Tuesdays with Morrie Part II

Tuesdays With Morrie

By: Mitch Albom

Publisher: Random House

Year published: 1997

Precis: accepting death makes for living a more fulfilling life

"Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent." (p.103) Morrie addresses the point that nothing lasts forever. He suggests that a person should not become to closely evolved with something that they know is not going to last. Existentially Morrie is talking about the idea of detaching yourself. I think for a person to be satisfied they need to have a sense of togetherness. Usually fulfilling that position in a relationship. Which brings up a other, somewhat contradicting point that Morrie expresses, "Death ends a life, not a relationship." (174) Morrie states that even if death separates two people the love they shared with go on. So he could be implying that relationships go on forever. Which contradictions what he previously said about everything coming to an end. On the other hand, other personalities aspects of Morrie shown within the book could show that he is implying relationships will go on as long as people remember them. So if they don’t die with death they will die later by simply being forgotten. Which makes more sense to me in the way that it still supports that nothing goes on forever.

"When you learn how to die, you learn how to live." (p.104) Meaning that a part of living is accepting dying. Easier said than done in my opinion. Its understandable that people constantly try to ignore or comfort themselves when thinking about death. Some simply don’t want to believe it so; they choose to ignore it, To isolate themselves away from the dying or dead. Others, comfort themselves with ideas of what might be true. People fear the idea of the unknown. So people develop explanations, answers. Either way It’s inevitable.

"If you're always battling against getting older, you're always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow." (p.118,119) Getting old is a guaranteed about living. Morrie says that fighting about the things that are inevitable is not worth it. Addressing your focus on things you have no control over will only cause you to be unhappy. And I think he is right. In relation to this quote I thought about the process of living. As kids, we want to big kids, grown-ups. When we get older we wish to be young again. I don’t really understand it. I guess it’s the same idea that people don’t want to die but they also don’t want to live forever.

Morrie talks briefly talks about losing his mother to an illness. He talks about being child and no being able to understand the complexity of the situation. As a child he made the chose to pretend she was not sick, he purposely ignored her when she shows signs of the illness weaken her. Most of us choice the preferred course of pretending, we pretend everything is ok to ignore the quality of our immortality. How one deals with death is different for everyone. A part of the mourning process depends on a person’s age. As a child Morrie was not sure what was going on, he felt abandoned. He was over come with sadness. A child who can’t fully grasp the situation might feel abandoned. Where as a person who is older might more easily accept it and be thankful for the time they did have. This is where I think a person’s knowledge plays a part in mourning process. A person who has come to terms by accepting that death is inevitable, that everyone’s time is limited, well then they, like Morrie, is likely to be accepting of dying or losing a loved one.