Death

Of all topics to pick, why death? I suppose I was just thinking about it. It's a gorgeous, hot summer day, and I'm staring at the sunny blue sky through the window. But somehow my thoughts tripped over to this most serious of topics.

It all began with the plate of spaghetti on the counter. That is to say, it had once been a plate of spaghetti. I can only surmise that someone was cleaning out the refrigerator and forgot to throw away a plate of remains. By the time I found it and scraped it at arm's length into the kitchen trash with face averted it had transformed into a pile of pungent goo. Decomposition. Death of healthy molecules.

I didn't think of the putrescent plate again until now, when for some reason I was thinking about hunting. I have never gone hunting or even fired a gun in my life, so I'm not completely sure why this topic rose to mind. Ever since a conversation I had with Will G. a while back, I've thought about it every now and then. Hunting creates a problem for my mind. The problem is this: Could I kill an animal?

I don't know. Death is sad. Decomposition is disgusting. The reason for this is that neither should exist in a perfect world. There is something fundamentally wrong about death and decomposition both. Nonetheless, animals must die. I eat the results of their death every day, and I have no qualms about doing so. So if they have to die, could I not kill them? Is it not hypocrisy to be too fastidious to kill an animal myself and yet to expect others to do it for me?

I think if I had to I could, but I would never take pleasure in death.

It seems to me that hunting is something different, however. Hunting nowadays is not just procuring food, but is proving to oneself that one could procure food if needed. In this case the kill is necessary because it is the proof. In hunting, if one takes pleasure in a kill, it is because one is pleasuring in one's own abilities. I don't think that is bloodthirsty, so long as one remembers what one is doing.

But I also think that it is part of the inherent seriousness of death that shows us our own value as human beings. We have the right to kill all other things except each other. Yet sometimes even that is necessary, to prevent other humans killing us or the ones we love.

I think that I could kill even another human being if necessary. I hope that it will never be.  ¶ 10:14 AM