Thursday, September 24, 2020

Death and Life

 As we know, Sing, Unburied, Sing has a reoccurring theme of death. Everyone knows that eventually we will all die, but it takes a long time to understand what that actually means. For most of us high schoolers, I think we can better understand it as a journey that will eventually come to an end. I feel that this knowledge is similar to our time throughout high school. When we are little, it seems like graduating is eons in the future and that we all have plenty of time. Now, facing our last year, our last everythings of high school, it makes me appreciate how quickly time has gone by. Our ages range from 17 to 18 years old, and while we are still young, we have already experienced approximately a fifth of our life (though hopefully less). In years of high school, our freshman year is almost over. In terms of pre-college years, we are in 2nd grade (about). I just think it's really crazy how time works. I try not to be obsessed with time and mortality, but I think it is helpful to keep it in mind so that you can appreciate each moment in your life, not just try to race to the end. If you only think, "I just need to finish high school," then it's "I just need to finish college," to grad school to marriage, till children, till retirement, until you die. Before you know it, your whole life will have passed you by. All this talk of death has made me think about life.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I love this, Izzy. I feel the exact same way. The fact that we're seniors hasn't set in yet. I feel like I can remember my first day in Pre-K like it was yesterday! All the tragic death in Sing, Unburied, Sing got me thinking about life, too, but it also got me thinking about the afterlife. In this novel, we see a lot of ghosts that never seem at peace. Of course, these ghosts experienced tragic ends to their life, which made me think about the effects of how we die on our afterlife and souls. In other words, if I were to die a natural and peaceful death, would my afterlife be calm and zen? Or if I died because of a painful disease, would I be in eternal pain? Or like Given and Richie, if I got my life cut short because of unexpected cause, would I never be at peace? I'm definitely thinking too hard about it, but I think it's something to keep in mind. Like you said, Izzy, it's important to be content and present in every moment of our lives because time really does slip away. If we live every moment like our last, then there is really no need to worry about our afterlife.

Catherine Ronquillo said...

hi izzy!! Okay, this definitely got me thinking. With this novel, death is obviously a major factor, but I don't think I ever related it to my personal life before. This blog post really made me appreciate the things in my life because you gave me some perspective. I think I'm always trying to hold on to time. I know that I'm a senior, but I always try to remind myself that it's only September, so I don't feel as if high school is almost over. It's really crazy to think that we've all almost completed high school. I just remember being this terrified eighth grader thinking that this will never come to an end, but now as it almost has, I'm sad about it. More recently, I think I have tried to live a little more fearlessly as the idea of "life" has been on my mind a lot. I'm starting to realize how precious life is and how easily it can be taken away. I think that's why I'm trying to live more in the moment and make the most out of this last year and every year after that. I really liked the point you made about "just finishing" the major milestones of life. I can have that mentality sometimes when I feel overwhelmed or stressed, and I feel like in those moments I'm not truly living life the way it's intended to be lived. I feel like life is meant to be cherished, not rushed through and I remind myself of that far too often. If I don't tell myself this enough, I think this blog post made me realize how important it is to live everyday to the fullest, so thank you !!

Unknown said...

Hi, Izzy. Your post reminds me a lot of Clara’s for this week. In today’s society, we have a bunch of emphasis on the “yolo” ideology, but a lot of times I think that we need to take a step back and realize that living life to the fullest doesn’t necessarily mean we need to be constantly doing activities. Additionally, I like how you were able to tie in this philosophy into our literary novel, so as Catherine said, thank you!!