In Memoriam

I just heard through several friends of mine of the loss of another luminary. Yet another who dedicated their life to serving those of us less fortunate, less seen and less provided for by the mechanics of our modern systems. Yet another who dared to live and to love with all of their being, and to use their relative privilege as a lever to move the world. Yet another one who, for reasons unknown (by me at least) reached the point where the burden of living seemed to outweigh the rewards for long enough for them to take irreversable action.

I do not know this woman. We never met. And I am not going to interfere with the process or the memory of those who are grieving to name her here; this was a private action, and this, for now at least, is a very private grief.

I visited her Facebook page today — moved to do so by the tribute of one whom I hold dear — and right now, as I write, I cannot stop crying. It could have been me. It could have been so many of those I know who appear to be living an inspired and fulfilling life, a life of passion and purpose and repostable posts, while spending their waking moments battling demons we cannot see.

I don’t have an answer to this. I wish that I did. I wish that I knew a way to provide for the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards those of us working for the common good require in order to keep going, to keep moving in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity. I wish I knew how to reshape the world so that the ordinary everyday heroism of those whose very lives make the world better — regardless of their location, occupation or vocation — was acknowledged with enough consistency that in their moments of critical internal invalidation, they could find, if only for a moment, enough reason to keep going. I wish I knew how to ensure that the seeming clarity of closure might be more dispassionately investigated, interrupted for long enough that some new clarity might arise, if only to step away from the edge for one more moment. Just one.

I don’t understand. Really I don’t.

I don’t understand why we let these amazing tools that we have — technologies, practises and communities — become tools for the enslavement of our egos instead of the liberation of our selves. I don’t understand why we still haven’t found a better way to recognise the madness in ourselves and in each other, to embrace in that madness, sit beside each other for as long as it takes for the madness to subside and for clearer vision to emerge.

I don’t understand why we worship at an altar that seems to require the sacrifice of great hearts to sate the demands of impoverished hearts who whore themselves for fame, or money, or power.

I don’t want to live in a world that celebrates vacuousness. Nor do I want to live in one that celebrates nihilism. I want to live in a world in which every life matters, where I am as capable of recognising the suffering of others as I am of recognising my own, and where I am as willing to ask for help as I am to give it. I want to live in a world in which one death for entirely preventable reasons is considered unconscionable, and that the warriors amongst us — those who live in service to righting the great wrongs of this human experiment — are venerated in life as much as they are in death.

I don’t know the particular flavor of this woman’s struggle, yet I’ve only recently emerged from my own long, dark tea-time of the soul, and feel that I can relate. I can still feel the hangover of countless days of dancing on the razor’s edge, mindful of the consequence of a momentary slip, and dancing along regardless. I’ve only just managed to move my mind from the miasma of my miserable mendicating to recognise that nobody ever asked me to sacrifice my wellbeing in order that others could experience wellbeing for themselves. I vomited my seeming self-realization into the yawning maw of Facebook a few months ago, and was met with resounding support and reverberating indifference; no surprise, really, given that so many are navigating their own invisible challenges, feelingly similarly unseen and unheard in the wider world. I know what it is to struggle, and to contemplate the many ways in which this struggle might end, and I’m certain that many more of us have considered the possibility than would ever admit to it publicly.

And the point that I’ve finally come to is that I want to live my life on purpose.

I want to live my life as an epitaph to those who’ve gone before, and to those who are yet to follow.

So right now, today, I bow before the memory of this young woman, who has only so very recently given over her nurturance of others to so soon — too soon — a nurturing of the earth. I will invoke your memory as an inspiration to seeing not only how better I can serve, but how better I could have served you in your movement in the world.

Thank you for all you did to make my homeland better for those who came so many millenia before us.

PS: To those in my family who know of whom I speak, I’m truly sorry. I trust this reflection does not come across as a knowing assertion of this woman and her life, of her struggles, or of the reasons for her actions. I know that this is a difficult time, and it’s not my intention to hijack your grief for the purposes of my own self-aggrandizing narrative. I just felt deeply and profoundly moved by the loss of one who is so well-loved by those who are so well-loved by me.