Live as a pod, die as a pod. Live as a monster, die as a god.

Individuality is overrated. In return for the impression of freedom of action we accept a kind of historical isolation. Each of us stands alone in history – we are self-contained entities, measured and weighed up in isolation from the moment of conception the our final breaths. This is perfectly acceptable if you believe in an afterlife of some kind. You will be judged and allotted your eternal fate accordingly. But religion has lost its grip on us. Providence recedes even before the faithful, and we all carry out our mandates to accumulate stuff, knowing well in advance that it can’t be carried for all eternity. All of it needs to be left behind, and bereft of these things we have no idea who we are. The life we are born and bred to waddle through is senselessly individualistic: it erodes the ties of family and tradition. You live as a pod, you die as a pod. Your stuff –the very essence and net product of your existence- will be dismembered between a pack of squalling relatives who you barely know and you will rot in a hole in the ground throughout the blackness of eternity. Death is therefore terrifying. For an individualist – even a gloriously weak one! -, to cease to exist is a mind-buggering inconceivability.

For such an inconceivability, death occurs surprisingly frequently. It happens to everyone at some point, and all of us will sooner or later find ourselves up against the black wall. The fear of this finality crops up prominently in many lives. The clearest example of this is the amusing spectacle of the midlife crisis, wherein the fellow with the balding pate realises half his allotted span is behind him and he hasn’t actually done anything. Can he face the grave like this? Inevitably, he can. He buys a sports-car, sexually harasses a high-school girl, gets yelled at by his wife and comes to terms with the fact that he’s not going to get much done, goes back to work then at some point he dies.

This apparent meanness of existence had me in a funk for a while, until I realised that individuality may not be the normal way things are done. It may, in fact, be a seriously unhealthy sales pitch masquerading as a lifestyle. People are social animals, and this applies even to the most reclusive and inhospitable types such as my good brother Tristan and the esteemed Dr. C. We have historically been found in posses of various kinds – families, feudal bonds, armies, churches and so on, each owed varying but clearly hierarchical levels of loyalty : for instance, family first, then king, then church. At no point can our lives and achievements be considered outside the context of the posse. To take the family as the example, a father’s individual achievements count for nothing if he fails to provide for his wife and the inheritance of his children. He therefore takes his place in a chain of humanity, his every action being loaded with the significance of the work of past generations and resonating on future and existing ones. The manner of death is no exception. It was formerly possible to die well. Even death could bring honour and glory to the family and add to the achievements of the posse as a whole. Death could be preferable to living if in living one damaged the future aspirations of the family.

So, when it comes to death, my attitude is as follows. I will die bearing my shield and emblem bravely, and in such a terrifying manner that when my progeny and assorted goons take to the field and my enemies behold not one but five or fifteen such emblems, they will shit their pants in terror and flee rather than risk fighting such a horror. Above all, I will attempt to preserve the ability to choose the circumstances in which I will die. In this way I will not surmount death, but I will overcome life.