A Passion for Life

I just finished reading Swimming in a Sea of Death, David Rieff's thoughtful memoir of his mom's illness. I found myself identifying throughout with his emotions -- an uneasy fusion of guilt and regret -- and with Susan Sontag's passion for life, despite her personal sorrows and frustrations. He writes, "The simple truth is that my mother could not get enough of being alive. She reveled in being; it was as straightforward as that. No one I have ever known loved life so unambivalently, and I am almost certain that had she lived to a hundred...nothing except the loss of intellect would have made her any more reconciled to extinction." I wonder about myself. Is my passion for life -- despite my personal sorrows or because of them?

Raging Against Mortality

Reading David Rieff's memoir of his mother's death, I can certainly identify with Susan Sontag's struggle against mortality. Death makes no sense. There's far too much to do. Like Susan Sontag, I am "unreconciled against mortality."