Death and Human Value

 XXX

 December 13, 198-

Death surrounds Christine like the endless night. Human beings are like candles that flicker briefly and then are forever extinguished. What does Christine think when she gazes out from the pier into the dark, infinite space of the cosmos given the semblance of form by a scattering of glimmering stars? Does she consider that the lovely, twinkling stars she sees are in reality massive furnaces that consume themselves in a fire that burns at millions of degrees, or merely ghosts of a once living stars? It seems that death is the true lord of the Universe, and life nothing more than a rebellious, ultimately doomed accident, which would mean, contrary to what the Romantics believed, that conscious life was never the purpose of the Universe, nor any of the forms of be-ing that have appeared during the Universe’s evolution. They simply happened fortuitously. And as an apparition denied worldly existence, I must ask what difference does it make, whether they occurred by chance or design, as long as they occurred? Well, it seems that too humans it makes all the difference in the world.

To think that all the forms of life on earth simply occurred by chance, like patterns created in the sand by the wind or waves is a disturbing idea, though certainly fascinating if true. Even I can relate to Christine’s distress. Oh sure you might say that I can know nothing about such feelings. How can a disembodied creature like myself ever be truly concerned about death since death cannot touch that which is not truly alive? Well, it’s not so simple as that. Certainly, since I do not exist other than a composite of words, I can’t really die. But my words exist, my voice if you will, and you must see that if there were no one to read these words then they too would be dead. It is the reader who breathes life into them, so the reader’s presence is essential. Thus, in a way I do know a form of death. And yes, I am concerned about my reader whose own life gives life to my words and, more importantly, to Christine and her little but very precious world. In the previous commentary we already addressed the how the death of the old Mexican woman sadly illustrated the apparently unavoidable truth that all things must perish and the anguish the awareness of that truth causes the living. My concern however is Christine. Perhaps my concern should extend equally to the old woman, but it does not. Why is that? I suppose it is because I do not know her but only know of her that her existence is less important to me. I think this raises the issue of what gives a person value. Are people inherently valuable or is their value simply rooted in their own feelings and the feelings of those who know them? People want to believe that humans possess inherent, unconditional value, and yet it seems that a person’s value is not unconditional or absolute. Each person is like a pebble thrown into a pond; the effect of the pebble weakens as the ripples expand outward until they become hardly noticeable. And eventually the pebble sinks the bottom of the pond where it remains unnoticed. I suppose what I’m suggesting is that the value of a person is local, personal, if you will.

At the center of value is the person herself, then parents, siblings, and other relatives, and then friends and acquaintances, and after that the great mass of humanity to whom the person is unknown. Certainly at the center a person’s value is greatest, but then is it nonexistent at the periphery? So is to be unknown to be without value? The distant stars have some value for Christine because they are seen and appreciated by her; they have value in so far as they affect her. The old Mexican woman has value because her life has deeply affected the lives of others. But if there is no one in a person’s life, is that person’s value reduced to himself or herself? Can a person even be certain that his or her life has value if it has not affected others? We wouldn’t say a person is bad if he has never harmed anyone or anything. Wouldn’t that also mean that a person cannot be considered good without having benefitted another? And what about the person who has neither harmed or benefitted anyone or anything? Would not that person lack value. Certainly simply existing merits no value—or does it? Robert thinks that his life lacks significant value because it hasn’t had much of an effect on others. Certainly it is not without value because there are a few people who appreciate him. Still, its value seem much less than that of the old Mexican woman. So perhaps a human life is not inherently valuable though people want to believe it is because they want to believe they are.

I can’t see how a person’s life can have any value if that person never interacts with others. Such a life would be like a pebble thrown into the void. It would have no effect at all. The image that comes to my mind is that of a Universe in which the only inhabitant is a single individual. Unknown and without effect would that person have value? It is said that a painting has inherent value because it is valued for itself, unlike money which has extrinsic value, meaning it is not valued for itself but for what it can buy. Still, I can’t help but think that the painting’s value is not inherent but depends upon an observer. And if its value were inherent then wouldn’t its value be recognized by everyone, which is not the case? You say that the individual floating in the void would be of value to himself. But can a person be the final judge of his or her value? And even if that were the case, would the person’s value be inherent and absolute or contingent upon the person’s relationship to himself or herself? I will offer that a person’s value is limited to person’s valuation if the person’s existence affects no one else, and is then nonexistent beyond the range of the person’s influence. Thus Christine matters more to me than the Old Mexican woman because Christine’s effect on me has been greater. So it seems to me that value is relative, that each person and perhaps each thing is a thermometer of positive and negative value relative to how it is valued by others. If persons or things do not register one way or another to others, then those persons or things lack value.

Thus it seems to me that one’s value is neither inherent nor absolute but relational and variable. And does that raise the issue of nothingness? Only for humans I suspect because only they are judgmental. Every other creature is satisfied just to be, but one often reads about people who judge themselves or judge others as having no value. “He is worthless” or “I’m worthless” are commonly used statements. So it seems that people, unlike other creatures, have to earn value, that for them simply existing is not enough. Valuation is a hard task that humans have imposed upon themselves, to be something worthwhile rather than to be nothing.

I can see why human beings would want a God as the absolute and eternal judge of their value. Without God their value eventually must come to naught. However, I shall let the reader decide this matter for herself because I myself am still very uncertain about the question of value and even unsure whether it is so important that it deserves pondering. I remember Mr. Rieneau’s story about the fisherman and the young man seeking enlightenment. I am guessing, but I think that if the young man were to ask the old fisherman if his life possessed inherent value that the old fisherman would avoid getting into a philosophical discussion and simply something like, “If you mean whether or not I am content, then yes it does.” But of course that would not be what the young man meant, who would then thank the old fisherman for his time and continue on his way in search of the truth of the matter, hoping perhaps to encounter one such as Mr. Rieneau who would be quite willing to spend the night discussing the question of value. And perhaps I should have left the question him since he is the philosopher in the story and I only its commentator.

But as I said before, my concern is Christine. I fear she is becoming like the young man who searches for enlightenment and that perhaps she’d be better off taking life as the fisherman does in Mr. Rieneau’s story. Her thoughts indicate an unhealthy preoccupation with the subject of death. Certainly, death is ever present, often looking like a huge hungry beast waiting patiently in the shadows of one’s life. Yes, there is life. Take that seagull. It too will die, but for now it thinks only of life—and it does live beautifully you must admit. Part of nature’s soul it soars. Good Robert saw the magic in these creatures who seem to be closer to the vital principle of life than even humans, lovely forms of life that live so simply, yet fully and beautifully. I think Robert loves these creatures so much because he sees them as various expressions of life, each one a different color used to create the wondrous landscape that is life. He understands that humans would become the most miserable, lonely creatures if they had only themselves to share the world with. The canvas of life would become a drab gray, perhaps no longer worth the paint, without the infinitely colored rainbow created by the other forms of life.

Could it be that what Robert sees, judging by his collection of hand-carved figures and photographs, is that life is not any single creature, no more than a painting is any single color or line, but that life is a composite of forms. I would like to say forms of Being, if I may speak philosophically in the way of the old fisherman. And it is the continuation of these forms that ensures the continuation of that rarest of landscapes, the pageantry of life. One individual may die, and the loss is significant certainly, yet the pattern of that life form continues and the landscape remains complete. But with the loss of any single form of life, life is diminished an absolute degree, as if the rainbow were to lose forever one of its colors. Perhaps that is why the kind and good Robert loves the other creatures so, because he believes they too are his life and without them he would be diminished. I say this only because I have seen the lovely, elegant figures that Robert created, and I believe that his death will diminish the lives of these creatures he loves so much. They too will have died a little. Death is everywhere, and some day it will finally conquer the frail lovely creatures that are the body and soul of life. But until then one can live as Robert has, and like his mother, loving all things both great and small because they are one in their struggle to keep the delicate, beautiful light of life burning in the midst the unrelenting darkness.

You must forgive me if I seem to parrot the old seaman, Mr. Rieneau, but you see I am little more than a composite of the characters whose lives make up the small Universe in which I dwell. Sadly, I have no story of my own.

From Frank Kyle’s not yet published novel Christine’s Journey to Enlightenment.

Monsters

Doctor: “Did you talk to the boy?”

Attendant: “I tried, but all he says is ‘the monsters are everywhere.’”

Doctor: “The Russians?”

Attendant: “Who else? Perhaps you should talk to him. I think my being a man makes him nervous.”

Doctor: “Not surprising since all the monsters are men. I’ll talk to him. He was picked up with a dog. Is the dog with him now?”

Attendant: “No. The dog was taken from him.”

Doctor: “Why? might I ask.”

Attendant: “Dogs aren’t allowed in the clinic.”

Doctor: “Jesus Christ! No wonder he won’t talk to you. I’ll speak to him.”

The doctor and the dog enter the room where the boy is being kept. The dog barks then runs and leaps on the boy who is sitting in a corner on the floor. The boy hugs the dog. Then the boy shushes the dog who then lies quietly on the floor. The boy pets him, saying “Good dog, good dog.” The boy smiles at the doctor.

Boy: “Happy’s alive.”

Doctor: “He is, and he’s very happy to see you. My name is Grace. What is your name?”

Boy: “The monsters will kill us all.”

Doctor: “You’re safe here.”

Boy: “Nowhere is safe. The monsters are everywhere with their killing machines.”

Doctor: “I know Happy’s name. I would sure like to know your name.”

Boy: “If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone else. The monsters can’t find me if they don’t know my name.”

Doctor: “I promise I won’t tell anyone your name.”

Boy: “Yuri. That was my grandfather’s name.”

Doctor: “Thank you, Yuri, for telling me your name. It will be our secret. Where is your father, Yuri?”

Boy: “He went off to fight the monsters. He never came back.”

Doctor: “Perhaps he is still fighting the monsters. And your mother, where is she?”

Boy: “She’s dead. The monsters killed her.”

Doctor: “What happened?”

Boy: “We heard the monsters’ machines coming. They are easy to hear because they’re noisy and always shooting. Killing, killing, killing everything. They kill people and animals and shoot houses. They steal children.”

Doctor: “Why do the steal children?”

Boy: “To turn them into monsters like them.”

Doctor: “Who told you that?”

Boy: “We know. Everyone knows.”

Doctor: “Other children like you?”

Boy: “Not so many now but a few. They hide. But the monsters find them. Shoot them if they can’t catch them. There used to be many people everywhere. Now there’s nobody. Just the monsters.”

Doctor: “Tell me, Yuri, what happened to your mother.”

Boy: “The monsters were coming so she told Lisa my sister to hide in her hiding place in the boom closet. She told me and Happy to go to hide in the woods because she knew happy would bark at the monsters. So we did. In the woods I could still see the house. One of the machines stopped and the monsters got out and went into the house. Happy growled and I slapped him on the head and he knew to be quiet. I wanted to go to Mother but I knew I would be taken and Happy would be shot. So I waited. Then there was a gun shot. The monsters left the house. They found Lisa. She was screaming ‘mama, mama.’ It was horrible, but I could do nothing. The monsters put her in the machine and left. I waited a long time, until it began to get dark. Then I went to the house. Mother was on the bed. She was dead. I cried. I stayed in the house until more monsters came. I took a picture of Father and Mother with Lisa and me and left the house. I never went back.”

Doctor: Do you have the picture?”

Boy: “Yes.”

Doctor: “May I see it, Yuri?”

Boy: “Okay.” Yuri to the photo from his Knapsack and gave it to the doctor.

Doctor: “You have a beautiful family, Yuri. I’m going to make a copy of the photo to help find your sister.”

Boy: “Okay, but you will give it back to me?”

Doctor: “Of course I will. So what have you been doing since the monsters came to your house?”

Boy: “I followed the houses along the roads but a long ways from the roads. The monsters send tiny flying bombs. If they see you they come after you and kill you. But Happy can hear them, so when he looks at the sky we hide.”

Doctor: “You must have been hungry.”

Boy: “After a while the feeling went away. Happy and I would eat when I found food. If I found no food we wouldn’t eat. It did not matter. But I saw dead people in houses who were not shot. I think they died of hunger. They were afraid to leave their houses so died in them.”

Doctor: “What did you think, Yuri, when you saw those dead people?”

Boy: “They died because of the monsters. Everyone dies because of the monsters.”

Doctor: “Yuri, do you have any other family. Aunts or uncles, grandparents, cousins?”

Boy: “They’re all dead I think. My cousin Anna was stolen like Lisa by the monsters. She was a baby.”

Doctor: “Maybe they aren’t all dead, Yuri.”

Boy: “I hope not. But it doesn’t matter. The monsters are here and will never go away. Why haven’t they killed you?”

Doctor: “They’ve tried. But we have men here with big guns who shoot them if they come.”

Boy: “Good men like my father who fights the monsters.”

Doctor: “That’s right, Yuri. There are still good men like your father who fight the monsters.”