The Moments of Life and Death

 I recently watched "Midnight In Paris" starring Owen Wilson (the Oh Wow! guy). It's about a writer (Gil Pender) who finds himself transported back to 1920's Paris -  or what he considers the "golden age" of art and culture - away from his failing relationship and troubled inner-world. In it, he meets a portrayal or caricature of many of the famous writers from that era. 

One of the most profound scenes I found, was in his meeting with Hemingway (as a big Hemingway fan myself, I was very excited to see this :)). Corey Stoll excellently conveys that bear and to-the-bone sort of approach Hemingway had towards life in his monologue on Man's Fear Of Death. He begins with a simple question: 

    H: Have you ever made love to a truly great woman? 

    P: Well, my fiancé is pretty sexy 

    H; And when you make love to her, you feel true and beautiful passion, and you - for at least that            moment -     lose your fear of death. 

    P: No. That doesn't happen. 

    H: I believe love that is true and real creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well - which is the same thing; and when the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face like some rhino hunters I know, it is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds. 

We all fear death, whether we know it or not. If we lead many of our decisions in life to their logical ends, they are usually rooted in our fear of death or fear of dying alone, or leaving nothing behind (I think this may be a lot more relevant for men than women). 

It reminded me so much of Dostoyevsky's description of the moments before his death, told through his masterpiece The Idiot. In it, a story is told (based off the writer's own experience), of a man who is about to be executed and the unexpected and surprisingly mundane thoughts that race through his mind in the lead-up. Because it is a death by sentence - as opposed to murder by a criminal - there is no feeling of hope or possibility that he might be freed. 

There are all sorts of unexpected feelings in these last moments, but what is most unbearable to him is the thought of "oh what if I had not had to die! What if I could return to life – oh, what an eternity! And all that would be mine! I should turn every minute into an age, I should lose nothing, I should count every moment separately and waste none!”

In the last moments, his execution is called off. He is given this second chance, this eternal life. 

I have heard about the parallel that Freud examines between sex and death, but it never really resonated with me because Freud always creeped me out, but this all started to make a little more sense. It is something about those moments of sex and death - or near death - that are so similar. What ties them together is the moment that they share. What Hemingway would call this "true and beautiful" moment, because there is nothing else like it.

Even once the prisoner's execution is vacated, he may remain in this enlightened state for a while, but he would inevitably fall back into the paradox of regular existence - the paradox that we must be near death to truly understand life and its value. Eventually he will revert to his ungrateful knotted way because we only appreciate something when its over or nearly over. It seems like a fatal flaw in the human condition at times. 

Similarly, sex can be one of the most intense, raw expressions of life. 

Dostoyevsky used this phenomenon to show the virtue of christ and his message. Hemingway wanted to get as close to the raw natural beauty of the human experience. I think we can all take something different from these moments. I'm not too sure what I do.