Originally published at:
http://www.ontaponline.com/view_article.php?article_id=10223 Paper Scissors
Run Like Hell: Who do we live for, what would we die for?
written by
Joseph Riippi
The New York Times headline read ??Stampede During Pilgrimage to Mecca Kills 345.? According to the article, some 3 million pilgrims attended the annual hajj this year. 345 died when they tripped over luggage at the entrance to a narrow bridge in Mina. They were trampled by a Surging Flesh behind them.
Two years ago, a deadly fire at a Great White show in West Warwick caused a stampede for the doors. Killed: 97.
At Denmark??s Roskilde festival in 2000, eight people were trampled in the rush to count the holes in Pearl Jam??s jeans. The band had appealed for the crowd to move back. The Cure declined to play next. ??Respect for the dead,? they said.
??I live for that band,? or ??I??d kill for that talent???we??ve heard the phrases. Simple exaggeration to make a point: emphasis for effect. But, understanding the events mentioned above, it seems that despite intentions, life can easily be disregarded and the risk of death embraced??all for an experience. Typically, an experience of a Love we consider greater than ourselves.
??If only I could do that, I would die happy.?
Muslims are encouraged to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once before they die. The Surging Flesh was a massive accident occurring when 700,000 people all had the same goal??to purge themselves of sin by stoning three walls before sundown: walls representing the devil.
I imagine dying at Mecca during hajj could be considered a martyrdom; dying for faith, for religion, for something considered greater than themselves.
I once saw ??Music is my Religion? tattooed in blue script on a woman??s arm. Does she, dying in the Pearl Jam or Great White Stampedes, become a martyr also?
* * *
I??m tall.
Typically when I attend a show I stand towards the back of the Crowd. I love the front row, but I hate preventing the shorter attendees behind me from being able to See. This is an ethical quandary??do I stand in the front of the Crowd, where the monitors and the mains converge in a Blast of their Sirens? Where a Stampeding Noise surges onto my one intersection of space? Or do I refuse to give this up, refuse to let them usurp my Place. I can take in this Experience for all its noisy beauty.
I give it up. I stand at the rear. I let someone else See and Hear and Feel that convergence, that Experience. I??ve felt it before. I convince myself that striving to live life ??to its fullest? may simply be selfish.
There exists a famous image with three illustrations of monkeys: one covering its eyes, one its ears, one its mouth. ??See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.? The Clever Monkey can, like a conscience, lead us astray from true Experience by labeling it evil.
* * *
??Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience?What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.?
So writes Susan Sontag in ??Against Interpretation.? Her charge to the Reader is to truly experience Experience; to see-hear-feel more. To ignore the Clever Monkey and be curious of what has been defined as Evil. Our passion should be a curiosity to learn Everything.
She stands in the back of the main space at the Black Cat, ??Music is my religion? scripted on her forearm. She imagines the stage bursting into hot flame. She imagines the Surge of Flesh for the narrow door, like a narrow bridge in Mecca. Her pilgrimage to the venue was never intended to be a Pilgrimage??she is not here to purge herself of sin. This is not a once-in-a-lifetime journey. It is a typical concert on a Friday. Now she is crushed, stampeded into a corner. Broken ribs the last thing she Sees or Hears or Feels.
Is this death a tragedy or a martyrdom? What is a crushing death in Mecca?
* * *
People want to die for something greater than themselves. People hope to give their lives to a larger whole??the good of the world, their children, their country, their god.
Did the 345 who died at hajj this year die for something greater than themselves? And the 97 in West Warwick? The 8 in Denmark?
Death should be your greatest Experience of Life's greatest passion.
Joseph Riippi is a monthly contributor to On Tap Magazine. Read his weekly column, Tales from a Brave Ulysses, online at
www.threeimaginarygirls.com
