It’s very morbid but they say death is a natural part of
life. I don’t see anything wrong with contemplating one’s own mortality. I
learnt recently that getting sunburnt even once before your mid-teens can
double your chances of developing skin cancer. Most of our holidays to Spain
during my childhood generally followed the same pattern; we’d get horribly
sunburnt on the first day and then spend the remainder of the holiday inside in
a rather large amount of pain so god only knows what my chances are of
developing skin cancer!
Of course you could die at any time but you don’t think
that way do you? Even when confronted by Damien Hirst’s shark preserved in
formaldehyde all I saw was a freak show. I then learnt its actual title was
‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’, not a bad
title.
One of my chief thoughts when I’m writing things down
(which I do often and it seems to keep me sane) is, following my death, what
would my fiancée think when she reads the many journals and iPhone notes I am continuingly
compiling? I’d like to add that I don’t foresee my death any time soon.
When I was younger and I was making drawings I used to be
surrounded by a cloud of voices. They would often praise me, which was nice but
as my disability developed they became more hostile and distressing until I
finally shut down my thinking all together in order to avoid them.
Now, though, I am beginning to access my thinking more
and more. Could it be the medication I am taking that enables me to do so? I
don’t know.
But back to the topic; say I do develop malignant
melanoma and it’s so aggressive that there is nothing that I can do and I am
dead within weeks. What would be left? I don’t believe in an afterlife in any
shape or form; I’m not sure I even believe in me; instead I see myself as a
collection of thoughts which themselves are merely electricity passing through
an organic machine.
I heard the word ‘Legacy’ yesterday whilst watching a
film called Sinister and it certainly struck a chord. It reminded me of how
Henri Matisse professed his love of art over that of his wife. I am an artist
and have often mused upon this topic.
What it comes down to is that I am an animal (not in the
sexually provocative sense of course). I am a part of nature not separate from
it. What matters fundamentally is the reproduction of my genes. This doesn’t
mean I can’t love my fiancée but what it does mean is that love is an
evolutionary function that has come about in order to produce this effect.
I look into her eyes and it makes me feel all warm and
fluffy inside. Why is this? Is “because you’re in love” enough of an
explanation? I feel that way so why question it? Why do you need a deeper
meaning?
One day we hope to have children of our own. That,
Sinister vocalised for me, is my legacy. My fiancée tells me to focus on my own
life and not worry about the lives of others so much. I can understand how that
is a very natural way to be. We evolved to live in small groups and now we live
in a world populated by over 6 billion people. I am told that this change
happened so fast that our primeval brains weren’t able to keep up.
But that is the reality we live in. I have this idea that
the world is broken – or rather it is like a lie that has grown out of control
by continual propagation over the ages. Am I right? I sit here in my living
room listening to Radio 3 and looking out of the double glazed windows at a
manicured lawn and what I see is suffering.
Do I want my legacy to be selfishness at standing by
while people suffer? “You can’t change it so don’t bother”, “Why not go and
work in Africa building wells then?” I am asked. Maybe I am being selfish by
not taking action personally. I tell myself “you are doing what you can, don’t
kick yourself, you have schizophrenia”.
Wouldn’t it be perverse if it was my schizophrenia that
has given me the ability to take the necessary steps back from the big picture
and question why there is so much suffering?
How would I feel if I had to forego certain luxuries in
my life so that people around the globe could have more of them?
I meet artists who are so consumed with expression and
capturing beauty that they don’t seem to notice the world around them. As I say
I think that this is the natural way to be (or perhaps I am being presumptuous
and they are actually doing everything in their power to help put an end to
suffering).
‘During the war, it was suggested to (Winston Churchill)
that funding (for the arts) should be cut in order to pay for munitions. “Then
what are we fighting for?” he replied’ – exert from a newspaper article (I can’t
remember which).
You call this civilised? What kind of civilisation allows
such suffering?
I know that I am being naïve. People can’t just click
their fingers and change the world. I do wonder if religion has a big hand in
the problem though. I have a feeling that if the religious amongst us (and bearing
in mind that celebrity and art and money amongst other things can be religions)
were to realise that they are animals - genetically designed and
environmentally moulded animals - then the world would be a better place.
This isn’t an excuse for them to sub cede to their
natural instincts of greed and violence. It would reframe the question of what
it means to be human being in a lot of people’s minds though. Morality is inbuilt
through various mechanisms into our biology.
Maybe punishing someone because of their actions isn’t
justified as nobody has any choice in the past that has shaped the decisions that
they make and instead people should be punished when they go against their
natural moral mechanisms.
The world looks pretty fucked up from where I’m standing.
But maybe people just need the opportunity to understand.
