To die, and to go we all know where...

The last few days have not been particularly pleasant. I shall have to admit that I find it hard to write anything at all today... still less make that extra effort to imbue my words with a semblance of enthusiasm and energy. Both those qualities are in extremely low supply at the moment. I feel dispirited and low. 

It’s an issue everyone who writes has to contend with once in a while, I suppose. Right now, I am staring at a (mostly) blank white space... and trying to fight off a little voice in my head that encourages me to leave it blank. 

Leave it blank, damn it. What’s the point? A white space can be infinitely more expressive than a page filled with words. Even now, as the words I type tumble erratically across the page, I can’t help feeling that the space in between them speaks louder and with more articulation. It is as though I am trespassing more than writing. And who knows? Maybe to write is indeed to trespass. 

Right now I am trespassing on your thoughts as you read. What business do I have to be there, anyway? You would be justified in setting your dog loose and chasing me off your property with a shotgun.  It would at least give King Lear something to ramble madly about: ‘There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office’.

There is, however, another little inner voice that can be just as persistent and irritating. It tells me to keep bashing away at that keyboard regardless. It doesn’t pause to consider such minor questions as ‘why?’ or ‘to what end?’, either. It just wants me to fill the white space simply for the sake of not leaving it blank.

‘Trust me’, I hear it say. ‘Some good will come out of it, you’ll see.’

I have been listening to both these voices for a good few years now, and I still can’t make up my mind which one is more trustworthy. I can’t deny that some ‘good’ – a terribly subjective concept at the best of times – can come of violating the sanctity of that white space. But it is ‘goodness’ of an entirely selfish variety. It benefits me: in that, through writing, I give myself an opportunity to grapple with things that would otherwise fester unchallenged in my subconscious forever. 

Dispirited and low, did I say? Yes, undeniably. But the simple act of writing those words forced me to confront that perception: to question what was until that point a state to which I had simply and silently acquiesced. 

And I might have come away with a very different impression, too: I might have concluded that I was exaggerating... that yes, people may die and leave this world forever – becoming, in the process, part of the same nothingness as the white space of a blank page. But the sun is still shining outdoors; there is already a hint of forthcoming spring in the crisp winter air.  Above all, there is still beauty and wonder in even the tiniest manifestation of the natural universe... which also means that I am surrounded by indescribable magic at all times, whether I am conscious of it or not. 

Take that mushroom I discovered growing out of the living room carpet the other day. I mean: how beautiful and awe-inspiring is that? My own apartment is breeding new, exciting life-forms as we speak. It is becoming a self-contained eco-system in its own right. I can now watch wildlife documentaries in the comfort of my own home... without subscribing to Netflix, and without even switching on a TV.

And hey presto! I feel less dispirited already... just by opening a tiny door onto the absurd, and allowing a little light to shine through the chink. 

Ah, but what a miserably selfish sod that makes me, when all is said and done. Here I am, covering this pure unblemished whiteness with (let’s face it) ugly squiggles of black ink... just to lift myself out of a moment of unhappiness. It can’t be right. Yet I can’t put my finger on why it must be wrong, either.

It’s not the only thing I find difficult to understand. Right now, the immediate cause of my despondency is the death of Ramon Casha, whom I knew and (sporadically) worked with over the past 10 years. I was stunned and shocked to hear of his demise... yet I can’t claim to have been his closest friend when he was alive. I hadn’t actually met him in person at all in recent months, though we occasionally communicated on the same online threads. Much as it pains me to now have to admit, in the times when we did regularly meet we had our fair share of disagreements and arguments. In this respect we were similar in character: we could both be infuriatingly difficult at times (myself probably more than Ramon).

Of course, this only sharpens the sense of loss. Had I known that his state of health was so precarious, I would have wanted the opportunity to iron out some of those disagreements: minor though they now appear, in the greater scheme of things. But it is just one of those things that can never be rectified; and writing about it doesn’t help much either. Ramon cannot read these words from beyond the grave.

This, too, is part of what saddened me so much about his death. You will by now have read enough tributes and obituaries (and possibly hate-filled jubilant reactions, too) to be aware of some of what Ramon Casha represented and campaigned for in life. I won’t bother recapitulating, in part because there was so much: as can be attested by the sheer number of civil society groups and NGOs that expressed dismay at his loss.

As one of the people who founded the Malta Humanist Association with Ramon, and who sat with him on the same committee for a few years, I will limit myself only to our shared views on secular humanism.

Ramon was an atheist who did not believe in life after death, or the concept of Universal Judgment. Like all outspoken atheists, he often had to counter the facile criticism that he ‘believed in nothing’. Ramon did not believe in nothing. Sadly I can’t locate one of his typically brilliant responses to the charge: he argued that as an atheist he believed in the natural Universe... which is very far from nothing... while believers clung to non-existent concepts such as ‘God’, ‘Heaven’, ‘Hell’, ‘Purgatory’ and so on. Who, then, is the real nihilist?

On many occasions, Ramon and I discussed the broader implications of our shared atheism. In fact I wish he were here to give what would no doubt be a better and more informative assessment of those discussions. Being an atheist – regardless of whether one subscribes to secular humanism or not – has the effect of radically re-dimensioning one’s perception of the Cosmos and his/her place in it. To die as an atheist is not ‘to go we know not where’. It is to end, permanently and irrevocably. Knowledge and acceptance of this reality is what circumscribes an atheist’s actions and thoughts.

I can hardly think of a better example than Ramon Casha to illustrate the world-view this entails. When one ceases to believe in fairy-tale stories of immortality, of an ultimate ‘Deus Ex Machina’ that will magically right all wrongs, it impacts not just one’s individual aspirations... but also one’s entire concept of social justice.

This in part explains why Ramon Casha was so firmly committed to a host of issues: why he championed equality and fought against discrimination. He understood that injustice and inequality cannot and never will be rectified by any higher power... not during our lifetimes, still less after our deaths. 

There is consequently no justice more important than human justice... because beyond the paradigm of human civilisation, there is no such thing as ‘justice’ at all. Ramon knew this, and this knowledge informed all aspects of his activism. It also explains why he worked so hard to give the MHA a philanthropic dimension: for Ramon as for the rest of us, there was more to humanism than a shared world-view... he saw the role of secular humanism as a contributor to community building. And while we all shared this vision, it was Ramon who found the energy and commitment to translate this intention into action.

Again, this amplifies the sense of loss. People who share this worldview – and a beautiful, invigorating view it is too – are few and far between. People who can so energetically and eloquently promulgate it are practically non-existent.

But being an atheist also means stoically accepting that all this energy and eloquence – and all the other attributes we associate with ‘life’ – will come to an emphatic and irreversible end. That takes more than just rationality. It also takes courage... and at moments like these, I turn to my own store of courage and find it empty. The wonder and beauty of the natural universe, that so utterly fascinated and motivated Ramon, suddenly seems pointless and futile.

Had Ramon been alive to read this, he would no doubt have pointed out my irrationality as he once did several years ago. Of course it is pointless and futile, Raphael. That is the whole point: the universe is not hostile to us; merely indifferent. If there is any meaning and purpose to our existence, it is only the meaning and purpose we give to it ourselves. So stop thinking about death, and start concentrating on being alive.

Damn it, I wish he left a little of his courage behind for me.