Splash No. 158 - Mortality
Mortality
My life has been too fun and positive lately, so my book club started reading Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart, a memoir that dives into her mixed race identity, but mostly focuses on her experience dealing with her mother’s cancer and eventual death. To call it heartbreaking and depressing is an understatement — I’ve never read a book that has made me cry so much and so often, little pieces of sorrow scattered in hundreds of pages and thousands of words.
Hearing Zauner describe the sorrow and regrets of seeing her mother succumb to a horrible disease, learning about the horrid details of a cancer patient, imagining the inescapable grief that would follow her for the rest of her life was a brutal experience. And what was more brutal was the fact that it wasn’t some bizarre freak accident — it was someone succumbing to the second biggest cause of death in the country. And so, as I get to hear about the horrifying details of Zauner’s experience, as her mother loses various parts of herself, as hope comes and goes, as she searches for meaning in everything, I can’t help just wonder how life itself could be so depressing — that such grief and sadness is inevitable for anyone who loves another. The depths of this melancholia make me question everything. In particular, I find myself asking: “how can I let myself not revel in the good times if I know that there could be a dark time around the corner? And how can I make any times that aren’t explicitly bad times into good times?”
Someone told me about their friend who had a debilitating disease that would eventually kill her within ten years. The only thing she could figure out to say to her friend was, “I wish you could be happier for the time you have left.” And the friend could only say, “Me too.” It made me think about a point in the book, Zauner’s family starts to plan trips and adventures for the mother, hoping that maybe the disease will somehow wait for the end of the festivities; that the happiness will stave off death.
It seems like when people are faced with the inevitability of their own deaths, their natural instincts about what life is about sharpen. “If life is now shorter, why don’t I spend it trying to be happy?” And so people draw their loved ones closer, try to experience new things while they still can, and look to find meaning wherever possible. Focusing on dying reminds people to focus on living. But why does it need to come to that point for it to feel real? What was baked into us that made living our lives in a way that felt fulfilling only seemed like a possibility at the brink? Who told us that we couldn’t change our circumstances or at least our perspective about what made us happy or what was meaningful?
I refuse to prematurely mourn a life unlived. Instead, I want to see mortality as inspiration — the transience that provides meaning. What good is a song that never ends, a book that stretches into infinity, a meal that keeps coming? Everything comes to an end, but the end itself is why things matter. If my newsletter was meant to go on forever, how could I ever bring myself to write it? Since it does end, just like my life, I have the tools to craft it, massage it, and shape it as I see fit; until it brings fulfillment, until it brings joy, until it brings peace.
Drops of the Week
PLAYLIST - Vampire Weekend Mix - Spotify made me this and I've been listening to it a lot. Lots of indie jams.
ARTICLE - "Dreams of discord" by Robin Sloan - interesting exploration of how Discord can be used outside of it's normal operating procedure.
BOOK - Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner - you saw this coming.
With each day, we can move closer to a more equitable world. Reminders:
Donate to Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta Mutual Aid Networks
Anti-racism resources
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Inevitably,
Nikhil