“No, death is not necessarily an end”

Ithere are the last times we prepare (retirement, the sale of a family home); those that we don’t see coming (a breakup, the sudden death of a loved one); those that we decree and which free us (the last cigarette, the end of a toxic relationship); those still known to be uncertain (the desire to return to one’s country of origin). In his new essay, Our last times – Defying nostalgia (Allary editions), Sophie Galabru, associate professor and doctor of philosophy, long (very) nostalgic, invites us to respond differently than with apprehension and sadness. Because if they chapter our lives, the last times do not “always sign endings”, she insists. A sensitive and profound essay which probes our relationship to the present moment, questions the passing of time, and invites us to reconcile ourselves with it.

The Point: Why did you choose to explore the theme of “last times”?

Sophie Galabru: Because the subject of the passing of time was very important to me, very dear. Nostalgia was a very present feeling for me. It even invaded me. I wanted to confront this subject to try to find a form of lightness, and perhaps even overcome this feeling. The “last times” refer to the awareness of the irreversible: each moment is both first and last, it will not happen twice. This is very beautiful, because it means that every moment is unique. But this awareness can astonish, if not question, or sadden. This was my case. So I wanted to explore these moments of “never again”, of loss and lack, to understand whether or not I was in a truncated attitude and to see if I could outwit it…

You want to “challenge nostalgia”, you say on the cover of your book. What do you blame for this feeling?

It can be very beautiful when, in old age, it is a question of thinking back on the beauty of one’s past life or, as with Epicurus, of raising one’s morale in moments of turmoil. What I am aiming for is nostalgia as a permanent regret for the passing of time, that which cuts through and fractures joy, sometimes at the very moment we experience it, damaging the present because we are already in regret. Or this “anticipatory nostalgia”, as Amélie Nothomb expresses it in her latest novel. It is this mechanism – which relates to the consciousness of the irreversible, of the last time – that I seek to explore.

What alternatives to nostalgia do you suggest in the face of time passing?

What I am going to say goes against “personal development”, but I invite you to dare to suffer and experience the notion of limits and helplessness when it manifests itself – because we do not decide that we are getting old, that we move forward… There are limits that must be endured and that we must not be afraid to say and cross. But I also insist, in this essay, on how to conceive of these “last times”. No, they are not always synonymous with “endings” – this very scripted term which tends to dramatize existence. These “ends” are often even views of the mind…

That’s to say ?

It is not because I leave a place, a being, a profession that my existence ends. Something can endure, in a spiritual, memorial, emotional continuity. Basically, these ends are only on the material level. There are, for example, relationships that continue in silence, absence, separation. Renewals can even occur, after what we believe to be a “last time”. Of course, things pass – and pass us by – but they also take us to other surprising, exciting dimensions. Because duration is an extraordinary power of opportunities and novelties, and we must be reconciled with it.

There is a mystery around death. I believe that, in a culture as materialistic as ours – which sometimes does a lot of harm – it is important to remember this.

Does the disappearance of loved ones resist this definition?

Death, in fact, is the most absolute last time, the ultimate. But I assume this rather spiritual position – or spiritualist, as we say in philosophy – according to which, although irremediable and irreversible on the physical level, death is not necessarily an “end”. Of course, losing a loved one is very hard, immeasurable compared to all these relative “last times”. But we have no knowledge of the “after” and we cannot know whether there is subsistence of something spiritual.

Whether one agrees or not with my position, there is, in any case, survival on the level of the spirit: believers and atheists alike can continue, with the deceased, a relationship through memory, the heart , habits, reflections, rites. Some even continue to converse with him. Perhaps they formulate the questions and answers themselves. There is, in any case, a mystery that we can respect. I believe that, in a culture as materialistic as ours – which sometimes does a lot of harm – it is important to remember this.

You rightly write that our culture does not help us to think about “the richness of time passing”. How does it not allow us to do this?

It is first of all a story of the acceleration of time. We live, driven by the media and new technologies, in a form of permanent emergency. We can no longer meditate, reflect, wait. We let our time be stolen from us, what lasts, extends. This culture does not help us sympathize with duration. Nor with death.

We are in a society which denies, at least since the Second World War – because it has settled into a certain comfort and relative peace – the idea of ​​death as part of life. It has become unbearable for us. We must always – and this can be understood – extend life expectancy, postpone the last time. However, this produces a repression effect and creates a great hope, sometimes unconscious, of “never” dying. This harsh reality, which it took us a lifetime to accept, anticipate, envisage, is postponed, refused.

In this sense, we no longer age in the same way?

No, because growing old is a lifetime’s work. I also believe that we start to age much earlier than we say. This is constructed if we want to avoid the idea of ​​old age “wearing out”, or taking us by surprise. Maturation does not come from the passive passage of years alone, it requires an active relationship with time, from having meditated and reflected on one’s life, on one’s death. Growing old is a task and a challenge: we must dare to confront it, dare to be afraid, to be sad… Because fear does not avoid what we fear, it even increases the fear.

There are also experiences that “take you out” of time. Experiences of eternity – intense joy, wonderful love, emotion in the face of beauty.

You explain in your essay that you oppose the popular maxim according to which we should “live each moment as if it were the last”. For what ?

We find this idea among the Stoics, notably Marcus Aurelius, who considers it as moral perfection and the guarantee of a more authentic, more just life. Which is not false. But, by spreading in popular wisdom, it has become a maxim aimed at optimizing one’s life, making it more intense, more enjoyable. For a time, I made it my own, thinking that it added something extra, extra life. I found myself in an emergency, in permanent fear, as a hostage to time and the idea of ​​an end. So I wanted, through this essay, to raise awareness about this accounting relationship with time.

Living each moment as if it were our last can leave us feeling terribly excited and worried. It exhausts us. And, in wanting to fill our time with remarkable moments, we turn away from duration, from its subtle nuances, from the quality of each moment. By counting it, filling it or distracting ourselves from it – as Pascal said – we prevent ourselves from enjoying time, from contemplating it, meditating on it and observing what is happening within ourselves.

You rightly cite three experiences likely to offer us another relationship with time: beauty, joy, love. Explain to us.

There are two ways to approach time. Either you view it as a power of attrition, an alteration and, because you think you are moving towards a terrible and tragic deterioration, you are condemned to depression or depression, or you view it optimistically, considering the power of maturation, of creativity, of the novelty that it brings you and which allows you, even at the lowest point of existence, even in the depths of an end, to create unpredictable opportunities.

There are also experiences that “take you out” of time. Experiences of eternity – intense joy, wonderful love, emotion in the face of beauty. This miraculous path, these moments of grace which “fall” upon us, elevate us above the temporal flow. As long as you know how to perceive them through a creative eye. It is because we have been able to capture the wonder of a moment that we step out of time. And that it took place for eternity, regardless of everything that will happen and perhaps take us away from it.

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Answer

Our last times – Challenge nostalgiaSophie Galabru
Allary Éditions (20.90 euros, 220 pages).