I saw it under a heavy branch by the river leading up to the Fjord Center in Geiranger the day I fell in love with Norway. I felt very sad seeing it there, I wanted to know what happened and whether he would be pulled from the water and given a proper burial. I wondered if it was a silly thing to think about since nature does not dig graves nor will it start today. It would have had a natural death beyond any cultural sense.

Teenage me had buried several birds on different occasions after seeing them dead. Encouraging fellow classmates to do the same. It felt wrong seeing it trapped there, yet it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Death is never the same, never plagues you the same way. When my grandparents died, when my dogs died, when my father died it never ever felt the same. It is unique each time, you go through the five stages of grief differently. With my grandparents I understood, I felt acceptance. With my dogs, I felt depressed. With my father, I went through the five stages without skipping one.

Even before any of them had died, I always practiced memento mori. I read through The Rape of Nanking which is by far one of the most disturbing books I have read, it was so repulsive, reminds me of the hopelessness of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. My head was aching at the victim accounts and at how little the general public knows about this. I usually bring up this book in conversations about human suffering.

I read through yet another lesser known huge chunk of history, all three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago. One quote that I will never forget in reference to the gulag prisoners: “They dream of the happiness of stretching out one’s legs and of the relief one feels after going to the toilet.” Who would possibly think these thoughts if not for a slave/prisoner?

War aside, I still find myself staying up late watching a podcast or a youtube channel that promises to give us the most chilling, NSFL stories and they never fail to deliver. Reddit and 4chan threads that make us feel sick to our stomach and yet we keep on reading, beyond disgust, beyond disbelief.

Why do we do this?

I disagree with morbid curiosity being the root cause; it doesn’t end at morbid curiosity. It’s memento mori.