Death and all his Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift

I don't like talking about death in real terms. I know we all do it (die), but still, talking about it always leaves me a bit rattled. I don't think my life is a sea of tragedy, but that's how I feel when I talk about my experiences of other people dying.

I went to this secondary school called Loyola Jesuit College, and while I was there there was this plane crash. Sixty people died. I know sixty sounds like a lot, but to me the real number was more like ten. At the time I thought, "mourn everybody! mourn everybody equally goddammit." I felt guilty about the now faceless names I never said hello to and the people I just couldn't be bothered to make an effort with. It was tough, but not as tough as you might think. It definitely wasn't so tough that anyone should give me that look that says, "Damn! You've been through shit." I have. I'll admit that. But then again, so have you. At the end of it, I'm quite happy with my shit. I don't know that I could cope with yours. My dad once said, "God makes provisions for us all." I believe that he's right. I have the emotional skillset to cope (however badly) with my issues. If I had yours, I don't know that I'd be as lucky. The grass is only ever greener when you're being a moron.

Now I've started to think about life and death, and how my near brushes with death never get spoken about as deathly times. In this day and age, casual references to death are actually public declarations of great times. Could you imagine how a person from the 18th century would read,

"Oh my GOD!!! I just saw Lady Gaga! Yes! Fucking Gaga. She asked how me how I was doing and I died! I literally died! I stopped for a second to make my funeral arrangements because I wasn't sure I was going to make it!"

Anyone reading that sentence literally would think that the esteemed Lady Gaga was some version of the plague! They'd be like,

"What!"

"So you met this lady Gaga or whatever, and all she had to say to kill you was hello?"

"Is she an evolved version of Vlad the Impaler? Or maybe Khan the Genghis? Is he Hitler come again? (17th century people don't know who Hitler was so you'll have to read this with a pinch of salt.)

I'll give you another example. 

"So I was just walking down the road, and Taylor swift came out of this pub, and asked one guy if she could bum a cigarrette. He died. Right there. He died."

All of this stuff made me start thinking about death and stuff you know? Maybe it's time that we stop being so cavalier about the subject and start applying it to situations where death is actually on the menu. I'll give you a couple of examples.

"So, I'd been feeling wretched for a couple of days and all of a sudden I chundered everywhere! The entire thing was so chunderiffic that I called the ambulance right there and then because I was DYING. I thought I was this close t being killed dead. And then when I got to the hospital and the Doctor was like we don't know what it is, but we think it's cholera and as she said that I literally just shat myself! It was terrible! I looked all around me and thought, "somebody get me a lawyer because I don't think I'm going to make it!"

"Last weekend there was a house party get together thing. No. Don't ask me what a house party get together thing is because I don't bloody know. But yeah! Whatever they brought out, I was like throw it down me! Yeah! I want to get messed up! I got so messed up that I pulled out some of the facebook poetry that I wrote when I was like 10 to chat up some girls, but it didn't work. And then this Afam guy started bossing me around like he was my mum. He was all like go nap. Go have a drink of water. But I was like go fuck yourself. And then everybody was going to get shawarma and I got into my car even though I could barely walk and drove out ahead of them. The next thing I know, the car's tumbling down the road, and I'm pissing myself because I am literally about to die! I'm like RIP ME because this shit is crazy! And then I thought that alcohol is literally the king of slay because I've never been so close to complete slayage, I swear! The car stopped rolling and I climbed out of some window, and I thought, "Shit dude! You were this close to DYING!"

Food for thought no?