Hey, I Was Enjoying That

“Well, at least he died doing something he loved.”

This is a platitude often bandied about when someone dies in some kind of tragic, extreme activity/sports related accident.  It is supposed to make people feel better; knowing that while they’ve lost a friend/relative/lover/particularly popular celebrity, at least that person went out at his or her own personal zenith of bliss.

Also: it’s complete bollocks.

Just stop to think about it for one second: you’re doing something you love. There is a risk of death, but you love it. It’s nude free-running, or mountain unicycling, or high-wire kama sutra, or crochet, whatever – you’re enjoying yourself immensely. Suddenly, something goes pear-shaped and you cease to be. Now you are DEAD, and the activity that you were so enjoying has been cut short.

How is this a good thing? Who likes being interrupted? If the power goes out when you’re watching, say, the season finale of Dexter, do you walk out of the lounge going “Oh well, at least the power went out during a program I loved”? When an overzealous waiter nips off with your Beef Rendang while you’re in the loo, do you shrug and go “oh well, at least it was a meal I loved”?

No, you do not.

Does it not seem obvious that the same would go for suddenly buying the farm in the middle of a beloved (if dangerous) activity, like tethered knife fighting or extreme curling or whatever? Not only do you have to suffer the indignity of having died, and having to play the ultimate extreme sport of Was My Religion The Right One, but you didn’t even get to finish the thing you started!

See? Complete bollocks.

If I’m doing something I love, I want to do it for as long as possible, not be cut off mid-thrill. And if the time comes that I do have to shuffle off this mortal coil? I want to go out doing something I hate. If I am to be stripped of my sentience, I at least want the consolation prize of not having to complete whatever horrid task I had been undertaking at the time.  That way, my nearest and dearest will at least be able to take some kind of solace:

“Well, at least he died doing the ironing.”