Fear of Death

The macabre theater that is Terri's Schiavo's life/death illustrates a lot to different people. For some, it's a travesty not to let her live. For some, it's a travesty not to let her die.

For me, I am so very very happy to hear that more and more Americans are facing the inevitable fact that we are all mortal. I started a rant about 20 years ago... about how Americans were soooo scared to death of death... that it's totally tucked away in the universal consciousness of Americans. Americans, I felt had a very unnatural and inflictive fear of death.

Why did I choose the word inflictive? The fear of death is so pervasive here in America that people will use the fear to inflict laws on each other. Examples are seat belt laws, non-smoking laws, child safety laws, etc. But along with this inflictive fear lies the unnatural fear. I was so glad to see that "6 Feet Under" showed how other cultures deal with death and that the main character felt that Americans were too septic in the way we approached death.

I do believe that Congress had a knee jerk reaction... that someone saw an opportunity to market against death, and that politicians could cash in on this fear.

I really hope that the polls are correct and this ends up backfiring on those who peddle fear so that they can send our children to war to be killed. That the conversation in America has taken a turn from talking about 'cancer' in a whisper, 'aids' in a whisper, to a full-fledged "Honey, if I am EVER in a position where I am incapacitated and cannot make decisions on my own, pull the plug."

For once I am going to see the silver lining and say, thanks Congress. Without you, there'd be 2 million less living wills today. Excuse me while I go off to work on mine.

Filed under Reveries & Paranoias.