[36]second cross talk on types of death with examples

machine translation of <<Zweites Quergespräch über Todesarten mit Beispielen>> by Heissenbuttel

Bertolt Wildermuth quotes Faulkner, who once wrote: the only immortality consists in the certainty that everything ends with death, or something like that.

Dr Johnson: Half fallen on his face, head down. Eyes wide open and bulging. Traces of foam in the corners of the mouth. Mouth frozen, teeth clenched, lips drawn back into a tight circle. Cherry-red cheeks, the rest of the face bluish pale. Unquestionably dead.

Helmut Maria Wildermuth: But I don’t understand it, it was imminent, inevitable in one way or another, will soon be continued. Yes, the provisional nature of the start and the definitive nature of the farewell have never been as close to my perception as they are now. Like now.

Dr Johnson: The provisional nature of postponement and the definitive nature of farewell.

He continues: She remained beautiful while she was already biting into the void with all her teeth, very white teeth. Her face was as if cut in onyx. She rested on the pillow of vomit she had spat out. Her blackened body, her blue thighs and legs, bent like those of a locust frozen in mid-leap, could be seen beneath her long linen shirt. He quotes Faulkner, who once wrote: the only immortality consists in the certainty that everything ends with death, or something like that.

He quotes Defoe and says: “The wagon contained sixteen or seventeen corpses. Some were wrapped in sheets, some in coarse woollen blankets, some were almost naked, or so loosely wrapped that their wrappings fell off when they were thrown out of the waggon, and they came to lie quite naked among the rest; But it didn’t matter much, or nobody else cared about the indecency, since it was obvious that they were all dead and were to be thrown into the common human grave in a colourful jumble, for no distinction was made here, but rich and poor went together; there was no other type of burial, and it was not possible that there would be any other, for coffins were not available for the enormous number of victims.

Bertolt Wildermuth: The unbearable is the idea of a memory of sensory perception that is lost and can never be repeated (the blind person who remembers what can never be seen again; the deaf person who remembers what can never be heard again; the double amputee who remembers what can never be touched again). It is the idea of it, not finding one’s way in the limited practice. The unimaginability of the cessation of memory and projection. Never again: tomorrow. Where does that leave: me? As soon as the hereafter is understood as an illusion, there is no consolation. To the

He continues: “Who wants to be surprised by what finally decides everything? To always be aware of this definitive end, as early as possible, to live in and in the awareness of what is always already and always coming to an end.

The tortoise: Consciousness has not been afraid for this or that, nor for this or that moment, but for its whole being; for it has felt the fear of death, the absolute master. It was inwardly dissolved, trembled within itself, and everything fixed trembled within it.

Helmut Maria Wildermuth: The goal of all life is death, and looking back: the lifeless was there earlier than the living.

Bertolt Wildermuth: Orientation in the world is based on the ability to find rules. Rules presuppose that whatever happens can be seen in such a way that it has a view that is not definitively unique, but comparable, repeatable and categorisable. But this is a fiction. Whatever happens is definitive and incomparable. Cognition was previously only possible under this fiction. We are only ready to use the fiction as a fiction (not as an axiom or premise). The definition of living, temporal existence is the definitive of every moment. This definitive is hidden under the preconception that we have erected over it in order to be able to bear it. The image of the definitive is death. Image means: seeing the definitive from the outside. The inner experience of the definitive is unique and definitive. It is also the cessation of experience.

Helmut Maria Wildermuth: The horror of images does not diminish. You can only manage not to remember it at times.

Bertolt Wildermuth: Death, if we want to call that unreality that, is the most terrible thing, and holding on to what is dead is what requires the greatest strength. Powerless beauty hates the mind because it expects of it what it cannot do.

Helmut Maria Wildermuth: The provisional nature of postponement and the definitive nature of farewell.

The tortoise: The goal of all life is death, and looking back: the lifeless was there earlier than the living.

Helmut Maria Wildermuth quotes Faulkner, who once wrote: the only immortality consists in the certainty that everything ends with death, or something like that.

Dr Johnson: Who wants to be surprised by what finally decides everything? To always be aware of this definitive end, as early as possible, to live in and in the awareness of what is always already coming to an end.

Bertolt Wildermuth: Lying on his side, his head on his arm, his back against the wall, shaken, suddenly, by the coma. With a last effort, he pushed himself into a sitting position. He could see the strip of moonlight. For the first time in his life he was afraid. He realised that he would die as he had lived: unwanted and alone. He was still breathing. Sweat poured down his face.

Dr Johnson is of the opinion that slow torture, or what amounts to cancer death or its equivalent today, is the appropriate way to die, since it depends on consciously detaching consciousness from oneself. Destruction of the vital functions and increase in agony, dani: one is ready to stop.

Bertolt Wildermuth: He groaned. It was an even, terrible sound, a moaning of a regularity that didn’t seem human; more like animal cries or the grinding noise of a machine. Part of the jaw was gone. He still had his eyes open. One of them hung almost completely out of the socket.

Dr Johnson: The unbearable is the idea of memory of sensory perception that is lost and never to be repeated (the blind person who remembers what can never be seen again; the deaf person who remembers what can never be heard again; the double amputee who remembers what can never be touched again). It is the imagination of it, not the realisation of it in limited practice. The inconceivability of the cessation of memory and projection. Never again: tomorrow. Where does that leave: me? As soon as the hereafter is understood as an illusion, there is no consolation.

He continues: “Consciousness has not been afraid for this or that, nor for this or that moment, but for its whole being; for it has felt the fear of death, the absolute master. It has been dissolved in itself, has trembled in itself, and everything fixed has trembled in it.

Helmut Maria Wildermuth: He cried out loudly that he didn’t want to die. When he saw his hands gradually turning blue, he stopped screaming. His face became rigid. He said nothing more until he died.

The tortoise: The goal of all life is death, and looking back: the lifeless was there earlier than the living.