Intrepid Optimist
Intrepid Optimist is the place where I can share my stories; fact, fiction and thoughts from the past and present. It’s Written by myself for people who believe adventure knows no age
Let me Die a Young Man’s Death
Somewhere around 300 BC, the Greek philosopher, Epicuros wrote that, “The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.” He believed that individuals can live in happiness, strengthened by the continuing experience of modest pleasures.
His philosophy is to have a happy, serene life, in peace and freedom from fear, and the absence of pain, by living an independent life surrounded by friends. He also taught that pleasure and pain are the standards of what is good and evil in life; that death is the end of the body and the soul and should therefore not be feared because god does not reward or punish us.
It is a most enlightened philosophy but I doubt but that very few have achieved Epicuros’s maxim.
I belatedly came across the work of Roger McGough, the Liverpudlian poet and member of the 70s group, The Scaffold. His poem, Let me die a young man’s death, sums up the way the way I’m sure most of us would like to take that final curtain call. In other words, not just yet.
Let me die a youngman’s death
not a clean & inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death
When I’m 73
& in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party
Or when I’m 91
with silver hair
& sitting in a barber’s chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
& give me a short back & insides
Or when I’m 104
& banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
& fearing her son
cut me up into little pieces
& throw away every piece but one
Let me die a youngman’s death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax & waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
‘what a nice way to go’ death
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