Death and Taxes: the complexities of (un)certainty

Although things are changing, we don’t tend to talk readily or often about death in our time and place. One of the few comments that would be suitably safe for most spaces would be to paraphrase the statement usually attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. Nods and resigned agreements will follow, before the topic closes and moves on.

The matter of taxes aside, death most certainly is certain. The only things that do not die are things that have never lived. Stones, water, tables, toothbrushes.

Rationally, we know that there will come a time when our body will not work anymore. We will no longer eat, breathe, laugh or cry. Mostly we think about this in the abstract, and unless medical circumstances or very old age indicate otherwise, it is suggested that a comfortable imagined timeline for our death is at least 20 years away.

Because although death is the ultimate certainty, it is also arguably the ultimate uncertainty. There are a multitude of beliefs, close experiences, hopes and fears that can shape our sense of what might come at death and beyond, but none-the-less we have little to go on as to what happens next.

And so we have a curious situation where death is both absolutely certain, and yet asks us to face significant uncertainties. There are a multitude of ways to die, and we never know when we may be hit by the proverbial bus.

We each have experience of the discomfort of uncertainties; waiting for exam results, outcomes of job interviews, results of medical tests. Sometimes we would rather know the bad news than live in limbo, unable to move forward even if in a direction we don't want to go. And there is plenty of evidence around the discomfort of uncertainty too.

“Uncertainty can intensify how threatening a situation feels,” says Ema Tanovic, a psychologist who has researched the consequences of uncertainty at Yale University.

Perhaps this is why for me the more I can face, accept and really know in my whole self how certain my death is, the massively less threatening the thought of it becomes. I feel liberated from a sort of disconnected scramble to try and solve an impossible puzzle. The immediate beauty of taking a clear, smooth breath comes into glorious focus.

At first read, this might seem like an unnecessarily morbid way to spend one’s time. A Victorian-esque morbid obsession. And yes, contemplating the things that come with dying, such as the ending of relationships, the decline of our bodies or the limited opportunity to be alive in the world can be difficult, painful even. Yet those things will not pass us by if we do not think about them.

We are offered the opportunity of avoidance. A social anomaly amongst a breadth of human history and experience that has seen deep suffering and also profound connection. Giving our mortality space in our lives can offer us a richer understanding of what it is to be alive, as well as bringing some balance to the certainties/uncertainties of death.