Tunnels and Staircases with No Balcony

"Doin' My Job" by T.I.

...so before you go judgin' us lovin' us won't hurt / if you're under 25, stayin' alive is hard work...

Life and death are the two things that unite all us living things. If you are given life, you are guaranteed death. There is no escaping it, no matter who or what you are in this life.

People spend their lives chasing a life (money, the things that money can buy, love, commitments, faith, culture, etc.), now knowing that they are really just running towards death.

And death scares us sh*tless doesn't it? By us, I mean all living things. While we humans may be the species with the cognitive ability to describe or express our fear, all living things fear the big sleep. All living things have internal mechanisms and processes, down to the smallest cell, meant to battle death, to encourage survival.

Those who are in situations in which they are starving experience their bodies depleting fat storage, and in extreme cases, muscle tissue too, in order to survive to keep alive.

It is as if we live in two dimensions all the time. We are in the "living" dimension, trying to enjoy ourselves, be productive, procreate (Do you wonder about how a tree enjoys itself? I have no idea). And then we operate in this dimension that is meant to fight death, delay death, and protect life, simultaneous with efforts to live.

We make decisions about our lives based on our deaths. Will this kill me? I shouldn't do it. Will this move help me make more money? I should move so I can live comfortably while I have the time on earth.

Not that we actually think that way out loud or even consciously. We make those decisions to enjoy our life. But death is our life too. So we make the decisions based on the life we want to live hoping to influence the death we have to endure...delay it, make it less painful, etc.

Still, we have to die. And if death were a person, I don't think it would be skeletal man in a black cape with a sinister staff, waiting to collect people. Death would be a plainly dressed man or woman, serious and diligent but unemotional. I'm just doing my job. Everyone has to go sometime. I have to be here to pick them up.

We, the living, dread this death. You spend all this time living, learning how to live, learning what makes you happy, learning what makes the ones close to you happy, learning. You get so comfortable. Then you have to die.

Of course the uncertainty is the big drawback of the whole situation, otherwise dying would be like any other milestone of life. You do it because you have to and then you move on. But no one really knows what is going to happen next. No one can come back and tell you what it is like, what happens. Does it hurt? How's the temperature? Do you eat? Where do your thoughts go? Do you have thoughts? Are you you? Is anything going on at all or have you ended?

That's what I wonder. All this cognitive ability, all this thinking and feeling I do, what happens to that when I die? I can't think anymore? I can't have opinions anymore? I at least can't express them anymore.

Even some of us "saved" by religion are not saved from the fear of death. I can't lie, even though I believe in God, I'm not sure where I'm going when my life is over. Not because I'm a bad person and fear I am going to hell. It is just that sometimes I wonder if there really is a place after this. A realm. It seems so fantastical. But then again I need to believe because I simply do not want this to be the end.

Lastly, I wonder about legacy. What determines legacy? I think it is a combination of how you lived and who you were and how you died.

Last week I was convinced I had the swine flu. I texted Christina everyday with a new symptom and I knew death was imminent! She told me to go see my doctor and shut up.

Then I talked to Ravi the following week when I no longer thought I was dying. I told him I was not only afraid of dying, I was afraid of dying of something as generic as the swine flu. Can you believe it? I was worried about dying a generic death. Typical Zainab.

Anyway, I thought to myself that I may leave behind a complicated legacy. It is already complicated by the tumultuous and strange life I have had to participate in up until now, but then I would die of the swine flu? WTF? I would just be a health statistic, taken down by a disease causing new distress for the human race. No individuality in my death!

I feel like people would be distracted from my sad, tragic, happy, interesting life because I died of the swine flu. Then it would just turn into ridiculously sad news that a vibrant 22 year who old died of the swine flu, which we may all die of eventually. Who knows? I would be forgotten maybe and the details of my death would take over memories of me.

I have left no children, no classic art, no fantastic cause, no blossoming foundation. I would have left just a body that died of swine flu.

I need a more original death than that. And the death must come much later than 22. Please give me time to at least correct myself and my situation.

Only Ravi would be shallow enough with me for a few minutes to discuss the reasons not to die of swine flu.

And I write this as I wait for my plane to arrive. Damn it Zainab. I would delete it all but keep in mind I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my sh*t.