Amortality: A Consequence of Early Mortality

Catherine Mayer writes in Time about one of Ten Ideas that are Changing the World: Amortality. She writes, “The defining characteristic of amortality is to live in the same way, at the same pitch, doing and consuming much the same things, from late teens right up until death.” Ms. Mayer observes that this is more than a result of boomer age-resistance; it’s actually a separate (if related?) phenomenon.

I have noticed this “amortality” in myself, although I have tended to write it off as a product of life on the early side of middle age. I have assumed that my desire to pretend I am still in college is either some form of mid-life crisis, or some immaturity I will outgrow, or both.

But, in any case, I think Amortality is a consequence of Early Mortality, of the death-cult envelope in which every member of the developed world now lives.

From the earliest ages, we are super-aware of death and its causes:

• Posters in our local pediatrician’s office show pictures of slim children and obese children, and list the statistical likelihood of illness and death for each.

• The ebullient BNL song, “If I had a million dollars, I would buy you a fur coat, but not a real fur coat, that’s cruel – I would buy you an exotic pet, like a llama or an emu – We wouldn’t have to walk to the store, we’d take a limo ‘cause it costs more” is sadly irrelevant. If I had a million dollars, I’d stick it in a CD or a mattress and wait for the market to improve, so that I’d be able to afford long term healthcare.

• News websites feed our hunger for statistics as well as fear, plugging us with numbers on the top ten causes of death in our country, state and hometown, broken down by age, demographic and social status.

We worry about diet, exercise, retirement accounts, long term care insurance, war and terrorism, global warming, social collapse, anxiety disorders.

We start forestalling death in our youth, with everything from college-prep pre-schools to pre-arranged funerals.

So it’s only natural that, with death constantly on our mind, we live every moment to its desperately youthful fullest, to the best of our ability, resisting any change, any concession to the grave. We are afraid to do otherwise.

The irony is that this desperate amortality is, itself, a contributing factor for those anxiety disorders. As the Talmud teaches, one who is forever worried about tomorrow’s bread has no life at all.

We might do well to acknowledge the grave even as we forestall it; acceptance tends to be a healthier option, physically, than denial.

Newsworthy tzniut?

[Haveil Havalim is here!]

This morning, while driving home from minyan, I heard a report on the radio (WKYW-Philadelphia) about a couple, both abstinence educators, who were married this weekend. The reporter observed, in tones of astonishment, that the couple had never mated, never kissed, never watched a movie lying down together, never even been alone in a house together.

Yes, apparently in a world of Mumbai terror attacks, a depressed economy, a presidency in transition, Thanksgiving celebrations, and trampled Wal-Mart workers, these topics - kiruv basar/yichud (non-marital physical contact/seclusion) - are still worthy of a headline.

I went on-line and found this report at the AP website:

CHICAGO (AP) — Won't kiss on the first date? How about waiting until marriage?

Chicagoans Melody LaLuz and Claudaniel Fabien shared their first kiss Saturday at the altar. The two teach abstinence at the city's public schools and practiced what they preached to their teenage students.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the couple had never kissed and that they had never been alone together in a house.

A friend of LaLuz says wedding guests cheered and stomped during the two-minute smooch between the 28-year-old bride and the 30-year-old groom.

LaLuz and Fabien say they have no worries about how they will spend their honeymoon in the Bahamas.

Technically, of course, this is not tzniut; Tzniut is privacy. A two-minute public smooch, not to mention the explicit declarations about their evening and honeymoon plans that made it into other reports of the happy occasion, do not qualify as private. [And don't get me started on the crude adages that made it into the radio report - "Try before you buy" on one side, and "You can't drive the car off the lot until you pay for it" on the other.]

Nonetheless, this happy couple did buck the cultural trend and observe some elements of the practices mandated by Judaism. For that I can salute them.

As to the reporter, well, perhaps he could use some time out of mainstream American and European culture to observe the way other societies do things.