The Ninth Street Center Infrequently Asked Questions

Why Don't People Die?

A lot of nonsense has been written about the fear of death, about its being a final humiliation, a final defeat. Personally I agree with the guy who said, "I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens." The big sleep, after all, is no different in kind from the little sleeps. Consciousness winks in and out of existence every day, and we have no reason at all to think that we're capable of suffering when the switch is in the "off" position. After all, if we're not aware of anything we can't be aware that we're dead -- it's really just that simple.

Yes, people are mortal. But is it any more tragic that there is an ending point than that there was a starting point? I don't hear anybody complaining that they weren't born a year earlier. When someone dies, if they've lived well, I feel they've "lived well" permanently. They own that little corner of time and space they've occupied, and no god or big crunch can ever take that away from them.

When Paul died some people at the Center were sad that they had never found much to give him in return for what he had done for them. One of them was distraught that such a bad thing could happen to such a good person. I shared his surprise that more of his students didn't feel the sharp sorrow he and I shared at his passing, but I tried to tell him that Paul had lived wisely and well it that it just wouldn't do for us to pity him:

      My years with Paul, though difficult and full of unresolved questions still, were good ones. To the very end we were close, despite all the problems. Our relationship was a tool with which we reached for the highest meanings and values of our lives. The Saturday before he died I got the chance to tell him how utterly central polarity was in my being, that everything in my life that was important to me was only important through my relationship with him.
      The last few months he said goodbye to everything, like the little girl in the Mark Twain's story about Missouri he liked to tell, and he cried a lot. He was afraid to die, maybe because he thought he was going to be exiled to some other plane of existence. But he didn't go anywhere. He's still alive then. 1909 to 1985 is his time, forever, and I can see him right now making trouble, going his own way, helping people, shocking people, damning history, and crafting a system that would go beyond what anyone he would ever meet would ever fully comprehend.
      The day Paul died I felt him come alive in me. Having seen these people from his perspective for so many years, I find it natural to expect to have the same kind of relationship with them. Paul and I are like the doctor in a Tennessee Williams play who is praised for his love of humanity. "I hate humanity," he replies. "I only care about people I can help."
      One last thing. You say that Paul's death has been a major event in the lives of us all. I thought it would be, but I was wrong. But it's important for me not to hate, and I have to find solace in the fact that these people, some of whom cared nothing for him as a person, are using his insights to start a new world. It's the only kind of monument he would have wanted.