Slow Death
Slow death happens when a person has no purpose of vocation, living out the rest of their days as a monotonous repetition of consecutive, empty routines, as if serving a sentence of flesh prison. Inaction, extended time spent between waking and rising from bed, a conscious effort to do daily tasks, a drawl in speaking, frequent and unfulfilled sighs and yawns are all the symptoms of slow diers. Quality of life only descends irreparably, and the main source of joy is describing the process.
First goes dignity. Slow diers are referred to in the third person, even when they are present, and even occasionally by themself. Think of the way a doctor or nurse speaks to the loved one in the hospital room as if the patient is not there: “the diagnosis is x, we will do what we can for them, we will try to have them out of here in xx days.” The patient is not expected to be in charge or responsible; in fact they are told to relax, rest, and let the livers tend to everything. Removing the I or you means the agency and respect of the individual is stripped, reflected poignantly when physical nakedness is normalized: they are patient, medical object, acted upon, no longer equal in humanity as independent actor. Life loses value. Rights and autonomy are not worthy of fight. Slow diers can easily adopt this object way of speaking: “they are running tests on my x, they should know more about my condition x in a week.” Age is a number invoked to justify: “Well, at ##, it was a good life” or shock: “At ## years old?! What bad fortune” or excuse: “It sucks to get old.” To discuss health issues evolves from being taboo to being the main subject as the sympathetic, the sincere, and the social rule followers politely inquire about the most recent concern as a form of greeting.
Next goes taste for life. Salt and sweet are the only comforts they seem to react to, so they are given them liberally by their loved ones who are trying to do what they can to escape and deny their slow mourning. There is no more point to exercise, when it is a labor to even exist through the day. The slow dier’s belly bloats with the unhealthy routine. They are consumers, mere converters of oxygen into carbon dioxide, food into shit, skin into dust. Their most frequent question is “what’s next?” as they impatiently wait to cross another day off the calendar, scroll through the television channels to find something to distract, and grasp onto the excitement of the next errand that seems to appear less frequently than daily. Hobbies are frustrating because their vision is unfocused, their dexterity is unstable, their energy is depleted. Any employment seems like great effort, superfluously applied, without significance. When the effort is so taxing, the meaning is questioned, and the slow dier fails to find any. They are aware that slow death means they are in fast decline. Death is near; they become bad philosophers, hopelessly searching for meaning, but unexperienced in life.
Resignation is the attitude that seals the coffin. It is a state like learned helplessness on steroids, where each creak in the bones, each new pill, each small task that becomes more difficult is not faced as a challenge to overcome but embraced as inevitable. They are eaten away by their state. In contrast, livers set goals, exercise, and test various strategies when life is tough; they have a vibrancy and youth inexplicably from within that keeps them glowing. Slow diers do not envy this trait, as they recognize that livers have their health, genetics, or ability to handle stress, in a sort of reverse victimhood reasoning. The two might as well be different animals. Slow diers are victims to time moving in only one direction. The skin begins to sag and the spirit reflects this. Their posture turns downward as if gravity is already pulling them toward the grave. Health, or rather the withering of it, is the topic which can not be avoided; informal titles of serious diseases become as commonly and sincerely cited as the weather. There is a plan for the funeral, discussion of who wants which possessions, taking account of what little value can be claimed to have affected the world on the way out. Slow diers may take a moment to tell livers to enjoy life while it lasts. The position is accepted obsoletion.
Slow death begins for many souls at conception. Most major life decisions are weak rages against slow death, some pathetic effort to tread water with the awareness of the hopelessness of the case. Here religion offers a very nice bow to beautify the inescapable: death will bring life. Yes, there is suffering in this short life, but there will be joy in the eternity that comes next! You can find slow diers in churches enumerating their ailments to the prayer list and finding comfort in the attention of individuals of the cloth who have dedicated their lives to their belief in what happens next. Most slow diers reproduce as an answer to the looming anxiety of being mortal, since offspring in some ways negate the mortality of humanity. No sympathy is given to the next generation that the problem is not solved with this choice, only pushed down the line to them.