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O, Death! | Horses | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: O, Death!
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Summary
Core Theme
The content explores the profound existential dread of death, concluding that while definitive answers remain elusive, the only solace lies in embracing life and living meaningfully despite its inevitable end.
often I think about dying now I consider
myself a reasonably intelligent person
I'm capable of forming coherent thoughts
on the number of subjects but thoughts
of death Shatter Me entirely
I am helpless I am horrified I realize
that in the words of Leo Tolstoy as I
live I am being stuffed into a big dark sack
sack
my warmest memories appear and
immediately rush back into the past the
smell of the Atlantic Springtime picking
blackberries with my mother running
through the garden and catching
fireflies in jars
these memories I love so much
become only reminders that one day
Must Die
and suddenly every year is passing more
dread comes from the unknowable and
Unstoppable nature of death why do we
die what does death mean if we die why
do we live
these questions are perhaps the most
well-trodden of all History's Greatest
thinkers have pondered over death the
wisest most talented humans our Earth
has ever produced have attempted to
tackle this subject
yet they have all failed
but why
as far as I can tell there are two
places we can seek an answer to death
man and nature
man presents us with science and in the
subject death science offers a white
flag and a war science can tell us the
biomechanical physiological realities of
death can tell us what happens to your
body when you die and how your body then
decades while academically interesting
this does little to bring Clarity to
death does nothing to help a person make
peace with dying
so I find the world's greatest
scientists rendered somehow into uselessness
uselessness
moving past science we can look
elsewhere spiritualists philosophers
whoever they've all examined death
I've read many of them the might of all
of this intellectual Force has been
hurled at death time and time again
I still find no answers lots of
questions but no answers
surely I can expect nothing more
people are writing about things they
know nothing about
and they so beautifully theorized about
death they had not died they were as
ignorant then as I am now
these writings are window dressing
beautiful but ultimately without
function in the face of death
and being shoved into a sack do I want
of course there's also God religion
man's greatest Shield against the
reality of death I have a deep
admiration for the religious to have
such Faith such conviction in A Storm of
arguments to the contrary I believe this
requires a tremendous and unique
strength of character but like so many I
cannot bring myself to believe in God
I'd like to believe in God but I'm not
strong enough
I cannot look at the world around us
even with all of its beauty and take
seriously the idea of God
what God gives a child cancer what God
sends hurricanes to the poor
oh god of mine
religion can have no place in my
conversation with death
without other Solutions I often Look To
Nature here we have vultures hyenas
insects these creatures all Thrive off
the deaths of others in nature animals
die and leave opportunities for the
other members of their ecosystem I do
find beauty in this phenomenon How could
a person not I wish this could provide
me with some great comfort but I still
find myself running into that same
concrete wall a conclusion of nature
does nothing to Abate the paralyzing
feeling I get when I think about death
you see reason and hope become
grotesquely meaningless when posed with
these questions
the truth the truth that I know with all
of my body is that there can be no answer
answer
in fact the only answer is the
hopelessness I feel when I think about death
death
so all I can do is live the only thing I
can find that is an approximation of an
answer to this dilemma is just that life
how can a person really live with death
looming over everything at the end of
every day
many philosophers and authors have
discussed this question unlike their
conversations of death their
conversations of life in the face of
an 1879 Leo Tolstoy had published War
and Peace as well as Anna Karenina it
earned his place among world literature
hailed as a genius after being born into
wealth tostoy had become famous for
doing what he loved the most yet he felt
entirely unfulfilled
promise of achievement had been broken
Tolstoy was spiritually emotionally lost
despite a life that should have produced
the opposite
it was in this state that he wrote the confession
confession
this roughly 100-page essay outlined his
quest to find the meaning of life and
specifically the deep depression that he
fell into upon concluding that life was meaningless
meaningless
discusses Melancholy suicide depression
misery it is one of the most
heartbreaking arresting essays ever put
to paper
and in these pages I have found my only comfort
comfort
Dulce begins with his decreasing
interest and belief in religion he says
that he only believed in God because his
Elders had instructed him to and even
then the belief had been shaky
throughout tolstoy's early years perhaps
his truer religion had been art he
sought fulfillment in his art poetry
writing and in the circles of geniuses
that he associated with
it also had once held a great faith in
the Arts but it was one that began to wane
wane
the people in a circle including himself
were paid and praised highly for their
work the public said they were Arbiters
of profound ultimate truths that these
artists were enlightening the world the
artists themselves believed it how could
they not
but Tolstoy eventually realized that for
every great writer's idea it would be
another who wholly disagreed with it
so he wondered how any of these people
could really be Arbiters of truth if
they themselves didn't even agree on
this truth
Tolstoy observed that his peers simply
hung out with people who praised them
and rejected those who didn't so every
artist believed themselves to be correct
his faith in the Arts as a driver of
meaning crumbled instead he began to
look at the concept of progress lived to
make progress within progress one could
find fulfillment Tolstoy believed he
would have a family create a wondrous
life and just make progress
but years into this Tolstoy traveled to
Paris there he witnessed a public
execution a prisoner's head fell into
its box Tolstoy began to question this
concept of progress
this disillusionment continued with the
death of tolstoy's brother Nikolai
he was a kind and intelligent man when
he fell ill in his mid-20s Nikolai
suffered for over a year eventually
succumbing to an agonizing death from consumption
consumption
but tolstoy's estimation Nikolai never
understood why he lived why he suffered
nor why he died
in the face of this reality what good
was progress
but still clinging to this idea of
progress Tolstoy began to teach young
peasants in Russia
however he quickly realized this was futile
futile
Tolstoy himself did not have what they
needed to learn
whatever knowledge would have improved
their lives provided them fulfillment
Tolstoy himself could not identify and
didn't even have so his teaching became
an impossible task
these experiences all crystallized in a
deep dark time of depression for Leo
Tolstoy in confession he says this about
his pursuit of progress
I still had not understood that in
answering that one must live according
to progress was talking just like a
person being carried along in a boat by
the waves in the wind such a person
replies to the only important question
where do we steer by saying we are being
Tolstoy had always thought the meaning
of life and death would come to him and
he would find it eventually but now it
became clear this wasn't going to happen
these questions came up over and over in
his mind in the confession he Compares
them to Tiny Black points they were few
and far between initially but were
coming together to form a single
unignorable dark stain
they were he said like an illness
ignored by a patient the symptoms
occurred with increasing frequency until
they turned into one continuous duration
of suffering
suddenly the patient would discover the
truth what was once a mild illness had
now become death
Tolstoy was a famous intellectual he had
access to the greatest knowledge history
had ever produced no Library would
refuse him entry he could sit down and
have conversations with the wisest men
in the world so he did through all of
this whole story found no answers
he was instead overtaken with an intense depression
depression
his thoughts turned to suicide and the
suicidal ideations became as normal to
him as self-preservation once had been
to end his life felt as natural as
eating or sleeping
to prevent himself from taking his own
life Tolstoy removed all the ropes from
his room he stopped hunting with a gun
in the confession Tolstoy likened this
time to having climbed a mountain he was
as successful as he could have ever been
he had reached the summit expecting a
wondrous view instead he stood there
like a fool having found only an empty Wasteland
Wasteland
in time Tolstoy found himself with a new
conclusion not that he didn't have the
answers to life and death but instead
that these questions simply didn't have answers
in the confession Tolstoy concludes that
there are four ways to live a life at
least for a man in his class first was
ignorance some people for whatever
reason had never been bothered by these
questions tolstoy's thoughts here were
simple once you start thinking about
these things you can't unthink them
there's no going back so there wasn't
anything he could learn from the ignorant
ignorant
second he said was epicureanism defines
this idea as being aware of one's
impending death and its consequences but
enjoying life anyways points to the
words of the biblical figure King Solomon
Solomon
do whatever you can do by the strength
of your hand there is no work in the
grave where you are going in a
reflection no knowledge no wisdom
told story writes that most people
employ this method but he points to it
as being inherently immoral says that
these people lead lives where they
experience more good things than bad but
through a moral stupidity they forget
that all of their advantages Privileges
and allowances are pure luck just happen
to be born into a good situation says
that they forget not everyone can be a
King Solomon with his palaces his women
and his money
for every Palace there are a thousand
Men Who Built it same chance that turns
a man into a Solomon one day can turn
him into one of Solomon's slaves the
next Tolstoy says that these people have
a dullness of imagination that allows
them to forget death to forget that
death will eventually just destroy the
things they enjoy so much
in claims epicureans aren't really much
different than the ignorant you see once
a person is illuminated to the moral
problems with this lifestyle there's
again no going back
so ultimately Tolstoy finds no comfort
in epicureanism
the third choice he proposes is suicide
if you don't like a room then leave
Tolstoy declares however he says he is
too emotionally weak to do this final
option is where I find comfort and it
seems Tolstoy found some version of
comfort as well
that option is simply to live to
recognize that everything will be
destroyed eventually and that you will
die eventually but to keep moving
forward no matter how painful or inane
or seemingly pointless death renders
things to be just keep living now
Tolstoy wrote this essay in the midst of
a profound depression and so he
concludes that option four is Holy miserable
miserable
however I have to disagree I don't
choose to disagree I have to I have no
choice I have no interest in suicide I
have no way of understanding death
this question will be forever unanswered
so all that I can do is find fulfillment
in life in a meaningful connection to
the act of living
this house may be destroyed in time but
I must still live in it so I should make
it nice
and so when I torment myself with
imaginations of death I have to think
about this I have to seek fulfillment in
the mundane and every day I cannot dwell
on the future friends family work
Leisure these are the things that make
up my life however futile they are when
pitted against death
indeed the alternative is horrific to
let death lead one's life entirely
astray to ignore the issues of death and
to lead a holy unexamined life
this is an entirely different form of self-destruction
self-destruction
perhaps appropriately this is a subject
the death of Yvonne Elite is a fantastic
companion piece to the confession
whether or not it was intended as such
it tells the story of iban Elitch a
court official who falls and injures
himself while hanging curtains in his home
home
the pain grows until a physician informs
Yvonne that the injury is terminal and
he will die
Novella tells the story of Yvonne's
death in fact it opens with his funeral
from the first Pages the reader is
assured that nothing will come save
Yvonne Elitch the book does not end with
some miracle
ivani leech spent his life as basically
a social climber and a careerist on his
deathbed he learns the consequences of
this life
as Yvonne lies dying he remembers a
passage he studied in school
Caius is a man all men are mortal
therefore Caius is mortal
slowly Yvonne realizes that he has
ignored death and instead he has lived a
profound lie an existence with no
examination of death
like a school child who breaks down when
faced with punishment Yvonne's lie also
crumbles as Death Becomes imminent
his concealed death from himself and
thereby concealed life as well
Yvonne in the early stages of his
infliction wants only to live how he
used to to go back to when things were
pleasant before this whole mess
so he begins to reflect on these
pleasantries but as he lays in his bed
dying Yvonne realizes they all feel
quite different
says these pleasantries are melting into
insignificance all of them except for
the earliest Recollections of his childhood
childhood
of course it was during these years that
Yvonne was unaffected by formal ideas of
pleasantness or societal expectations
occurs to Yvonne that perhaps he did not
live his life correctly
he asks
how can that be I did everything that
was demanded of me
and in this question Yvonne is presented
with the truth
he lived his entire life to fulfill the
whims of others in some cases in the
micro sense his employers or co-workers
and others more Grand the expectations
and Ambitions that culture imposed on
him things that he fell for wealth
status adornment
as early as his schooling days Yvonne
says he committed acts that he found
abhorrent that inspired in him a sense
of self-hatred but by his colleagues
these acts were considered to be normal
and admirable
eventually Yvonne himself became one of
those colleagues these abhorrent acts
likewise became normal and even
aspirational by virtue of other people's expectations
expectations
so his life met all of these
expectations it earned him the approval
and admiration of these people and institutions
institutions
but the whole story writes that Yvonne's
Chief Agony one that even the Opium
could not solve was this feeling
what if his whole life Yvonne had not
been doing the right thing
eventually Yvonne seeds to this question
and its inevitable answer
fortunately all of his decisions already
inflicted their damage
on his deathbed Yvonne is truly alone
profoundly alone in a way unbeholden to
the physical presence of other humans
Tolstoy writes that Yvonne feels a
loneliness among his acquaintances and
family people who he had believed to be
his loved ones but perhaps are not
upon's loneliness Tolstoy says it's
Fuller than any that can exist on Earth
from the bottom of the sea or in the
ground itself
Yvonne's death because of the way he
lived becomes an experience of isolation
and so at his deathbed he is surrounded
only by the most shallow version of company
company
in one passage Yvonne wants nothing more
than to cry to weep and for someone to
pity him as he lies in his
excruciatingly painful death he wants
someone to cry with him to comfort him
as if he were a child
this is all that he wants with every
fiber of his being
and then would income one of his
colleagues asking only for a ruling an
illegal matter
you see all around him Yvonne saw people
who were lying they were basically
pretending he wasn't actually dying
Tolstoy writes this lie all around him
and inside him more than anything
poisoned the last days of Yvonne
Elitch's life
When Death finally arrives for Yvonne he
begs his family for forgiveness
he cries and pleads only in this does he
then die in peace
but Yvonne's funeral reveals the
depravity of his life in one final and
horrifically triumphant blow
the attendees do not mourn or cry but
rather they express pure selfishness
some think of the promotions they may
win now that he's died others consider
what amounts of money they could inherit
still more people seem entirely annoyed
by the whole thing annoyed by the tedium
of the tasks they must now perform
broadly these attendees are filled with
a subdued joy joy that it is Yvonne who
The Death of Ivan Elitch tells us that a
life poorly lived only serves to amplify
the horrors of death or perhaps create
them entirely
and so I believe the answer to death is
not found in what happens after or
during or even why we all must die
I was raised along with my sister by a
single mother through Early Childhood
she worked a lot as one must to support
two children so my grandmother often
took care of me in my mother's absence
most days after school saw my
grandmother as did weekends and most of
the Summers
2020 my grandmother had a stroke at the
age of 93. she went to the hospital
largely not herself physically or mentally
mentally
that night she suffered another stroke
and a heart attack
having signed a do not resuscitate order
my grandmother died that night in the hospital
hospital
she was accompanied by her husband of
some 70 years
in my 20s my relationship with my
grandmother had deteriorated some just
by virtue of distance had moved to a new
city a thousand miles away but we still
spoke on the phone here and there
the last thing my grandmother ever said
to me was this
people like to say life is short don't
listen to them
life is long
I think death can be a lot of things can
be an enemy pair of shackles a companion
or something else entirely
my dread will never go away
I'll never have answers to the question
of death
I'll still lie in bed and think about
dying with regularity likely for the
rest of my life
dare not delude myself with ideas of legacy
legacy
all people die
some just take longer
but my hopes are twofold
first that I can be ready for death
somehow when it comes
second that in the meantime I can live I
can find true joy in all that entails
indeed I believe I have plenty of time
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