Death and Dating

If you are reading this, you are alive. How often are you truly aware of it?

“I’m going to wake right up tomorrow morning and be grateful to be alive,” said Jason over dinner. He is one of my best friends; I’ve known him since our freshman year of college. I love him dearly. Earlier that day, his cousin had been shot point-blank four times, and was killed.

“I love this feeling,” said Jessica as we walked together a few nights later, “It makes me feel so alive.” Jessica is another college friend; she recently moved back to New York, and we became close again. She was excited to tell me about a guy she met at a party—they had hit it off and were going to get together that week.

It feels uncomfortable, and even inappropriate, to describe these two evenings in the same breath. What could be more different than a senseless murder and a first date? First dates are fun. They’re fluff. And death… well, you know. When death enters the room, there’s nothing else you can talk about, and yet… there’s nothing really you can say.

But I’m intrigued by the connection between death and dating anyway. Jason and Jessica shared a sharp awareness of their own existence; they felt, as Jessica said, “so alive,” and as I spoke with them, so did I.

I think that usually, like a child playing peek-a-boo, when we no longer experience something directly, it disappears. In other words, we live mostly in our heads and the world travels through us, instead of the reverse. This is human nature, after all: the world and its inhabitants are subplots to the soap opera story of our own lives.

And then we become suddenly, fully, intensely aware of something—or, in this case, someone. To be fully aware of another human being is rare; often it’s when we lose them, or when we first see them. They are beautiful, strong, inspiring, intelligent, and real. We are in awe. We move out of our heads for a while, no longer the main character. The world becomes the world again, and not the backdrop to our brain.

Let’s move out of our heads more often. Let’s see the people around us for who they really are, and before it’s too late. Let’s be conscious participants in the world, and grateful for creation. Then, perhaps, we might feel so alive, all the time.

For more information about Jason’s cousin and the current murder investigation.

Cross-posted to The Spirituality Project blog.