Death is much debated – the curse of mortality introduced by Adam or, alternatively, thank God for death; it’s life’s form of housekeeping, sweeping away the old, the past it. In addition there is the more technical debate about the actual dividing line between life and death. At what point does brain death occur or in older, traditional technologies, at what point does the soul abandon the dead husk of its carapace and fly free. As always with debates, certainty promises much relief, which is, presumably, why some of our number make a practice of sounding certain. They see the relief on others’ faces and smile to themselves, ‘I did that’, and indulge fantasies of power.
And then there are the inbetweenies; not quite this, nor quite that. Not quite alive, nor quite dead: the zombies. The story of Lazarus comes to mind. Four days in the grave – he might be smelly, his sister complains, why didn’t you come sooner. Was Lazarus the first zombie? Did he ever die (again)? Or is he still amongst us and living in New York, wealthy and anonymous? It could be a story told by a stand-up comic or an alternative health practitioner.
When is it ever right to let someone die? Was it a good idea to raise Lazarus from the dead? I mean for him? Was he grateful? Should we or did we let God die? Or murder him? No longer fit for purpose. So that we can be alone to chew over the fat, laugh, get a bit drunk and occasionally take a vote on which idea should be allowed to die or which to keep alive or do we store it, neither dead nor alive on some shelf in the archives? Of course, we never know when one of the old ideas (apparently long dead) might be in need of resurrection.
There are a lot of us now – 6 billion or so – and I suppose one way of understanding, of imagining that stupendous number is as an archive, an immense resource, from which we never know when the next great idea is going to emerge. Is it ever a good idea to throw anything away? Look in my garage, you will see what I mean.