The End of The Good Death.

It's Monday and I've finally nudged out the time to get this thing kick started into gear. I'm quite reluctant to do this post at the expense of my sleep, but given the current circumstances, I can pretty much guarantee that if I don't get this done now, I won't get it done until the holidays, which is only a week away, yay :D.

Inside this post, you will find.

- The Final Installment to the Good Death Trilogy that I purely quote as to not butcher it.

- A yummy song uploaded courtesy of me.

- My first attempt at a diablogue.

- A general update of what is to come in the foreseeable future.

- A rant on a few qualities in humans I find rather detestable.

So let's get the easy things out of the way.

My week has been pretty forgettable, so forgettable that I actually can't remember anything interesting to post about. However, with the holidays only a few days away, you can guess that this thing will be running at full capacity come the second term. But that isn't to say that from here on in, the road to the holidays won't be an easy one, with a few tests, and a half SAC that I aim to blitz with flying colors. So my week will, hopefully, be pretty full on, rather than the daily dose of procrastination.

This is a song known as Shooting Stars (Vocal Mix) by the Bag Raiders, one of my most well liked producers this decade, and I've only discovered them early last year. :P. Song is fantastic, check it out.


Shooting Stars (Vocal Mix) - Bag Raiders | Upload Music

Anyway, two things that have lately gotten on my nerve are characteristics I can find often in the people near me.

- When you ask people to do a favor, and they accept, but they act like complete knobs about it. For example, let's say person x needs help with something, and asks person y. Person y will accept to it, often reluctantly, and endeavour to help, and at the same time, throws person x into a guilt trip for asking person y to help.

Now this pisses me off on many levels, well one level.

If I'm going to ask you for help, and you don't want to help, just say no, don't say yes and be a complete wanker about it, like really, if I knew you were going to be a complete asshat, I wouldn't have asked you in the first place.

[Coarse language beginning here].

- People who hang shit on you.

Amidst my studying e.t.c., I have been burdened, and pardon my whining here, but I really need to get this off my chest, so if you're going to hate and be like "Blah blah think of all the kids who don't have it like you do" and whatnot, get off my blog, unbookmark it, delete the cookies if any and just don't read it again, because I can feel rants coming back on a regular basis, or just don't read this one paragraph.

Anyway, these past few weekends, my uncle has been bringing his kid over to get help with homework. This is all good, up until the following has been disclosed to me.

- The kid doesn't want to do it.
- The kid won't learn it.
- The work is due in the next fucking day.

Now, I am all for helping people if they want to learn, but not when they don't want to learn it, not when they don't need to learn it, and not when there's an expectation for me to successfully help them. Get fucked. Seriously, while I've got my own shit to do, I'm not going to put up with such shit. But alas, my conscience gets the better of me, and I will try to help in vain, I really do, none of the half-way stuff, I'm trying to get the kid to understand the shit.

Well, the kid can't, and I'm not blaming the kid, shit's fairly advanced for the kid's age. So the kid goes off, and leaves me be, and it's not a second after 5 minutes that my dad comes barging in going off his face at me for not helping the kid. Really, fuck off it's not my fault.

1. Given the stackloads of work I need to complete, I really don't need another thing on my to do list.
2. Why the fuck is there suddenly an expectation for me to successfully help a kid who doesn't want to be helped?
3. And here I may add that the uncle coming gives NO WARNING WHATSOEVER to his arrival, and comes, and I will be blunt, uninvited.
4. I think it's pretty fucking bullshit how it's my fault that the dumbass sends the kid to some dumbass tutor who doesn't explain the fucking work, and gives the kid homework for it, expecting the kid to know about it. Which leads to me having to explain the shit to the kid, wasting my time, the kids time, my breath, my energy, the dumbass's money, and the dumbass's time.
5. I cannot stress how bullshit it is that all this is being thrown on me, seriously.

[COARSE LANGUAGE ENDS HERE].

Thanks if you actually read it. Rewards for all, including: A trailer of a game I really want at the moment.




And the best, arguable, video from MysteryGuitarMan. If you haven't checked him out, he's probably got the best videos going around on YouTube at the moment.



Looking at the time, I really don't have it in me for typing out a good thousand at least from an article and a diablogue at the same time, and the article is more important, so the diablogue will be saved for another time, but the article, that's for now.



INSTALLMENT 3: THE FINAL INSTALLMENT.

Jesus' Death.

While Socrates' name does not appear in Zarathustra, Jesus' does. And while the "Of Voluntary Death" section of Zarathustra presents the death of Jesus as decidedly voluntary (like that of Socrates), the Nazarene's death is presented as anything but 'good' or 'triumphant'. Much of the reason for his failure to achieve a good death has much to do with timing. Zarathustra says:

Truly, too early died that Hebrew whom the preachers of slow death honor: and that he died too early has since been a fatality for many. As yet he knew only tears and the melancholy of the Hebrews, together with the hatred of the good and the just - the Hebrew Jesus: then the longing for death seized him. Had he only remained in the desert and far from the good and the just! Perhaps he would have learned to live and learned to love the earth - and laughter as well!... Believe it, my brothers! He died too early; he himself would have recanted his teaching had he lived to my age! He was noble enough to recant! But he was still immature.

While one could follow these provocative remarks in any number of directions, here I merely want to note the emphasis Nietzsche places on the matter of timing in what he takes to be the ultimately disappointing death of Jesus of Nazareth. Three times Zarathustra insists that the death of Jesus came "too early". While Zarathustra suggests there was indeed a voluntary component to the death of Jesus, its tragic pre-maturity essentially prevents the Nazarene from achieving hte elusive well-timed 'good death'.
Near the end of "Of Voluntary Death", Zarathustra remarks

In your death, your spirit and your virtue should still glow like a sunset glow around the earth; otherwise yours is a bad death. Thus I want to die myself.

The question of whether Nietzsche's Zarathustra achieved his wish for such a glowing death is unanswered. We know from his notes and letters that Nietzsche considered adding additional parts to his Zarathustra, and that he gave much thought to how he would write Zarathustra's death-scene. These additional parts never materialized, however, and as it stands, Zarathustra ends with its protagonist alive and well. But while his Zarathustra's death is not a matter of record, Nietzsche's own death is. I would like to close with a few Zarathustra-inspired reflections on Nietzsche's own final act.

That's Jesus Done.

Now onto the champion of Existentialism himself: Friedrich Nietzsche.

Nietzsche's Death.

As surely as bad timing compromises the death of Jesus according to Nietzsche Zarathustra, I propose that the matter of timing likewise causes Nietzsche's own death to fall on the bad side of Zarathustra's ledger. For dying too early is only one way that poor timing can make for a less-than-successful death, according to Zarathustra. The other, of course, is dying too late.

While Nietzsche in fact died in at the age of 55 in 1900, it is the sad circumstances surrounding his illness and death which bring to mind Thus Spoke Zarathustra's admonitions to those who "hang on ... too long" and as a result, fail to master "the difficult art of going at the right time". As is well known, Nietzsche was plagued by steadily deteriorating health since his youth. A litany of physical symptoms: acute myopia, ever worsening bouts of nausea and other gastro-intestinal problems, and agonizing headaches, contributed to him resigning his promising professorship in 1879, at the age of only 34. By the mid-1880s, Nietzsche's wretched condition, compounded by his ongoing efforts to self-medicate, left the increasingly isolated philosopher bed-ridden for days at a time. In January 1889, at the age of 44, Nietzsche collapsed on the streets of Turin, and lapsed into madness for the rest of his life.

What brings to mind Zarathustra's warnings about the 'too late' deaths of those who "hang on ... too long" is the fact that the insane Nietzsche went on to live for another eleven years, with each year bringing great mental and physical incapacity. By 1900, the year of his death, the 55-year-old Nietzsche was barely able to move, and had essentially no knowledge of where he was, who he was, or who he had been.

While no one wishes for a death upon a 44-year-old, it seems clear that according to Zarathustra's criteria, Nietzsche would have died a better death had he expired in the streets of Turin in 1889 rather than only end his sane life there. Though some achievements of a 'good death', Nietzsche's own protracted final act certainly seems to confirm that sometimes an early, or earlier death can actually facilitate the fine art of dying well.
Recognizing this, Nietzsche's Zarathustra, comparing men to apples, prophetically proclaims:

Many too many live and they hang on their branches much too long. I wish a storm would come and shake all this rottenness and worm-eatenness from the tree! I wish preachers of speedy death would come! They would be the fitting storm and shakers of the trees of life!

Unfortunately, even if Nietzsche had died in Turin in 1889, his noteworthy lack of immediate intellectual heirs would seemingly have prevented him from attaining the consummating death Zarathustra lauds and Socrates embodies. But at least he would have been spared the 'double death' that was his fate. At least, to use Zarathustra's imagery, the long-suffering philosopher would not himself be counted among those who hang on to the branches of life so long as to become "rotten" and "worm-eaten".

Almost there.

Last Words.

As both Nietzsche's Zarathustra and Charles Krauthammer remind us, achieving a good death is no easy matter. Whether considering the death of Prokofiev, Jesus, or Nietzsche himself, we see that timing plays a crucial role in what Krauthammer calls "the fine art of dying well". While the timing of one's death is sometimes something we can exert some control over - as in the case of the consummating and glowing death of Socrates - at other times, Krauthammer reminds us, one's ability (or inability) to achieve such a timely death simply depends on luck.
It seems appropriate to give the last word to Zarathustra. Having examined the deaths - some successful, others not - of several famous figures, his poetic proclamations on the topic take on a fresh significance:

Many die too late and some die too early. Still the doctrine sounds strange: 'Die at the right time.' ... Die at the right time: thus Zarathustra teaches.

And that settles it for the Fine Art of Dying a Good Death, I will also end my blog post here, with a link to my favorite channel ever on YouTube, it's got my favorite videos, and as a last note, if you enjoyed reading the philosophical articles, please give me feedback, either in the comments, or on MSN, and I provide more regularly in the future, but until then, peace the f@%k out guys.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ChappieTV

BOOKMARK THAT CHANNEL!