Perhaps it’s genetic. My mother has made year-end death lists for decades, assembling her own lists of notable people who have died the preceding year. Can you think of a more heartwarming tradition? When she’d share her list with me, she’d seek my reaction, measure my cultural knowledge, and educate me if there was a name I didn’t know. It became something of a game for us and broadened my knowledge of the world—and of how individuals have the power to shape it. Each obituary filled in a gap in my understanding of history, but through the story of a human being who took a real shot at having some lasting impact.
So, years later, when faced with the juxtaposed deaths of Di and Brennan, I decided to begin creating my own annual lists. Just a little hobby, but designed to remember those who’ve made real contributions to the world and mankind. It’s been fun—and edifying. If notoriety—sheer fame—is the test for one’s list, then Lady Di easily surpasses Brennan. But that was not the test for me.
Let me illustrate with the two Juliuses. Julius Axelrod died in 2004. Ever heard of him? No? Most people haven’t. He received a Nobel for research leading to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). My brother, who could play a mean cello and electric bass, died a number of years ago while very depressed. My brother might still be alive today had the fruits of Axelrod’s work become commonplace just a few years earlier. Axelrod’s work has saved countless thousands of lives. Because of his research and innovation, thousands more have lived fuller and often longer lives, despite facing mental illness. Axelrod was number six on my 2004 list. I bet you’ve heard of Tony Randall of The Odd Couple and Janet Leigh and her famed Psycho shower scene. The press covered those deaths with much more detail than that of Julius Axelrod. Randall and Leigh were probably fine people, but I don’t see their accomplishments as comparable.
Don’t get me wrong. Entertainers are artists and artists can be transformational. So, sure, Marlon Brando made my 2004 list. He changed the art of acting. I’m no science snob. But, overall, actors, whom I love to watch in a darkened theater, aren’t exactly altering our world in the same way as the Juliuses.
Julius Richmond died in 2008. Richmond was the key scientist in the first studies of early childhood intervention. He led the first Head Start program and, as surgeon general, advocated against smoking. He made number seven on my 2008 list. My prediction, which I hope to see fulfilled, is that investment in educating early childhood brains (ages 0 to 5) gets widely implemented. I predict it will prove one of the most innovative and brilliant investments our species can make. Because of his creative insight, Julius Richmond will be more famous a hundred years hence than he is today. For now, the names Roy Scheider and Bettie Page, both of whom died in 2008, are far more recognizable. But as decades pass, I’m betting on Julius—and Julius.
When, as a child, I asked my father about the deaths of this or that famous person, what I really was trying to do was figure out how much time people have to make a difference. To paraphrase a Buddhist saying: given that your death is certain but the time of your death uncertain, what will you do? These famous people had at least gotten something done, I reasoned, and I wanted to understand how they’d pulled it off.
I have a friend, Harry Lonsdale, who reads the regular obituaries in his local paper. You know the ones: “Jim was an avid checkers player and attended regular meetings of the Elks.” Jim may have had a much better time of it than, say, Vincent van Gogh. Fair point, no doubt, especially because there were no SSRIs available for van Gogh.
And yet . . . wouldn’t you rather be van Gogh, if your choices are Jim and van Gogh? The richness—the transcendence—of what van Gogh accomplished embodies the most beautiful of human experiences. Harry tells me that when he looks at typical obituaries, he notes how little people actually get done. Harry does not mean to be condescending at all, because it is impossible to sum up a life and its meaning in a few words in the back of a newspaper, but Harry is a successful businessman and Harry wants to see results. It’s a valid question. What can you show for results?
We are all playing our own version of Beat the Clock (if we bother to get in the game at all). On the old TV show of that name, you might lose and thus endure the indignity of having whipped cream sprayed in your face. We get issued these bodies and, as our bodies and brains grow, we learn that this game of life has different stakes than a door prize or whipped cream in the face. It is often, literally, sudden death, and in this game there’s no overtime. Harry quoted to me a wise man who said, “Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in a lifetime.” Agreed.
If there is no God, no afterlife—indeed, if your life on this one small planet is infinitesimally short—then it makes you humble and it might inspire you to plan more carefully.
If, on the other hand, God has it covered, if you will live forever (if you’ll simply accept Jesus as your personal savior), then many things seem possible. In fact, some sweet shortcuts come to mind. You can hurt others—and terribly so—and be forgiven for that sin simply by asking a super-natural being for forgiveness. With the “forgiven” card, it’s so much easier to say to oneself, “I will grab this food now. I will grab this money now. I will grab and grab and grab.” Concern yourself with long-term consequences later. You can always be forgiven—and then you live forever! A convenient belief system indeed. Is this the attitude of all religious people? Certainly not. But does religion, as interpreted by millions, justify such attitudes? Yes.
Contrast this with the humbleness of understanding that your time is short. There is no candy at the end. Santa will not be there for you—no bag full of presents. Damn! No Santa. Remember when you first figured that one out? Ah well, time to grow up.
This reality forces upon us some careful thinking regarding the limited time we have to use our one and only brain in this oh-so-temporary body. This fragile mortal tool commands more respect once you realize it is the grand total of your allotted equipment, and there is no soul to float away from it later. “You are hereby allotted a consciousness for eighty-odd years. Use it as you choose for that time. Good luck! Sorry about the whole death business. Nothing personal, mind you. Game on! And all that.”
I had the idea for a children’s museum back in Maine. It took four years to put together, but we created something of top quality. Seeing the idea of a museum through to a multistory facility was an addictively enjoyable experience. After those years of work, I had a quote in mind for the museum wall, but some thought it morose: “We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle.” Set in Maine, E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web is a beautiful contemplation of life, bringing children face to face with death. Maine Discovery Museum was a way to lift up my life a trifle. Something real, something specific. That’s about as satisfying as it gets.
As Woody Allen aptly puts it, “What you see is what you get.” I, for one, strongly encourage you to, as the old song goes, “Enjoy yourself.” It is later than you think. The greatest enjoyment, however, is reserved for those who, like Julius Axelrod and Julius Richmond, can say, yes, I made sure my body and brain did something creative, something beautiful. If we are all small specks in one corner of one solar system of one galaxy, then our greatest satisfaction derives from thoughtful service to a larger future.
If you enjoy a good meal, a drink, and a song at the pub, then don’t deny yourself. I can tell you as someone who went to school in Ireland, some of my best experiences have been singing in the pub with laughs and stories traded along the way. If you’ve had that moment or two with a man or woman whose company you enjoyed, it’s no sin. The sin-mongers and gossip-mongers are so tiresome. Squeezing the best you can from every moment is admirable and fun, but “simple” pleasures alone—especially for those who know just how short and precious this one life is—are an insufficient use of our allotted time.
Darwin said, “There is grandeur in
this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
And yes, Mr. Darwin, sure, a finch is terrific, a gibbon fascinating no doubt, but, for me, it’s Kennedy and King, Eleanor and Franklin, Neil Armstrong and Vincent van Gogh, Madame Curie and Linus Pauling. We can’t all equal them, but we can emulate them.
Our lives are far shorter than many a tortoise, our bodies weaker than many a fellow creature, our feet far slower than many more, yet we are unique and, to me, more interesting than rocks, burning stars, gorillas, and cheetahs. Rocks and stars and gorillas and cheetahs are no doubt impressive and fascinating, but we humans, uniquely aware of our own mortality, can consciously make the most of our little time. That inspires me. People inspire me.
I especially love the planners, the creators, the strivers—the ones who try to rise above their own blip of time and seek to share something of value, something creative and unique, with all who follow. I’m a lawyer, not a scientist, but my love for scientists is strong, and becomes stronger with each passing year. I’m proud that my hero, the lawyer Madison, agreed.
I feel a twinge, a sadness, anticipating what I won’t know. I so much want to participate in the twenty-second century and beyond. I find the morning paper fascinating! Imagine the great wide future. I’m eager to know what will be known and invented—those unimaginable iPhones and health gizmos and universe-gazing telescopes of the future. More than that, I’d like to see the next Shakespeare, or the next Beatles, those who can create that beautiful unforeseeable creative change—and to play my small part as best I can.
The essence of Einstein’s philosophy, which I most love, bears repeating: “Out yonder there was this huge world . . . the contemplation of this world beckoned as a liberation. . . . Similarly motivated men of the present and of the past, as well as the insights they had achieved, were the friends who could not be lost. The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to religious paradise, but it has shown itself reliable, and I have never regretted having chosen it.”
Some say death is natural, therefore good. This is an admirable, but I suspect counterfeit, sentiment—whistling past the graveyard. We want to sound noble and brave, as we should. As for me, I don’t like death one tiny bit and refuse to pretend that I do. Labeling death “natural”—and therefore a positive event—is rather like those who argue food is good or bad based on “naturalness” alone. Arsenic is natural. I would not willingly drink from a cup of natural arsenic, and I’ll let the entirely natural cup of death pass me by until I’m forced to drink its bitterness. I’ll stick with my friends on Earth as long as I can manage. I draw my inspiration from people.
I greatly admire the spiritual. Carl Sagan said, “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”
The spirituality of certain death requires acceptance that our stake in the future springs, not from an afterlife, but from whatever ideas and creativity we can muster and then pass on—through our friends, family, and work. The greatest joy is to challenge ourselves to contribute.
I don’t mean “contribute” in some prissy, earnest way. Let’s squeeze all the juice from life. Drink it down! Stay in the game—until age ninety and beyond. Work steady, day to day, creating positive incremental change. Incremental improvement: it’s the most beautiful use of time—and, ultimately, the most fun. With that goal ever in mind, a more gentle world is possible, a more healthy world, a more caring world.
It is all our own responsibility, our own choice, because there are no chosen people. There are no saved people. That’s all myth. It’s all of us choosing to help each other. Right now, today. It’s entirely up to us. We are all responsible to each other.
… Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles.
—Lord Alfred Tennyson
Appendix: Secular Coalition for America
Thousands attended Walt Whitman’s funeral. Whitman’s friend Robert Ingersoll, known as the “great agnostic,” delivered the funeral oration. Ingersoll may have been the most popular public speaker in an era when speeches were a form of popular entertainment. Ingersoll’s speech nominating James G. Blaine for president in 1876 was a model for Franklin Roosevelt’s “Happy Warrior” speech of 1928. Ingersoll’s most popular topic was ethical agnosticism. People would actually pay one dollar each, a large sum at the time, to hear him speak. Huge crowds would sit enthralled for his three-hour oratorical arias, just as today we go to a movie or concert. He was perhaps the most unequivocal and public advocate for freethinking in the 1800s when no formal freethought organization existed. Such organizations began to spring up in the late 1800s.
Just as the term “freethinkers” suggests, most secular groups traditionally remained separate from other like-minded groups with similar, if distinct, missions. It wasn’t until more than one hundred years after Ingersoll’s famous speeches that Herb Silverman, a mathematics professor at the College of Charleston, saw the need to connect these groups through one unifying organization. Silverman’s vision united these groups in what has become the Secular Coalition for America. He did so with the help of activist Bobbie Kirkhardt, the well-connected political insider Woody Kaplan, and many others. The ten groups that today form the Secular Coalition for America have an admirable heritage and are at the vanguard of the effort against today’s theocratic attack on America’s founding principles.
American Ethical Union
The American Ethical Union and its respective Ethical Culture Societies (congregations) have played an important and positive role in American social change. If you believe in the mission of the ACLU and oppose child labor, then you must thank in part the American Ethical Union. Particularly through its New York branch, it has had a major impact. In 1876, Felix Adler, a rabbi, founded the Ethical Culture movement based on his philosophy that—in essence—a naturalistic view of the world embodies a very ethical view. A dynamic speaker, Adler led the creation of Ethical Culture Societies. This philosophy represents perhaps the first expressly nontheistic religion in America. A “nontheistic religion”? It’s counterintuitive, but Ethical Culturists view their moral values as a high call, a religion, and they are so recognized by the IRS. This nontheist viewpoint was revolutionary for a formal congregation, though the Unitarians and Deists (e.g., Thomas Jefferson) had earlier come close to such a viewpoint in rejecting miracles, the divinity of Christ, and the virgin birth.
Followers of Ethical Culture, by contrast, came out and simply focused on the essentials in their religion—in short, ethics. This entirely reasonable proposition flourished, particularly in the early twentieth century, when Ethical Culture Societies were so deeply involved in social change, such as in the founding of the ACLU and instituting pro bono work in the legal profession. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant nuclear physicist blacklisted for his progressive politics, was raised in Ethical Culture in New York and attended the movement’s prestigious Fieldston School on the Upper West Side, a place of innovative thinking that employed the Socratic method.
Albert Einstein, a reasonably bright chap, supported the American Ethical Union. Celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary, Einstein said, “Without ‘ethical culture’ there is no salvation for humanity.” The connection between a naturalistic worldview and an ethical worldview is a common sense one. There is no ancient document demanding rejection or subjugation of this or that category of person in Ethical Cultur
e.
Not long ago, I spoke at an Ethical Culture Society in the Chicago area with a very active Sunday school, partly administered by a young attorney named Carolyn Welch. Her husband, Raam Jaani, is, like me, a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. Yet their young family finds the Ethical Culture Society to be a good home for reinforcing the moral values that infuse their lives. There are many good Kennedy Catholics who no longer participate in the Catholic Church because the Scalia Catholics seem to run that outfit these days. Ethical Culture, and several of the Secular Coalition for America groups for that matter, offers a welcoming home not only for Kennedy Catholics but also for many liberal Protestants, secular Jews, and secular Muslims. The tent is big. Jennifer Scates, the new president of American Ethical Union, has an important job—sustaining the heritage of the country’s longest-standing secular organization. The religion of Ethical Culture offers a moral alternative free of punitive ancient dogma.
American Humanist Association
In 1929, the first Humanist Society of New York was founded, with Albert Einstein as an original advisory board member. The Humanist Manifesto, issued in 1933, was written primarily by Raymond Bragg, a Unitarian minister. Many Unitarians proudly carried on a tradition that extended back to Founders like the Adamses. Some, like Bragg, felt that they were part of a religion that needed to face squarely its embrace of an ethical life stance and the reality—pervasive in many Unitarian congregations—that the concept of God was more window dressing than a necessary reality in their daily lives. Bragg embraced ethical nontheism as “humanism.”
To embrace humanism is to embrace the concept that caring for our fellow human beings is our highest calling. The American Humanist Association for a time filed as a religion with the IRS, in part because it had celebrants who performed weddings and funerals. However, the American Humanist Association decided that the misperception that humanism was a theistic religion confused people, so it chose to form as an expressly secular 501(c)(3) corporation. This made the organization’s nontheism more clear. The organization communicates strong moral values and encourages nontheistic celebrants to officiate at major life events.
Attack of the Theocrats!: How the Religious Right Harms Us All—and What We Can Do About It Page 18