– On death and beauty –
I was recently watching a YouTube channel, Syrmor, the content of which includes the owner of the channel conducting interviews with random people who he meets in various VR chat spaces. Thereʼs some very real, very intense moments, and as many different stories as there are people in the world to tell them. An elderly hippie with terminal stage ALS telling tales of his lifetime of psychedelic wisdom and pagan sex. A depressed teen living in the suburbs, addicted to huffing compressed air, weeping between blasts at his failure as a role model to his younger brother. A child with ADHD who is often bullied, desperately trying to understand why heʼs different. A girl of 20 recounting the story of her childhood grooming and sexual assault. A soldier for hire, contracted by a private American defence firm describing his ptsd from causing civilian casualties…
These are only a small demographic sample of the individuals Syrmor encounters. He takes the time to get to know them, takes the time to truly listen to their experiences at length, unfiltered, and for the sole purpose of generating that record of their experiences.
I was particularly affected by the story of a german mortician describing his job, detailing the nuances of life and death as a daily occurrence. One of the most impactful and beautiful things he said was in regards to a woman that he had prepared who had been robbed at gunpoint, and subsequently shot in the forehead. He mentioned as he began the story,
“I know it sounds creepy to say this, but she was really beautiful. Even though this terrible thing had happened to her, she was still a really truly beautiful woman.”
That statement made me recognize something from a place deep inside of myself that I rarely acknowledge, a feeling that so many of us who struggle with our mortality have. When we die, in those most vulnerable moments, we want so very much to be beautiful. It’s the reason why women who commit suicide often take such great care in preparation; doing their makeup and hair, selecting their clothing, and choosing their place as the bathtup to keep the mess of it all somewhat contained, somehow clean.
Itʼs a uniquely human fear, one based on the thin borderlines of vanity, ego, and self confidence. Even in death, which is always by nature something ugly, we want to be beautiful. We want to be loved, even when we can no longer feel it. Knowing that a mortician like him may be the one which handles my own death, I can feel secure that I will not simply be to them as an empty vessel of decaying flesh, but that I will remain human, and beautiful.