In the distance, Diane Dufresne sang “Don’t kill the beauty of the world”. In any case, the drums from Sainte-Hélène Island came to me. I had a front row seat on my southwest-facing balcony this Monday (Moon day; Friday is Venus day).
I thought about putting on Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon, then no. I wanted to hear, feel, see…alone. Life does not provide us with so many sacred moments of this magnitude; it deserves a minute or two of contemplation.
On the Mont Mégantic website, Boucar said that it was the death and rebirth of the sun and that we eat sun through photosynthesis. Then the light gradually went out. I cried in spite of myself, moved by not being much. What a relief finally!
“ Humbled by the moon », I thought, a verb that does not exist in French. Made humble thanks to the moon, by an unusual tango between two stars. And not taking ourselves for the navel of the universe has done a world of good for the end of our race. We don’t own the show. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from this credits atmosphere. We lost our omnipotence for a few minutes on Monday, all becoming philosophers in the process.
As in being born and dying, we only disappeared for a minute and a half in Montreal and three minutes and a half in Mégantic. The only things that can still subdue us are an eclipse and death, sometimes illness. In the first case, we remain amazed, in the second, we cannot believe it, although it depends on the religions.
I no longer remember what religion I belonged to on Monday, animist with Inca ascendancy, perhaps; a creature of wonder subject to the laws of nature and the universe, dharma. “ Dharma works “, say the Buddhists. This is why we cry in the face of an eclipse. We are part of the mystery of dharma.
Die a little
No one around me wants to hear about death, as if dharma were an optional program. I have just finished David Foenkinos’ latest novel, Happy life, and the writer was interested in this Korean therapeutic ceremony (Happy Dying) where you are locked in a coffin, from 15 minutes to an hour, after asking you to write your epitaph and a succinct will. You prepare your own exit with a framed photo on the coffin. But you will be reborn, like the sun on Monday.
The concept was based on a simple observation: being confronted with death could allow you to rediscover the taste for life.
My father always said that you couldn’t be a little pregnant. Well, we can die a little. South Korea implemented this original ritual around twenty years ago because of the very high suicide rate in the country.
These fake funerals offer depressed or worn-out people a second chance, to be reborn. And sometimes, like the narrator in Happy lifethey decide to change their lives, as if they had vegetated in the shadow of the moon and moved to the side of light.
Disgusted with your work, unhappy in love, tired of your paralysis? A little coffin trick might fix that for you; as one realizes the meaning of life in a NDE (near death experience). A bit like the character of Ricky Gervais (Tony) after the death of his wife in the excellent and grating British series Afterlife that he wrote, getting back on your feet sometimes involves frequent visits to cemeteries.
Regarding death, the philosopher André Comte-Sponville spoke about it in The world last Sunday. Aged 72, Comte-Sponville spoke of his future death, but also of his mother’s suicide when he was 34. A psychologist wrote to him on this subject: “Hope is the main cause of suicide: we only kill ourselves out of disappointment. »
Disappointed idealists
Comte-Sponville takes up the words of George Bernard Shaw: “There are two catastrophes in existence: the first is when our desires are not satisfied, the second is when they are. »
The philosopher adds: “In short, it is about hoping a little less, and above all knowing, acting and loving a little more! » Campaigner in favor of the legalization of voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide, Comte-Sponville is pro-freedom and pro-choice. He said to young people: “It is not because life is good that we must love it; it is to the extent that we love it that it becomes good. » And loving it is also in its difficulties and its horrors, and I add in its full and complete mystery, a part of cosmic mysticism in support.
The only real philosophical problem is not suicide, it’s knowing why we can’t kill ourselves.
Speaking of suicide, I was stunned by this recent guide from the Quebec Suicide Prevention Association (AQPS). Actors and authors from the cultural sector contributed to it. A “knowledge broker” (?!) suggests to creators how to use suicide in their works.
I know a number of people who over the course of my life have committed socially acceptable suicides (consciously or not) through alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, food, and even dangerous behavior. These “suicides” are not recorded anywhere because they are so common. Should literary bars be banned?
The posthumous novel by François Blais — The boy with upside down feet — was even the subject of a social breakdown in 2022 because he mentioned suicide.
If my father had not committed suicide (21 years old, tomorrow, April 13) of which I am a collateral victim, I would not have thought and read as much on this subject, more than I would have liked. I have lived in this shadow for 21 years.
I understand the intention of the version “ sugar coated » (avoid contagion by imitation), but I do not believe that it is by erasing the circumstances of suicide, however crude they may be, that we will resolve the problem, even though, as a destructive species, we practice socially collective suicide. acceptable, sanctified by GDP.
Asking creators to provide a blurred portrait of distress (or lucidity) is a ferocious lie to which art should not have to submit and, above all, whose odious post-mortem it should not bear.
When the wise man points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger.