We face premature death. A child is killed by their father. A son kills his mother. A child murders a child. Children die in car accidents. A young man throws himself off a balcony after taking hallucinogenic mushrooms. A young man attacks an elderly author with a knife. A middle-aged mother dies suddenly. The mind searches for answers, but who knows anything about death? Is it best to ask a priest, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a historian, a doctor, a poet, or perhaps simply a philosopher?
What is my attitude toward death?
When I taught philosophy in high school, I asked my students to write a short reflection on death. They were to explore their own attitude toward it without referencing any external sources. The question was: What is your own genuine perspective? Now I must search for answers myself, and I turn to other authors for insight.
For previous generations, in times of epidemics and child mortality, death was ever-present. Before the rise of medical science, it was common for couples to have many children, with only a few surviving.
Death was part of daily contemplation. In centuries past, people discussed death as a matter-of-fact. In Iceland, in the 19th century, death was the most common topic of sermons. Priests advised people to always be prepared for death, to remember the end.
Today, communication between the living and the dead is minimal. In earlier times, people often died at home, surrounded by significant activity and preparations. The dying became the focal point of family life. After death, the body was attended to, and a vigil was held in the home by candlelight. A wake was a well-known tradition, an overnight vigil with a light burning through the night.
Nowadays, few people die at home, and death has become a professional concern in the healthcare system, also handled by clergy and others who oversee funerals. Few in Western societies witness a dead body or someone passing away with their own eyes.
Death is inevitable; perhaps people accepted it more readily in times past, as it was part of daily life. Now, we have lost touch with it, pushed death out of our minds, avoiding the topic and hiding from it. Death has become a taboo; we don’t know how to discuss it or what to say.
We expect to live well and long; with security and healthcare, we assume we will not die of plague, malnutrition, or accidents. We demand that it’s always possible to patch us up. Yet, no matter how much we try to deny death, the fear of it always resurfaces, and when a loved one dies suddenly, questions arise, and we do not know where to turn for answers.
“If I live, if God wills, if I survive till spring,” was once commonly said, and conversations about death were casual. We have lost this, and there is little motivation to be prepared for death. However, the reality is that death’s arrival is always uncertain. "In a swift moment … human life ends quickly," wrote Iceland’s greatest hymn poet, Hallgrímur Pétursson, in the 17th century in A Hymn on the Uncertainty of Death.
What is death?
Death does not lie in wait. It does not wield the weapon. Death asks not about religion, gods, or conduct in life. It appears uninvited, or not at all. It’s not even a he, she, or it but rather a concept interpreted in many ways. Death is a name or label for a kind of transformation of matter.
A living person interacts with others, expresses thoughts, speaks, writes, holds opinions, loves, protests, participates, and has influence. A person is indeed dead if their brain no longer functions and breathing and circulation have ceased. Their life is irreversible.
Yet a deceased person does not lose their influence upon passing. They have left marks, and their loved ones think of them, even talk to them in their minds. Some claim to have more and better spiritual connection with the deceased than before through figurative communication. They even talk to them in thought, re-evaluating their interactions.
What does Naja Marie Aidt say about death?
The most powerful book I have read on death is When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back (2019, Har døden taget noget fra dig så giv det tilbage: Carls bog, 2017) by the Danish author Naja Marie Aidt.
The author loses her son Carl on March 16, 2015. He throws himself off a fifth-floor balcony after taking hallucinogenic mushrooms. This was not her son’s intention. The book chronicles the greatest trauma a mother can face, losing a child. No one was prepared for this death. Her son Carl was a 25-year-old, healthy, happy, and curious individual. No warning, no illness, only two friends at home experimenting with expanding their minds by cultivating and consuming mushrooms.
Naja Marie rejects all consolation. She writes the following in the book in capital letters:
"I BELIEVE IN NOTHING, NOT IN HEAVEN, HELL, GOD, HEALING, PAST LIVES, I SPIT ON ALL FOOLISH NOTIONS, I DON’T BELIEVE IN HADES, THE LAW OF KARMA, AFTERLIFE, TRANSMIGRATION, I SPIT ON ALL OF IT, I RAGE WITH THE DEEPEST CONTEMPT, I DON’T BELIEVE IN FATE, ASTROLOGY, CONTACT WITH THE DEAD, GHOSTS, ANGELS, I VOMIT OVER ALL OF IT, I SCREAM FULL OF THE DEEPEST CONTEMPT, I SAY FUCK THAT SHIT, THERE’S ONLY LIFE AND DEATH, LIFE AND DEATH, I ONLY BELIEVE IN GENTLENESS, WHEN WE CARE FOR THE DEAD BODY, WHEN WE ARE FORCED TO PART WITH IT; THE COMMUNITY."
She is furious. Initially, she rejects all resources that once provided her answers in life: art, literature, and reading. She rejects Christianity and other traditional religions. Yet she finds solace after, like René Descartes before her, doubting everything. In a state of trauma, few things withstand scrutiny. She tears everything down to build it up again.
She examines her prejudices and tests what withstands the mind's strictest demands. She doubts everything, and as Descartes might say, doubting is thinking, and thus living.
She searches through the wealth other poets have given humanity, ultimately finding comfort in poems and texts by poets who have faced death in a way like hers—losing a child. A mother must find a way out from the burden, from her son’s death.
She dismantles methods, words, tradition, and sits alone in the dark until she sees a glimmer. She finds the path in giving others what her son gave her: love.
Her anguish was considered undesirable, and she was advised to seek help. A psychiatrist from the trauma unit at Copenhagen Hospital advised her to seek treatment from him in six months’ time.
"… he says that we should not ‘seek treatment’ for at least six months. The brain needs permission to process first; the human brain can come far by itself…"
The trauma would not pass until her brain had settled, at which point she could focus on what holds the greatest weight in life. He was right. Then she did what she does best: create through her writing.
What does Salman Rushdie say about death?
On August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie faced death on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in Pennsylvania while participating in a panel discussion about the importance of keeping writers safe from harm. So, his first thought when “I saw this murderous shape rushing toward me was: 'So it’s you. Here you are … Death was coming at me.'"
He was near death, the attacker stabbing him 15 times in 27 seconds, but due to limited understanding of human biology, failed in his intention.
Time might not heal all wounds, but it deadened the pain, and the nightmares went away. It was not only time itself that helped Rushdie but also the treatment of Dr. Justin Richardson afterward, and what Rushdie does best: writing a book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (2024).
Rushdie had encountered infamous death before. "It had been thirty-three and a half years since the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s notorious death order against me," for his book The Satanic Verses.
Despite a death sentence emanating a stench of decay, despite the sentence losing its power, death still surged toward him onto the stage, unexpectedly from hiding, in the form of a black-clad man with a black mask, brandishing a knife raised high. Only one task remained for him after that—to live. „I was not dead. I was alive. Live. Live. It was that survival instinct that had whispered in my ear as I lay bleeding in Chautauqua. Live. Live. It was still whispering to me in my hospital bed.“
Aidt’s son Carl would not survive. He was declared brain-dead. Salman was not expected to live but would survive; the will to live was still there. Rushdie could write about life, and Aidt could write about death.
The trauma and sorrow did not take the life of Salman Rushdie, neither from us nor from him. He felt love more deeply than ever before, filled with the desire to give from his talents, to continue finding readers. He wanted to give others a text about what death had almost taken from him.
Aidt and Rushdie confront death; they leave the realm of life each day, stepping into the darkness and hoping the sun will rise again. When they return, they are changed, or as Samuel Beckett wrote, and Rushdie cites: „We are other, no longer what we were before the calamity of yesterday.“
They come back, wanting to give others what death tried to take from them.
What is life?
Life is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon. There is no program; environmental factors play a large role, and the organism itself participates in its own creation. Biologist Dr. Enrico Coen writes, “Organisms, from daisies to humans, are naturally endowed with a remarkable property, an ability to make themselves.” (Coen, The Art of Genes, p. 87-88). Hence the title of his book: The Art of Genes: How Organisms Make Themselves.
Is death not also as complex and multifaceted as life itself?
Biologist Dr. Skúli Skúlason writes, “We also see that the will to live is very strong. An organism that finds itself in what appears to be a hopeless situation will most often try to find ways to live and foster the values it carries, no matter how great the suffering is. In many cases, organisms will support each other in their desire to live.” (RÚV, 28.10.24).
We also want to support one another in the face of death.
What can we learn?
What gift can psychiatrists give us in the face of the suffering that accompanies death? What answers?
Carl Aidt’s death was subject to time and chance. His mind, consciousness, and judgment sent the wrong signals due to the influence of hallucinogens.
Death’s presence in Rushdie’s case is of a different nature. He writes that his attacker “is wholly a product of the new technologies of our information age, for which ‘disinformation age’ might be a more accurate name. The groupthink-manufacturing giants, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and violent video games were his teachers.”
No one has seen death’s face or heard its voice. No one can take the suffering from us; we have to go through it ourselves, though others can help guide us back. Psychiatrists and health professionals have a strong role here, but so do our close surroundings, art, ancient texts, and our own spiritual preparation.
What do ancient texts say about death?
Both Ecclesiastes in the Bible and Hávamál in the Poetic Edda promote a nature-based and pragmatic view of life and death. Ecclesiastes advises making good use of time and enjoying life. “To every thing there is a season ... a time to be born, and a time to die … a time to heal,” says the Preacher. “Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry” (8.15). “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” (9.10)
The outlook on death in Hávamál aligns with that of Ecclesiastes. The goal of life is bliss (hedonism), and it is better to be alive and living happily than dead. To always be cheerful while one is alive, no matter the situation, for conditions could always be worse—one could be dead. “Glad and cheerful should each man be / until he meets his end” (verse 15). Even if one is crippled, one-handed, deaf, blind, or ailing, a living person is always useful for something. (Harðarson, Gunnar, Fingraför spekinnar, HÍB, 2024, p. 73).
There is harmony between Ecclesiastes and Hávamál regarding utility, but death is more than this. The deceased undeniably continue to influence the lives of those left behind.
How to make sense of death?
I ask: Who knows anything about death? Lessons about death can be found in fragments of ancient texts; they could be poems, songs, music, or even visual art that conveys information.
After the anti-spiritual creed in capital letters where Aidt denies all spiritual attempts of making sense of Carl’s death, she writes a beautiful account of a visit to Mark Rothko’s Chapel in Houston, Texas: “The chapel is exceptional because it isn’t associated with any specific religion. It’s for everyone, believers and nonbelievers, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, atheists, Hindus, and so on—it’s for all people on earth. There’s nothing in the chapel except Rothko’s paintings and a few wooden benches placed around the room. In a side entrance, the sacred texts of different religions are set out on a table. Rothko was not religious. People come here to meditate, pray, grieve, relax. And they come to see Rothko’s work.”
Dr. Gísli Magnússon writes about a beautiful account of Aidt visit to Mark Rothko’s Chapel and „In a meditative state, staring at a painting, she establishes a kind of visionary contact with Carl, she “sees” him and starts to cry in a cathartic way.“ (Reminiscences of Eranos in Naja Marie Aidt’s Novel When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl’s Book, 2022).
Aidt spent two hours in Rothko’s chapel, contemplating and examining the paintings, and she saw her son in the paintings and began to cry. There was salvation for her there.
How to make sense of death? In our contemporary Western society, death is truly both distant and unfamiliar. There is little encouragement to grapple with it as such. It is often assumed that specialists can answer the hardest questions. The concept of death has been removed from public consciousness, if you will, and transferred into the clinical system where it can be "fixed" when things go wrong.
However, answers about death can be found in many places, and no profession holds all the answers or the perfect treatment for trauma. Both Naja Marie Aidt and Salman Rushdie faced their traumas and worked through them well because they had trained themselves to think about death.
We need to learn to talk more about death, practice, read more, exchange opinions, and prepare ourselves for death, as Socrates recommended long ago.
Bob Dylan sang beautifully about death in his song Death Is Not the End. Let’s close with those lyrics:
And there’s no one there to comfort you
With a helpin’ hand to lend
Just remember that death is not the end
Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end □