with. We do not get to 'live' in the way we see 'living' on earth.

 

So in life, we are slowly dying and when we die we are 'dead' but 'alive' in a different way because we no longer have the chance of redemption in the same way. We no longer have the chance to make a new consequence, its been done, there is no retake, for all the pain or happiness we feel, it is merely a consequence of what we have done while we were among the living.