Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

Death is what it truly feels like, this decision to “retire.” Not retirement from teaching (or employment), which I did earlier (2004), a “retirement” which gave me so much freedom and fulfilment, perhaps because the life that came after it was richer. This second phase of retirement is rather “retirement” from the work that I have known all my life - curating, organizing cultural programmes (I have just resigned as project director of Websining), developing and presenting my ideas to conferences and lectures (I have just “resigned” from the teleconference with Contre-Conference in Paris coming end of this month), and collaborating with other artists (I have just sent regrets to a two artist-run project called FemLink).

I suppose “giving up” entails great pains and depression, it seems that in the decision to engage in a relationship with someone (I am not even sure if I love this person) I was somewhat being beckoned to “give up” on the life that I have always known. But there is really no point in wallowing over the morbid details and the pains and losses of “death.” I need now to ask, what is life (if any) after death?

Will I still be happy?

At least, I assume that my ex-partner will be able to support me financially in my decision. I am still quite lucky as very poor people mourn deaths and have the added grief of mourning the cost of dying (funeral expenses mostly). They won’t even be able to get their dead out of the morgue without paying. At least I probably won’t be grieving that aspect of dying, although I am not so sure because my ex-partner claims to be “poor” and he is extremely stingy, a bt of a miser. My father was poor financially but he was never a miser or miserable man. So during the time our family was relatively poor, we were never miserable.

So, will I still be happy?

All my life the sole source of my life’s happiness has been my family. The decision to have a relationship under the most unconventional circumstances found most offensive yet still accepted by my family has surely affected my family relations. I suppose women who leave home and/or give up careers when they get married soon get pregnant and have a new life to look after, in other words, a new family and a new “career.” So after “death” there is indeed life. This is not quite possible with my ex-partner.

Will there be life after death?

I don’t know.

EMail This Post This entry was posted by Fats on Saturday, January 13th, 2007 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Wika at Hirap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.