Have You Made Your Arrangements?

At a certain point you’re going to plan that gathering which you won’t be able to attend. You’re going to make your final arrangements. How will you be laid to rest? Will you be buried in casket? A coffin is tantamount to a casket but according to the Nosek- McCreery Funeral, Cremation and Green Services on-line infomercial, coffins, which have six sides, are no longer in; “Coffins are what you have seen in old movies,” the site explains. Will you have a casket cover and how much are you willing to have your estate, already hit hard by taxes, shell out? Will you go for the kind of simple pine box that can be found on Potter’s Field or do you want a stately mahogany affair representing you on the bier? Dying intestate means there's no will, but if you don’t declare in your will what will be done with your remains then the responsibility will remain with someone else. If you decide not to be buried in a casket, you may be cremated for considerably less money. According to NBC (“Cremation is the Hottest Trend in the Funeral Industry,” 1/22/13), cremation is about one third the $6500 to be buried in a casket. If you’re someone who enjoys getting in the last word, you may want to write your own good-bye or have it said by someone you think is going to get it right. By the time you’re ready to die, your going to have been to a number of funerals and you’ll have a good idea of your likes and dislikes when it comes to eulogies. Generally funeral services have to end early enough so that the entourage can get to the cemetery before it closes. You’ve always hated those funerals which start at 9 A.M., which means you have to get up early to get to the gym by 6:30. But what’s even worse is the guilt inducing succession of activities which mourners are asked to attend--though some would say guilt goes with the territory. For instance the burial might be at 2, but the family won’t be accepting visits from friends of the deceased until 6 so there is gong to be time to kill. Here is your big chance to right the wrongs of the past. You don’t want to find yourself people pleasing from the grave, but you can make your send off memorable by caring for the needs of the living. Once you’re dead you’re dead and there’s no need to hammer a nail into the casket by insisting that those who are living have to suffer through an overly drawn out send-off. And while making your arrangements you may want to pick up The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford and The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh--essential reading for anyone planning to die.

Carpe Diem

Carpe diem, “seize the day,” is the advice of both the sybarite and the stoic. It’s an excuse to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, as well as an exhortation to enjoy the moment whether or not it gratifies the senses.

   

In reality, only a devout Buddhist monk could truly live in the moment, and his form of living would involve zazen, or sitting meditation. Those who are not so spiritually advanced are doomed to live in a world of either regret about past mistakes or expectations about future rewards. The present falls prey to the allure of that which is past or has yet to be. That which exists always comes up short when compared to what is missing. The sometime lover almost always wins out over the erstwhile companion for life. The fleeting image contains a world of possibility, whereas the known bears the weight of predictability. In short, familiarity breeds contempt.

Carpe diem leaves out so many imaginative possibilities, in particular those having to do with nostalgia and hope. What would The Winter’s Tale be in a world of carpe diem? Impossible dreams and hopes fall by the wayside if the object is to “seize the day.” And then there is the beautiful, sad world of nostalgia. Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement is predicated almost completely on the murderous grip of the past over the present—in this instance because of a false accusation with consequences that ripple through time.

The past is what catalyzes most human behavior. Lovers are more in the grip of the past then they might want to know. Love doesn’t come out of nowhere. The love object must have a frame of reference, and that reference is inevitably some idealized figure in the past, in most cases a parent.

  

How to subscribe to carpe diem and remain a fan of L.P. Hartley’s The Go Between (“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”), Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, and especially Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, the authoritative work on the magnetism of the past? Was it the past Eurydice was looking back at in the transgression that led her to relinquish her grip on the present? All Eurydice would have had to do was to continue looking straight at what was in front of her. She’s an example of a mythological figure with all too human traits.

   

“One day at a time,” “one day, one lifetime,” and “live in the now” have replaced the dirty jokes on the inside of bathroom stalls. But this devotion to the present is a little like the doctrine of passive resistance. It runs counter to the very impulses and longings that that make for both the horror and beauty of what it means to be human. To be spiritually advanced enough to live in the present requires one to turn the other cheek. In the end, carpe diem could (God forbid!) give way to the austerities of Opus Dei.