You die. She dies. Everybody dies.
January 8, 2009 9:40 AM   Subscribe

 
Well thanks a lot Debbie Downer.
posted by flipyourwig at 9:44 AM on January 8, 2009 [2 favorites]


Tom Waits has really gone downhill lately.
posted by Optamystic at 9:48 AM on January 8, 2009


I know that lion! Yeah that's Vinnie from the zoo. FuckinA Vinnie from the zoo on Youtube.
What the fucks his problem?
posted by pianomover at 9:50 AM on January 8, 2009 [3 favorites]


Been there, done that. Got the box.
posted by Goofyy at 9:50 AM on January 8, 2009


No shit, Sherlock.
posted by swift at 9:53 AM on January 8, 2009


MementoMoriFilter
posted by Spatch at 9:54 AM on January 8, 2009 [2 favorites]


You are indeed going to die, but you're in inseparable part of larger, grander processes which have been in motion since long before you popped out of nothing, and will continue long after you return.

Actually, the fact that you ever popped out of nothing at all is pretty much more miracle than anyone could ever ask for. What's the big deal about dying when you might never have lived at all? Be glad.
posted by scarabic at 9:54 AM on January 8, 2009 [17 favorites]


Well, that sort of makes working the rest of the day pointless... eh?
posted by HuronBob at 9:55 AM on January 8, 2009


I love the world
posted by DU at 9:55 AM on January 8, 2009 [3 favorites]


No, I'm actually going to live forever.

I don't care what you say.
posted by rand at 9:56 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


Death is the same as going to sleep after a really long day.

The second I thought about that way I felt most of my anxieties on the issue simply melt away.
posted by Lacking Subtlety at 9:56 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


Meanwhile...
posted by Joe Beese at 9:57 AM on January 8, 2009


What a curious film. I wonder why it was made? Who is it intended for? Death (and taxes) is about the only thing we can be certain of so not much worth losing sleep over. The philosopher Epicurus said it 2000 years ago: we never experience death. When we're alive, we're not dead; and when we're dead, we experience nothing. Many religions are preoccupied with fear of death and the hope for an "afterlife" and the desire never to die. I think eternity would be appalling. Of course religions also exploit the afterlife idea to get people to accept their miserable lives. Enjoy life while you have it because it comes with an expiry date. That is a positive philosophy, not a cause for weeping and gnashing of teeth.
posted by binturong at 9:57 AM on January 8, 2009 [4 favorites]


Great!

Who wants to go get coffee?
posted by marxchivist at 9:59 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


As Raymond Smullyan says:
"Why should I be worried about dying? It's not going to happen in my lifetime!"
posted by vacapinta at 10:00 AM on January 8, 2009 [7 favorites]


That video made me wish I was already dead.

The youtube comments though -- surprisingly somewhat readable. I read the debate about atheism vs. faeries in the garden while that lion thing droned on and on and on.

Uh. But thanks for this? Really. I hadn't contemplated my mortality in a couple of days, and now I'm back on track. Gotta keep this shit in mind.

Who else thinks this is Dawkins' idea of a bedtime story?
posted by jnaps at 10:00 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


I learned in my teens that I was going to die. That's why I enjoy life to the fullest with game
consoles, drugs, sex, and good friends.
posted by doctorschlock at 10:01 AM on January 8, 2009 [14 favorites]


Reminds me of a lullaby my mom used to sing me when I was a child. "You're going to die," she'd sing. "Probably tonight."
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:01 AM on January 8, 2009 [35 favorites]


Thanks to that kickin' talking-lion animation trick, though, I"m going to die happy.
posted by cortex at 10:03 AM on January 8, 2009 [3 favorites]


You first.
posted by markkraft at 10:04 AM on January 8, 2009 [2 favorites]


The best thing about this is reading youtube posters discuss religious beliefs and empiricism.
posted by ob at 10:06 AM on January 8, 2009


Can I get an amen for doctorschlock?
posted by Bageena at 10:08 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


Well, that's your theory.
posted by washburn at 10:09 AM on January 8, 2009


That lion died. He's in my great-great-grandfather's bedroom now.
posted by designbot at 10:09 AM on January 8, 2009


That was surprisingly delightful! I think it was supposed to be serious (?) but it filled me with a weird glee.
posted by peep at 10:09 AM on January 8, 2009


That's why I enjoy life to the fullest with game
consoles, drugs, sex, and good friends.


WORD.
posted by empath at 10:10 AM on January 8, 2009 [2 favorites]


Sorry, that link died.
posted by designbot at 10:10 AM on January 8, 2009


If anyone's a bit depressed after watching that, this will make you feel a whole lot better.
posted by ob at 10:13 AM on January 8, 2009


People treat being reminded that they're going to die like a bring down. But people treat actually almost dying like it's a really awesome way to be much happier and helps remind you that life is precious. Funny how that works. I guess the abstraction of death is what makes people scared and depressed.
posted by I Foody at 10:14 AM on January 8, 2009


I found that oddly refreshing and centering. I needed to hear that guy drone 'you are going to die' for five minutes before the shift in perspective set in, apparently. It sure does make going to coffee with friends seem a lot more important priority.

(And what doctorschlock said too.)
posted by LooseFilter at 10:14 AM on January 8, 2009 [2 favorites]


yeah, well.
posted by dawson at 10:14 AM on January 8, 2009 [3 favorites]


My friend has an interesting (yet theoretical, obviously) view about dying. He wants his own demise to be messy, painful and traumatic. He figures that since you only get to do it once you might as well do it properly. None of this 'going to sleep and not waking up'. He wants to be wide awake and preferrably screaming when it happens.

This video also feels timely as I am nursing the beginnings of a man-flu and know that I might not see another dawn.
posted by slimepuppy at 10:15 AM on January 8, 2009


Some people think this is mediocre. But that is okay.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:20 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


None of this 'going to sleep and not waking up'.

Like my grandpa.

He wants to be wide awake and preferrably screaming when it happens.

Like my grandpa's passengers at the time.
posted by DreamerFi at 10:22 AM on January 8, 2009 [11 favorites]


How would I go? Jumping from the top of the Washington Monument, strapped with dynamite timed to go off halfway down, and huge bags of confetti. It's like scattering the ashes without the cremation, and with a whole crowd of gore-and-confetti-spattered participants.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:22 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


If death means you no longer exist, then in a sense you do live forever. Its just forever looked a lot longer in the demo. Go figure.

In other news, did you ever look at the back of your hand. No. I meant really look at the back of your hand?
posted by ElvisJesus at 10:23 AM on January 8, 2009 [2 favorites]


Non fui, fui. Non sum, non curo.
posted by everichon at 10:25 AM on January 8, 2009 [3 favorites]


dawson, that was so awesome, thanks.
posted by LooseFilter at 10:26 AM on January 8, 2009


I WANT MY DEATH TO SPEAK IN ALL CAPS.
posted by everichon at 10:31 AM on January 8, 2009


Yip-yip-yip-yip-yip ...
posted by Bookhouse at 10:31 AM on January 8, 2009 [2 favorites]


Strangely compelling. If you didn't watch all the way to the end, you missed the happy part.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 10:32 AM on January 8, 2009


Ha. You can't die for the life of you, because you don't exist. You only think you do.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:32 AM on January 8, 2009


I have even worse news for you....You're going to LIVE, too!
posted by Chuffy at 10:33 AM on January 8, 2009


or as Steven Wright says, "I intend to live forever - so far, so good."
posted by Chuffy at 10:34 AM on January 8, 2009


Everyone on Metafilter is terminally ill right now.




Whoa.
posted by Avenger at 10:41 AM on January 8, 2009


I want my death to look a little bit like Siouxsie.
posted by everichon at 10:41 AM on January 8, 2009


I'm at work right now, so I'll try to make this brief.

I thought that was a great video. I mean, I'm a fan of mementing mori in general, and I liked the general message.

But the really interesting part of it is who was talking. It's the MGM lion! Can you fathom the things he has seen. I thought it was so interesting, whether it was intended or not, that the speech thing, which I guess was lifted from some book, had a particularly strong focus on 'the stories we tell ourselves.' This is the MGM lion! Can you understand the insane, omniscient-like grasp the MGM lion has of the stories we tell ourselves. The MGM lion has introduced us to a such an incredible range and proportion of stories we have told ourselves in the last 80 years or whatever it is. The MGM lion has sat quietly behind the veil, watching as we allow all manner of flickering narrative to seep into our brains. The MGM lion has watched us laugh, cry and be stunned, all while nestled in the ribbons of ars gratia artis, a slogan which itself laughs at the very idea that we might find any escape or human comfort from film in this life. And now he's finally saying his piece! And he has all the stock footage he needs to illustrate it nicely!

I love this thing.
posted by skwt at 10:42 AM on January 8, 2009 [7 favorites]


Funny -- I figured out exactly how I want to die just this past week:

Jump from a weather balloon 100,000 feet up, wearing a wingsuit. No parachute. Okay, maybe jet engines strapped to my boots.

Also, I'll be rocking out a funky bass solo, driving an F1 car, and getting fellated by... whomever is hawt in 2050.
posted by LordSludge at 10:43 AM on January 8, 2009


I can't understand people (like my wife) who are afraid of the idea that death is the end. I can understand being afraid of pain and suffering, but I don't get fear of Nothing. It's Nothing! It doesn't feel like anything. How can that be scary? She replies that she hates the idea of not existing. I tell her that's ok because after she dies there won't be any her to hate the idea. This doesn't console her.
posted by diogenes at 10:49 AM on January 8, 2009


This is what I want to look like right before I die.

not really
posted by marxchivist at 11:01 AM on January 8, 2009 [8 favorites]


Man, that sounds great. I could use some rest.
posted by Caduceus at 11:05 AM on January 8, 2009


Robert Sylvester jumps a highway media after waving his gun at police...

A highway media photographer.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:06 AM on January 8, 2009


I was very split about the ending of the video. I really liked the, 'If you're sad, at least you can be...' theme. That's something I try to communicate to people a lot. A certain kind of controlled masochism can be extremely liberating.

On the other hand, I hate the old, 'death makes our lives worth living' theme. And this doesn't even have much to do with immortality per say. It's just that I think a great deal of human suffering is caused by people rushing around so much. 'Gotta get my career, my wife, my kids, everything in place...'

Even knowing that I was going to die, if I didn't know the scale of my life (60-100 years or so) I could be so much more spontaneous... so much more free.

That french girl I met on the train? Talk her up. She invites you back to paris? Go with her! Why the hell not? Drop everything for a couple years. For twenty years! Have some kids. A family. Then get back to your education. Or whatever the hell.

A homeless man asks you for change, for a brief moment you connect, and you decide, for no reason other then that you can, to drop your life and help his. Buy him a meal. Talk to him. See if he wants help. Maybe hand him the keys to your car and house. Just because.

Life isn't so simply finite anymore, and planning it out becomes vacuous. Accomplishment is eventually superseded simply by... living.
posted by Alex404 at 11:06 AM on January 8, 2009 [3 favorites]


marxchivist: That's awesome! You have to respect the ability to flee and smoke at the same time.
posted by diogenes at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2009


Sylvester was shortly shot by police...

I guess they took him off at the knees.
posted by diogenes at 11:15 AM on January 8, 2009


Two old friends.
posted by everichon at 11:17 AM on January 8, 2009


It seems so right somehow that the voice of the lion was Vito Acconci.
posted by neroli at 11:22 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


This was a great little film. I was charmed and enthralled by it, and for some reason, I was even uplifted before it got to the mildly redemptive part at the end.

I also liked how the narrator's voice reminded me of Max in Hart to Hart.
posted by Number Used Once at 11:23 AM on January 8, 2009


Narrated by Vito Acconci? This may be the best performance art ever.

(Quite glad it didn't involve any footage of his more famous performances. "You should masturbate under the stairs because you are going to die!")
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:29 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


I want to die, high. Higher than a friggin kite. When or where I land, I die.
posted by doctorschlock at 11:32 AM on January 8, 2009


Warning: Link contains YouTube comments. Reading them could make you wish you would die.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:35 AM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


Fantastic. Great piece. Vito Acconci! Awesomness. Wish I could make a whole TV series like that. No, really.
posted by fungible at 11:42 AM on January 8, 2009


Goodbye Kitty
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 11:44 AM on January 8, 2009


Ah, I see doctorschlock has the same idea I do: Overdosing on heroin while falling from a plane.

That said, this video is weak. Is that freaking Dead Man at the beginning? Artless.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:02 PM on January 8, 2009


Here's the source of the video: Timothy Furstnau, from TY2K.


It's awesome to read that video artists appreciate a good stupid yutube comment as much as the rest of us.


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That lion is talking to me!!! ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:03 PM on January 8, 2009


"This can't be living. I drink too much Old Milwaukee and wake up in the morning and it tastes like old bread crusts in my mouth. All my underwear's dirty, I can't find my insurance policy."
Larry Brown
posted by dawson at 12:08 PM on January 8, 2009


Ah, film school.
posted by jbickers at 12:10 PM on January 8, 2009


You die. She dies. Everybody dies.

What an interesting little video - it made me oddly happy - just like seeing my favorite quote from Heavy Metal as the title of the post.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 12:33 PM on January 8, 2009


Years ago, a friend and I came up with an idea for an unusual political campaign; we wanted a candidate that simply answered all questions with the reply "They die, you die", emphasizing different words depending on the query.

I'm not sure why, but it's the kind of message I can believe in.
posted by quin at 12:40 PM on January 8, 2009


I thought the video was uplifting and liked it a great deal. Thanks!
posted by maxwelton at 1:02 PM on January 8, 2009


That said, this video is weak. Is that freaking Dead Man at the beginning? Artless.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I found this all pretty pointless.
posted by ob at 1:11 PM on January 8, 2009


dudes, am i alone in feeling pretty uplifted by this? did everybody listen all the way to the end? i kind of feel like waking up to this every morning.
posted by radiosig at 1:17 PM on January 8, 2009


cool, i'm not alone. (previeeeeeeew)
posted by radiosig at 1:18 PM on January 8, 2009


Live Life Like You're Gonna Die. (caution: Shatner)
posted by /\/\/\/ at 1:43 PM on January 8, 2009


Tom Waits has really gone downhill lately.

Since when can you go downhill from the bottom?
posted by yoga at 1:58 PM on January 8, 2009


I too found it very uplifting and affirming. As old Castaneda's Don Juan used to say: "death is your adviser".
posted by bonefish at 2:09 PM on January 8, 2009


Something is very wrong when some of the youtube comments are more profound/artful than the video.

"Sometimes little babies die"? Seriously?
posted by paradoxflow at 2:19 PM on January 8, 2009


What a curious film. I wonder why it was made? Who is it intended for?

At least for me, I find that knowing things doesn't prevent you from forgetting them on a day to day basis, and death and the ultimate finitude of life, more than anything else, is all too easy to shrink from or resist thinking fully about. Judging from the variety and potential disingenuousness of people's responses in this thread, I'd say it's a message that often has yet to really sink in. I never understood in movies why people always wait until they are on their very death bed before recanting or having their changes of heart... that death bed is always and already there.
posted by kaspen at 2:33 PM on January 8, 2009


For a split second I thought the voice at the beginning was Arnold Schwartzeneggar.

One second later I realised it wasn't, but then I thought, "How cool would this be if Arnold Schwartzeneggar had done the voiceover?"
posted by bwg at 4:03 PM on January 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


I often contemplate my own death, but I also contemplate the death of everything. Eventually this country will die. This planet will die. This universe will die.

For example, there was a recent brouhaha over an untended cemetery in Raleigh. Locals didn't know who was buried there or even how many people were buried there. Money needed to be raised for preservation. Plans needed to made, etc. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "So what?" In 10,000 years will Raleigh even exist? All cemeteries will eventually be gone so does it matter if they last a 100 years? A 1000 years? They only need to last until the last mourner is dead. If nobody knows who is buried there, the need for the cemetery is over.

I'm also not so concerned about leaving my mark on the world, as I was when I was younger. I was sure that one day I would be a published author because it was important to me to leave something of myself behind. Now I think of all the writers who have been published in the last 100 years-- how many will be remembered in a 5000 years? Eventually the human race will die out and nobody will be reading. Life is for having fun now, it is not for worrying about what comes after.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:54 PM on January 8, 2009 [2 favorites]


SLoG, your comment brought to mind an apropos and brilliant observation by Orson Wells. Sadly I can't call it to mind and an hour of googling turns up nothing.
but yeah, what he said.
posted by dawson at 5:44 PM on January 8, 2009


Youtube:
It's F is for Fake, Welles' Chartres monologue...
posted by dawson at 5:50 PM on January 8, 2009


The quote:
Now this has been standing here for centuries. The premier work of man perhaps in the whole western world and it’s without a signature. Chartres.
A celebration to God’s glory and to the dignity of man.
All that’s left, most artists seem to feel these days, is man. Naked, poor, forked radish. There aren’t any celebrations. Ours, the scientists keep telling us, is a universe which is disposable.
You know it might be just this one anonymous glory of all things, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand choiring shout of affirmation, which we choose when all our cities are dust; to stand intact, to mark where we have been, to testify to what we had it in us to accomplish.
Our works in stone, in paint, in print are spared, some of them for a few decades, or a millennium or two, but everything must finaly fall in war or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash: the triumphs and the frauds, the treasures and the fakes.
A fact of life… we’re going to die. ‘Be of good heart,’ cry the dead artists out of the living past. Our songs will all be silenced - but what of it? Go on singing. Maybe a man’s name doesn’t matter all that much.
Excerpt from F for Fake, Orson Welles.
posted by dawson at 5:57 PM on January 8, 2009


More proof that every thought I have ever had has been thought before; every idea I have tried to express has been expressed before and in a more elegant fashion. Sometimes it is painful to be smart but not brilliant.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:18 PM on January 8, 2009


what! no context?
heh.
posted by liza at 6:45 PM on January 8, 2009


Secret Life of Gravy: Yeah, tell me about it, I just got that lion to enunciate "die" properly, take a break to look and mefi and...
posted by phrontist at 7:12 PM on January 8, 2009


I don't get fear of Nothing. It's Nothing! It doesn't feel like anything. How can that be scary?

For most, its more the fear of the unprecedented future...of nothing.
posted by samsara at 7:26 PM on January 8, 2009


People tell one another 'stories' because they can't figure out what else to say. All around death, people try to make sense of something that simply does not make sense. The mind searches for things to feel guilty about, if only because blaming oneself means having someone to blame.

I recently lost someone close and this little film was a welcome tonic after the procession of well-intentioned midwesterners telling me that 'he is with God now'. The deceased would have agreed with this film wholeheartedly.
posted by Monsters at 9:18 PM on January 8, 2009


Why would you post this?
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:19 PM on January 8, 2009


I've already died. I'm back. No seriously.

And I thought I'd die in combat. Far as I'm concerned it's all extended play.

Still, people don't really die. It's only that time appears to move forward because how matter and consciousness interacts with entropy.
posted by Smedleyman at 11:06 PM on January 8, 2009


(And I can see why they put this guy in charge)
posted by Smedleyman at 11:07 PM on January 8, 2009


That's funny. I was planning on out-living everyone I know, just to be cheeky.
You gotta have goals, you know?

posted by Minus215Cee at 11:31 PM on January 8, 2009


weapons-grade pandemonium: Robert Sylvester jumps a highway media after waving his gun at police...

A highway media photographer.


A highway median.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:27 AM on January 9, 2009


As someone who has just hit the wall of mortality (34, never had health problems until the doctor called the other day to tell me my cholesterol was THREE TIMES normal and that my liver is probably damaged), this was just what I wanted to hear. But yeah, pretty cool.
posted by Rykey at 3:23 PM on January 9, 2009


No, I'm actually going to live forever.

Close. You're going to have lived. Forever.
posted by scarabic at 4:31 PM on January 9, 2009 [2 favorites]


someone who has just hit the wall of mortality (34

Oddly, that was the wall for me too. Not because of any health issues. Just suddenly crested the hill and got a view of the downward slope on the other side.
posted by scarabic at 4:32 PM on January 9, 2009 [1 favorite]


Shatner and Ben Folds did it better.
posted by illuminatus at 2:39 PM on January 10, 2009


Am I the only one squicked out by the overly wet and squishy mouth sounds between sentences?

Ew. Swallow, dude. And stop playing with your tongue. Or you're going to die a lot sooner than you thought.
posted by po at 11:28 PM on January 11, 2009


Bonus points for the Max Headroom blipvert sample.
posted by pompomtom at 12:04 AM on January 18, 2009


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