A slow day on Twitter
Iam slowly starting to enjoy Twitter again, as an actual user and not because I’ve got to delve into analytics for some campaign or other such nefarious activities. Search and you’ll find it’s an endless source of humour and a constant parade of witty posts and smarter comebacks. The Corona virus spread and ensuing COVID-19 pandemic are rich fodder for the platform, though I have been a little surprised to note the way people tweet about death. One of the tweets that got my attention read: ‘My father passed away from COVID today. If anyone cares.’
Weird to say the least but also almost understandable for the shy and dismissive manner of sharing. After all, a whole human, complete with sterling qualities and deep flaws, smiles and tears, arms and legs (sometimes without) and interactions and presence; a being that shared space, time and love (let’s be optimists) with you, is suddenly gone. And during this pandemic, you’re unlikely to get the chance to stand there and gaze uncomprehending at a corpse in a coffin and connect this with the living breathing person you’ve know your whole life. Life's cousin, Death, not the most popular or liked in the family but assuredly present regularly enough to keep you believing in his (or her) relationship with your family, friends and life.
In a previous life, I regularly downed a dozen espressos a day. Smoked my way through packs of Camels and was generally very busy at work, doing loads of stuff, going places, coming back from other places, in meetings and scheduling more meetings, reading very important emails, and writing replies. Being a full-on busybody at the coalface, being a useful part of responses to poverty, climate and human rights and care for the most marginalised in society. And running myself ragged in the process. Mentally, physically and realising it only much later, spiritually too.
Then, life happened and I started thinking about balancing the needs of what needed to be done and what I thought I should be doing, risk and reward, the elusive work-life balance. But I wondered about that balance because; if I had worked more than regular hours over the years, then surely I had surplus hours. I was in credit and could spend some time in a hammock, enjoying the ocean breeze, reading.
No such luck, or at least not any that I made myself and instead I found myself being drawn to responsibilities that I felt compelled to attend to. Duty bound to perform as a human being born of other human beings. Going through the process of family, cultural, religious and a lot of just plain superstitious stuff; to fulfill the rituals that follow death in a small village on the periphery of Durban. And doing so twice in close succession as two members of my immediate family departed, in short order of each other. I learnt that the journey of the soul to the afterlife cannot be hurried nor paired off with another soul — buddy style. This was a solo journey for my ancestors’ souls in the afterlife and me travelling alongside here in the holy land of South Africa. The original together, apart. So apart that we’d be in different realms.
To embark on the year-long journey of mourning rituals as practised by one part of the band of Snathan Hindu disciples, of the Durban-born variety, is no mean task. At the best of times alternating states of fear, guilt, patriarchy, consumerism, stuff I cannot even begin to comprehend and blind obedience; generally happening under the power of a supreme male elder who might or might not have actually read the religious texts concerned. So a regular day at the office then.
To keep matters in perspective and simplify them at the same time, all of these undertakings of the rituals of death, are being undertaken by what was essentially an atheist, maybe agnostic and occasionally a spiritualist, that displayed no great talent before the succession of deaths brought him to the front of a short line, where he was fully expected to toe said line and fall in under the command of the supreme elder.
Some in the family might have sniggered at the very thought that such a thing was possible but others were hopeful. After all, this same second-born son had been a follower of the rules when he was younger. Hope was thin on the ground and thinner in my own heart that I would succeed in doing what was required of me, doing it well and not stuffing up my recently departed ancestors’ chances in the afterlife. No pressure then.
I took to the mourning process with some seriousness; assiduously following the relevant religious texts for the mourning rituals — as opposed to the supreme elders phantasmagorical version of rituals; eschewing the pomp and ceremony (read consumerism) associated with the practice of the rituals and even going so far as to make sweeping changes to the elaborate menus for these occasions, which arguably caused the biggest ruckus of all.
I plodded on, not without the occasional faltering moment of wondering if my lack of deep belief in the wider religion was a hindrance, if my consideration of adopting another religion might negate both the death rituals and my elopement to a new religion and, if I should not have just quietly allowed the supreme male patriarch to rather carry the ultimate responsibility for the fulfillment of my ancestors souls.
Moksha, to use a word of Sanskrit origin, is the final release of the eternal soul and reunion with the supreme creator. It’s guaranteed eternal bliss. Unlike other religions, there is no given number of virgins made available to a soul that achieves Moksha. This shocking lack of detail hung about me every lunar cycle, when I was required to perform the death rituals. In this ancient pagan based religion — which sought only to have the soul reunite with a mystical supreme creator, there was not much detail on heaven.
Meanwhile the other religion I was considering (before this plague of death befell my elders) was offering me tangible, specified number of virgins in the afterlife, if I reverted to it. I did however want to know if anyone had ever asked the virgins what they wanted, but there’s time yet for that to happen.
Still I plodded on, buoyed by the knowledge that belief in the overarching religion was not a requirement to perform the death rituals. All that was required was a belief that your sacrifices and actions (simple good deeds in this case) would accrue merit to the deceased ancestors account. You perform a good deed, your recently departed ancestors have their merit enriched.
This I could understand, it’s like modern day capitalism. The person growing the coffee bean makes the least amount of money in the bean to cup process. What I have been calling rabid capitalism. This simple illogic I could see manifest in most economic activity in society around me. Strangely I could relate to this illogic. I was my ancestors worker here in the holy land while they were being overpaid CEOs on their way to the afterlife. With this madness of society reflected in my understanding of the texts, I was able to conclude all rituals for my ancestors with a deep clarity of purpose.
And according to the texts, I was also earning my own merit simultaneously, so that no one else needed to be a worker, for me to enjoy the perks of business class travel to the afterlife, when my time to shuffle off arrives. I wonder if that’s what might be called a win-win.
The rituals and associated actions took the better part of two calendar years by the time I was done and ready to take some next steps for myself. Safe in the knowledge that should I drop dead, my soul was instantly on its way, via express service to a rendezvous with the supreme creator. Just your intangible soul and some stupefyingly great, universal, creator spirit. Which is a little daunting, when you think about it. So let’s not, there’s time yet for us to face that prospect when we’re due to.
The pace and rhythm of the rituals in the mourning process reminded me, that which does not kill us, makes us more paranoid or reckless. It’s a feat of magic that I’m no more of either than when I started. Instead I have found something in a pace of life modulated by the lunar calendar, a tangibly deeper connection to the natural world, the headspace choice to avoid the mayhem of being busy, a calmer assuredness of life manifesting in decidedly more fun, magical, beautiful, maddening and inspiring ways. What was the intangible of the soul for so long is now the whispering breeze in tall grass, in the burble of a cold mountain stream, the aroma of frangipani, floating in the sea, the light of a full moon, in Karoo petrichor, in the ground beneath my feet. In freely knowing my own vulnerability.
The Corona virus outbreak has already changed us. Forcing this change upon us all. Reminding us that Death is literally at our doorstep and this whole gig could be over before we can finish preparing a pithy response to a Tweet. This stark clarity of the fragility of our collective existence has become my go-to.
I look upon my mindlessness, my lethargy, my dazed and confused state and my comfort eating with deeper acceptance. Under all the graphs, medical opinion and expertise, entitled whining and other inexplicable behaviours of people and myself; I was not openly allowing that internal voice to just speak itself: ‘I might die in this pandemic…err oops.’
The risk of dying before I’m done painting the bathroom is higher than before the novel corona virus popped up in our daily lives. That’s sobering and in South Africa, where lockdown comes bundled with 1920s US style Prohibition. It’s stone-cold sobering.
If we follow all the rules in the book and have a bit of luck, we might make it out the other side. It’s your call how you come out the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic and if you’re in doubt, just ask Arundhati Roy, she’s got some theories. I’m just choosing alternating states of humble, peaceful and mildly crazed, and if I make it through this pandemic, who knows?.
If I don’t make it through the other side; know that I don’t care too much for celestial virgins and eternal damnation. I can have both of those before 9am, on a slow Tuesday on Twitter.
*Loosely based on real-life events, A slow day on Twitter is a fictional account and any resemblance to persons living, dead or in purgatory is entirely coincidental; and will be frowned upon *
