Elephant's Graveyard

I have had a strange feeling of late, like I don't have very long left to live. It is a kind of nagging in the back of my mind, a kind of pattern that is unravelling before my eyes and showing me that there is more behind that there is in front.

It's caused me to wonder if it is possible for a body to know its own end. Can I, or anyone, tell that they are going to die. Animals it seems do know, there are lots of stories about family pets wondering off to die. Famously elephants go to a particular spot to die in a mass graveyard, although that seems to be something of a metaphor.

Funny thing is, if we are unable to tell of our own death and our bodies are incapable of preparing for it then it really seems that the mind and the conciousness is something more like a parasite in the body, seperate from the other automated workings, if it is quite happily humming its little tunes regardless of signals from the body as a whole until it gets the shock of its life. Ilimow has written an interesting article on a similar subject, that of LIFE vs the BODY and the MIND, you can find it here.

This is not an appealing thought to me, but it does seem a realistic one because despite aches and pains i don't think i could tell if my body was about to expire, no matter how aware i was. I would much rather go with my opening thought about being able to sense it, being able to prepare for it, and to hope the body has built in systems to deal with death in a graceful and peaceful way.

 

 

 

09/01/07

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