Mortality (Christopher Hitchens)
I have always loved autobiographies. In embarking on this new exercise of familiarizing myself with mortality, books written by authors about their own mortality are of particular interest. And because this is “The Mortal Atheist,” the top of my book list was Mortality by Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens died at the end of 2011, 18 months after his esophageal cancer diagnosis. In University I fell down a rabbit hole of watching atheists debate theists on Youtube, and that’s what ultimately led to me becoming an atheist, so I have very fond memories of Hitchens. Mortality is a collection of essays and notes written by Hitchens as he came to the end of his life.
In summarizing other books about mortality I provide overviews, pull out recommendations, suggest actions, etc. That approach works for other non-fiction, as the goal of those books is to provide facts and information. But Mortality is a personal narrative (as I imagine other books like When Breath Becomes Air will be), and so that research-driven, fact-finding attitude is inappropriate here. Instead, I just want to share what resonated with me, having no particular agenda.
Firstly, I love this sentiment from Hitch: “To the […] question ‘Why me?’ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?” I can appreciate from my own life the feeling of “why me?” when things feel unfair. The great irony being that unfairness, unpleasantness, and death are guaranteed states of affair. We act like they are personal affronts, like anomalies rather than norms. Starting this blog was my way of accepting that death is inevitable – studying for an exam I know I’ll have to take, in other words.
I agree with Hitch’s insight that terminal illness speeds things up, so to speak. He describes a “vertiginous feeling of being kicked forward in time: catapulted toward the finish line.” We all march into decline, but being handed a terminal diagnosis brings the finish line into sudden focus. I like his comparison: “[…] as with normal life, one finds that every passing day represents more and more relentlessly subtracted from less and less. […] So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this is no more than what a healthy person has to do in slower motion. It is our common fate.”
I found it interesting how Hitchens described the morning of his biopsy. “No pretense or youth or youthfulness anymore. From now on an arduous awareness.” Maybe that’s what this whole exercise of coming to terms with mortality will be, at least in the beginning. An “arduous awareness.” Arduous because it’s deliberate but laborious. I do think it’s a privilege to voluntarily explore this awareness though, because that means that nothing else has forced it (like terminal illness).
I’ll admit I was expecting that this book would contain philosophical musings on mortality from Hitch (especially given the title). But just the same, I’ll take it. I found lots to ruminate on from this book. I’ve been reminded to read “Thinking Fast and Slow,” as this is now the second time the experiencing vs. remembering self has been referenced in the context of terminal illness. I’m curious what others think about using language like “battling cancer,” or insisting that someone with a strong countenance will “win the battle,” so I’ll likely look into that too. Lastly, it had never occurred to me to include poems in my reading list, but Hitch quoted a stanza of Five O’Clock Shadow by John Betjeman, and it struck a chord.
After seven complete essays, the eighth chapter is a collection of fragmented, unfinished jottings from Hitchens. One line is a quote from Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift: “Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are able to see anything.” I’m going to keep that quote in mind. I think it perfectly describes what I’m trying to accomplish by immersing myself in the subject of mortality, and rings true for what I’m already discovering – that death is the ultimate clarifying lens.