XI/90. The Great Adventure
The dying experience is our last obligation.
An adventure is more than something new and risky. It is another muscle in your great heart.
––John Roberts
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, 1904
Vanity Fair: How would you like to die?
Norman Mailer: Without undue fear––which is to say die with the same confidence I have now that there is another world one enters, and so the finest of all the clichés is that death is a great adventure.
––Vanity Fair, Interview, January, 2007
Old age and illness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.
––Felix Frankfurter
The American experience stirred mankind from discovery to exploration. From the cautious quest for what they knew (or thought they knew) was out there, into an enthusiastic reaching to the unknown. These are two substantially different kinds of human enterprise.
––Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers, 1983
Flyers have a sense of adventures yet to come, instead of dimly recalling adventures of long ago as the only moments in which they truly lived.
––Richard Bach, A Gift of Wings, 1980
They shall mount up on wings, as eagles.
––The Bible, Isaiah, 40
Being what heart you are,
Up the inhuman steeps of space,
As on a staircase go in grace,
Carrying the firelight in your face,
Beyond the loneliest star.
––G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse, 1911
It may be difficult, or in some cases inappropriate, to think of death as an adventure, the last of life’s great experiences. But, it can be done, and it has its advantages. It can convert a difficult and painful existence into an engaging journey into the unknown, one with the rewards of discovery, interest, and achievement. The goal is to make the most of the experience, rather than to allow it to become a mere end with no reward. This is one of the means of reaching that peace and understanding, an acceptable conclusion. That is our objective.
Adventure usually requires some level of bravery and self-control in taking risk and going where common sense suggests we should not. This requires putting aside the fear of pain and suffering, of losing the future and love and family. It requires positive and optimistic thought, a focus on leaving the stage with a steady mind and heart. It is concentrating on the happiness of constructed days, and dying well. It may seem pretentious, but that is better than lying there feeling only sorry for ourselves and afraid of the unknown as we drift off.
We are not great heroes who must depart with design and ceremony while a nation weeps. But, we can discover that to leave in a graceful way, with some signs of the old spirit, bolsters both the image we carry of ourselves and that we leave to others to remember. We may think of this as an obligation to the culture and people that surround us. We may encourage them, therefore, to do the same when their time comes. We may contribute to tradition and responsibility. We may foster everyone’s self-respect, for the passing of one good person adds another valued life to the corporate memory of our civilization. For all we know, our world will always be a singular miracle that deserves such ordinary people.
Approaching death, we may slip into wandering thoughts as the mind is protected from pain and has put aside all the problems of the waning life. The mind seeks the sky and visualizes an escape of adventurous flight in the light of a new sun. Joy replaces confusion or regret, hope is transferred to a new future, the past disappears, while love remains.
