To Ease the Passing of Time

I don’t watch a lot of TV anymore but I watch a lot of stuff on YouTube. It’s incredible what you can find on YouTube, and I’m not talking only about videos of dogs flushing the toilet or cats doing all kinds of tricks on top of being so cute. On YouTube, you can attend lectures given by Nobel Prize winners and listen to specialists talking on a wide array of subjects. Two nights ago, at three in the morning, I was watching a video from a British neuropsychiatrist and neurophysiologist who published a book called The Art of Dying. Dying is not, of course, an art that you can improve by practicing.

What Dr. Peter Fenwick wrote in his book is based on what he studied, but also on his observations, and the conversations he had with people who went through near-death experiences. Here’s a short quote that summarizes what Dr. Fenwick has to tell us about death, “Peter Fenwick describes the different transitional phases of the dying process and highlights the importance of letting go at the end of one’s life.” This is the video that I watched at around three in the morning a few nights ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78SkTuk8Zd4

For Dr. Fenwick letting go is what makes the difference between a good and a bad death, between being able to go peacefully and being afraid to die. When he talks about letting go, he’s talking about letting go of everybody and everything: your spouse, your children, your cat or your dog, your house, your money and all the things that you cherish in life.

Later during the day, I started thinking about what Dr. Fenwick had said about letting go, and I told myself that it’s a lot easier said than done. Depending on the circumstances of your life, letting go can be quite easy or very difficult. You’ll tell me that it’s a lot harder to let go when you have a lot to leave behind. Not necessarily. For me, it depends a lot more on the amount of time you had or didn't have to enjoy what you had. I’ll give you an example of what I mean by comparing the life and death of two fictitious characters who didn’t have the same amount of time to enjoy what they had.

I’ll call the first one Alistair Robertson the third. Alistair was born with a silver spoon in his mouth in a rich family. He studied in the best schools, became a lawyer, and a successful but not always honest businessman. He got laid with plenty of girls before he got married, and even tried cocaine without getting addicted to it. He played tennis and golf, traveled a lot, skied in Switzerland, had beautiful children, a huge mansion near the ocean, a big sailboat, and all kinds of toys. When the time came for Alistair to die at the age of 86, he was ready to go. He had enjoyed everything to the fullest. As it says in the Bible about old patriarchs, he came to his end, old and full of days.

The second one, I’ll call Harry. Harry had a rough life. He never went to college and had to work two jobs for minimum wage to make ends meet. He was never able to buy a house and drove an old clunker. At the age of 57, Harry met Sally in the restaurant where he would often go for breakfast, and where Sally worked as a waitress. Harry fell in love for the first time in his life; he and Sally started living together only a few months after they met; they didn’t have any time to lose.

One day, Harry bought a lottery ticket and won a few million dollars. He and Sally bought a house by a lake, traveled to the Bahamas and Mexico, and bought a lot of stuff: a red pickup truck for Harry, a yellow Mustang convertible for Sally, all-terrain vehicles, fishing gear, etc. A few months after he turned 60, Harry was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. He didn’t want to go; he wasn’t ready to go. His last words were, “Sally, please, don’t’ let me go! I’ve just started loving you. I’ve just started being happy.”

It goes without saying that it was a lot easier for Alistair Robertson the third to die than for Harry. Alistair thought of himself as a wise man since he was able to let go so easily of all the things that he took for granted, and that life had given him so much time to enjoy.

When I watch those YouTube videos in the middle of the night when I'm not able to sleep, not only does it keep me busy and teach me a lot of things, but it also gives me a lot to think about the next day.