Oceans Of
Death
Imagine you're homeless because you lost your job and
can no longer afford housing.
You're walking the streets, eating fast food wrappers,
when you spot an open area of land that looks unused except for stones
scattered all over the place.
You worked in construction, so you go to the office
and suggest building some kind of housing on the property. You’re able to get a
crew together, could plan everything, and would work for free as long as a
living unit would be yours at the end.
The person in charge of the property would have to
tell you- with a serious face- that breathing people cannot live on the land
because it's reserved for the dead.
You’d then have to do everything in your power to not
add that person to the underground community.
Upon the cease of bodily life, many people pay many
dollars for many loved ones to be inserted into expensive boxes that get
lowered into the ground and covered with dirt so body and box can both rot,
never to be seen again.
What an archaic, sad, ugly ritual that renders the
land useless.
…
A bunch of years ago in Africa, some pyramids were
erected.
These massive structures were each built for one dead
ruler, who was wrapped up and shut into an undisclosed room filled with riches.
How was the room kept secret?
After burying the pharaoh within the structure, the
rooms and hallways would be booby-trapped to prevent thieves from entering the
tomb. For the sake of keeping the correct route unknown, the unlucky workers
were then murdered and thrown into mass graves, which were a fraction of the
size of the Pyramids yet held lots of bodies.
It was eventually decided that neither of these
methods- hundreds in a mass grave or a giant tomb for one person- was
acceptable. Thus, an odd combination of the two came to be.
…
Why do people go to cemeteries? Driven by faith or
not, most want to 'visit' their deceased relatives and friends. Some talk out
loud, assuming the person's spirit can hear them.
Isn't it weird to think of your loved ones' spirits
just hanging around their former Earthly bodies, waiting for someone to drop
by? And if you believe people can hear you in the afterlife, why couldn't you
just speak to them from any location? What a curious vision of the next world
some people have.
Occasionally, visitors even purchase blankets for the
graves when the weather gets cold. I can’t even pretend to understand that
idea, but kudos to whoever profits from it.
…
My suggestion is to eliminate at least 99% of all
cemeteries. This is a fairly simple (if expensive and time-consuming) exercise that
could benefit a large portion of people.
If a grave has not been visited within the past five
years, dig it up.
Some ideas for how to replace cemeteries are
affordable housing, parks, gardens, or making the land usable for agriculture.
Even a golf course has more value than a cemetery, and
better pants.
Just use the land for something instead of nothing.
Regarding housing, some people would have a problem
living on a former cemetery because the buildings might be “haunted” by the
previous “residents”.
As comedian Jimmy Carr once said, “It's actually easy
to tell if your house is haunted. It isn't.”
Besides, if a person with no home refuses to live
somewhere because of superstition, that person deserves to sleep in terrible
places and eat fast food wrappers.
…
Critics of my idea might say things such as, ‘But what
about the jobs cemeteries provide?’ or ‘People who believe in cemeteries would
be upset’ or ‘What would we do with the bodies?’
In order: Plenty of other jobs exist, tell them it’s
time to act like adults, and utilize them! Bones could be fashioned into
hunting gear or art, hair could be given to those without any, and the meat
could be eaten. Yes, by humans. Humanity has a starvation problem and one
solution would be cooking the dead.
Cannibalism may be taboo according to many cultures
but I don't think a starving person would turn down a bowl of human soup.
I know I wouldn’t, and starvation isn’t an issue for
me.
…
Here are some alternative ideas of what to do with your body once your brain deems it useless:
*Get ground up and planted as a tree! Can you sit under a tombstone and read? Can you fall out of a plot marker? Does a mausoleum go through photosynthesis, thus creating oxygen for live people to breathe?
To get started, check out a company called Bios Urn.
*Have a Viking funeral! The body in question is placed on a wooden craft and tastefully decorated by loved ones and adoring fans. Craft and body are then set ablaze and pushed off to sea, where the pair gets observed until both are fully consumed. This is followed by a wild beach party in the deceased's honor. Wood, air, fire, water- wonderfully elemental.
*Volunteer for your body to be eaten by something! (I actually wrote that as another option but as an insult it's a great suggestion if you'd like to go do that right now.)
...
Cemeteries also give florists a lot of business. A
suggestion for them would be to petition Hallmark to invent another holiday to
boost their flower sales.
How much death must cemeteries consume, anyway? When weeping
people lay flowers six feet above their person's rotting corpse, what happens
to the plants?
They become rotting flora-corpses. The same thing
happens to all the arrangements delivered to funeral homes.
The death of one human causes other humans to kill
hundreds or thousands of plants.
Zennists believe in balance. This is a great example
of the opposite.
…
The biggest question I have about cemeteries is: ‘What
happens when they're all full?’
It's mathematically inevitable. And really, what then?
Earth's population is increasing and more living
bodies means more dead bodies.
Will the world be overrun with cemeteries? Will people
get dug up and removed according to burial date or importance? If the latter,
who decides?
This topic can be disturbing to think about but I
think it's important. If humanity can agree on nothing else, let’s value living
people more than the dead.
Stop the tired practice of cemeteries and simply honor
those who’ve passed with pictures and memories.
Yes, in your brains. Don’t be afraid to use them.