Roger Ebert does not fear death

From a profile of Ebert in Esquire:

http://www.esquire.com/print-this/roger-ebert-0310#



Ebert is dying in increments, and he is aware of it.

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear, he writes in a journal entry titled "Go Gently into That Good Night." I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

There has been no death-row conversion. He has not found God. He has been beaten in some ways. But his other senses have picked up since he lost his sense of taste. He has tuned better into life. Some things aren't as important as they once were; some things are more important than ever. He has built for himself a new kind of universe. Roger Ebert is no mystic, but he knows things we don't know.

I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

...

n/t

Any deity with any sense would welcome him into an afterlife of doing film reviews. ;-)

One of the best writers I've ever read. And a truly good human being.

He'll be missed.

And you should too.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/

he sure gets my :thumbsup:

just read it.....
I had no idea.......(I kindof live in a cave)
:cry:

he will still be remembered, even more so than a film critic of world renown, as a sage of our times. Keep fighting the good fight Mr. Ebert. Keep fighting.

I wish I was less afraid.

That probably makes it a little easier to leave it.

When you have any health issue or even a chronic health issue (I have diabetes), it can dampen your love of life. I guess I just have to enjoy life and not worry about it.

to celebrate a soul breaking free from this hell on earth.

just floated away so peacefully, so quietly. My dad had cancer and pneumonia and my mother had a cerebral hemmorhage. It was so lovingly beautiful, I don't fear it. I had a near death experience and I don't fear death. You are awake and then you aren't. Its simple, like walking from one room to the other.

I fear what could happen in the moments preceding my death. Will my death be traumatic and sudden? Will I die alone or in pain? Will someone murder me? Lots of questions for me about how my last moments on earth will unfold.

I know, I know. I think too much!

All it takes is the desire to do it. A person can find out and even get proof.

It astonishes me that people live in fear of death. Totally unnecessary.


Cher

Do tell us.

Only with the courage and conviction of actually staring at death's door. Good man.

Oh, my.

"I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state."

I often remind myself that 14 billion years of waiting to arrive here didn't seem to cause me any distress.

The next 14 billion should be every bit as peaceful........


Go easy Roger!

I'm scared of dying.

I've heard lots of stories and ways to "cope" with it, but none really ever work.

The closest one that does is what Ebert said. I don't like the idea of nothing beyond this life. But I figure at worst, I made it here once, so maybe I can do it again!

Of course, it's not much solace, but it's something...

lucid. He laughed because he could see them and we couldn't. I don't believe there is nothing beyond this life. I believe there is life after this life. I think we continue.

I found peace through the study of karma or the study of the cosmic law of cause and effect.
I read a lot of the Dali Lama's work.
I really like www.rigpa.org and Soygal Rinpoche.
Some of it is really scary (in terms of negative karma and rebirth).
Some of it made me feel safe.
Like the OP stated - joy - do good things. try not to do bad things..

I know that the knowledge of Karma helped me - and (yet) I still think I am going to purgatory when I die (God bless the Catholic Church, lol).

Peace and low stress my friend.. and courage..

maybe the Vatican will decide Purgatory could go the way of Limbo in my lifetime.

My g/f is a former fundie, now a catholic..
I always joke that I will have to go to purgatory before heaven, she knows that she will be in heaven after death.
yesterday we were talking about transubstantiation. she said that she didn't feel the eucharist that is consumed is actually the body and blood of Christ. She said it was only symbolic. I said that was devil talk and I'll see her in purgatory.

Hopefully such silly things will go away in our life time.

Thank you.

I may need to borrow that from time to time.

I love that he is taking the time to share the wisdom of his path.

on so many levels.

I don't even know why.

What a treasure...

K&R

Roger that!

When you die in a car crash you are just gone. When you have a disease you have time to reflect on life and say goodbye.

to each other, showing love, talking about the good times/bad times/funny times, and relish how good a life we've had together for 30 years. And yes, there's a lot of caretaking involved on my part but I do it with love.

It's terribly sad knowing that I'll be losing him soon and can't imagine what I'll do without him, but I'm so glad to have this time to really "be" with him and tell him how much he means to me, how much happiness he's brought into my life, and what a truly "good" man he is.

Other family deaths have been sudden (car accidents, etc.) and i was left feeling cheated of the opportunity to say things that were important to the loved ones whom I lost.

a real human being. I share his view of life and death. Go gently you lovely person.

I guess he's a great writer after all. Thank you, Roger Ebert.

Nothing to fear in God
Nothing to feel in death
Good can be attained
Evil can be endured

A courageous generous man

As summarized in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapharmakos">Tetrapharmakos. Though, as you point out, his follower Diogenes of Tarsus (and, much later, Diogenes of Oenoanda) lived by the same philosophy.

Herbert J. Muller in his book The Uses of the Past attributed the quote to Diogenes.

It is OPs like this that keep me going. :cry:

what an ordeal he's been thru. :-(

he is awesome

He is a much more interesting person to me since he started blogging.

I had not been watching him and Roeper. Last time I watched, it was Siskel and Ebert.
Gene Siskel died at 53 due to complications after surgery to remove a brain tumor. He had expected to return to the show after the surgery. What an ill-fated pair.

Courage in the face of such pain is beyond mere courage....

due to memories of my dad's fight with cancer... but I love Roger, and felt like I owed it to him to read it all. I am glad he still has happiness in his life, but his struggle still makes me sad.... probably selfishly.

:grouphug:

:kick:

Love that guy.

and they have both had terrible luck with illness.

Ebert is living his life fully, and to the end. He is a lucky man to have someone like Chaz at his side.

I know him only as a television personality, outside the sphere of his movie writing, as I never read his paper and also because I stopped reading movie reviews a long time ago. Words seem to be his medium, though, and he still can communicate them well. It reminds me a bit of the way Beethoven continued to compose some of his greatest works, such as his 9th Symphony, after he went deaf.

... and strangely comforting to me as someone who's ever hesitated leaving earth school.

Thank you Mr. Ebert.

responding on Twitter today to the same passage cited in the OP

http://twitpic.com/13lmqe

i hope so. from his writing you woudln't think he was anywhere near death.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/

And on the rare day he doesn't post, read an archived review. It's like popcorn!

As well as his liberal progressive dedication, caring & fairness for all.

I'm only going to think positive thoughts & smiles and enjoy Roger's wonderful gifts for many, many more movies to come......I can't wait!

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/

His movie reviews alone are enough for my respect.

"... in fact, it sometimes seems as though he'd rather write about anything other than movies. The existence of an afterlife, the beauty of a full bookshelf, his liberalism and atheism and alcoholism, the health-care debate, Darwin, memories of departed friends and fights won and lost — more than five hundred thousand words of inner monologue have poured out of him, five hundred thousand words that probably wouldn't exist had he kept his other voice. Now some of his entries have thousands of comments, each of which he vets personally and to which he will often respond. It has become his life's work, building and maintaining this massive monument to written debate — argument is encouraged, so long as it's civil — and he spends several hours each night reclined in his chair, tending to his online oasis by lamplight. Out there, his voice is still his voice — not a reasonable facsimile of it, but his."

Beautifully written.

Good article Buttworm, thanks for posting!

:toast:

I like his journal entry "Go Gently into That Good Night" as opposed to "Do Not Go Gently into That Good Night."

After years of working with students to understand this Dylan Thomas poem, I have decided that it is a selfish expression on DT's part. Who the hell is he to tell his father to resist the dying of the light? He hasn't lived those years--his father has. His father has every right to go gently, as Ebert has modified the line.

DT was an alcoholic who subsequently never matured and that is why I think he wrote this poem to his father. What's worse is how our culture has glorified it. Yeah, like we're all supposed to want to be "great." What about just living?



Cher

We don't grieve for loved ones passing; we grieve for our loss. There are worse things than death. There is endless, pointless suffering and to selfishly wish a loved one endure it for our sake is cruel.

In spite of the blows he's endured Ebert doesn't rage, he accepts the inevitable with courage and dignity and he goes on living. A brilliant mind, a heroic spirit.

who suffered, as any cancer patient suffers, and raged against the suffering and the dying. It was written by her daughter as a kind of tribute, but she didn't realize how sad it made her mother seem. It doesn't seem heroic to struggle psychologically against the inevitability of death. It seems heroic to face it honestly and to accept it before it accepts you. This book made me think about Dylan's poem and come to the same conclusion as yours.

when everything else around them was wonderful. Good family, good health, good times.

But the lack of greatness was that sore point and causes nothing but misery.

Thank you for the OP.

Hekate

Sometimes there are just no words.

...for my man Roger. He is still the film critic I trust the most. I occasionally disagree with him, but that doesn't change my respect for him. He seems to WANT to like the movies he sees; he attends each viewing with an open mind. Cerebral foreign films, shallow genre efforts, crude indies, and ponderous studio epics--all are watched equally by him. His knowledge of cinema is encyclopedic, and rivals that of Scorsese or Tarantino. As a fellow cinephile, I must say that at least in a small way he has changed my life.

And his blogging in recent years has expanded his insights. I find that his blogs, even the ones that are not about cinema, are filled with insight, or compassion, or righteousness indignation. He is indeed a national treasure.

Good luck on your journey, Roger.

more and more. Every time he has something to say. Doesn't happen with too many people.

Of course he worked at the Chicago Sun-Times for many years, so it comes naturally to him.

support group for those with oral, head, and neck cancers and have several friends there who have had recurrences of cancer, like Roger Ebert. A young mother has gone through much the same thing although she can still speak. She was 'trached' and can only have food and liquid through a g-tube. Half of her jaw is missing.

I take comfort in Ebert's words. I know that I will refuse any further treatment should my cancer come back.

I worked with a woman who had a cancer in her tongue, I believe, and it spread and she had part of her jaw removed. She was a very lovely person, even afterward. Lovely through and through.

I'm sending you white light.

Be grateful for each day. Be positive. Be thankful for the friends and family you have.

I am grateful for you all on DU.

I have seen my husband and son fight cancer valiantly and die bravely.

They seized each day.

If there is an afterlife I will join them.


My son died on the last note of one of his favorite songs.

When They Ring Those Golden Bells.



It is a beautiful song to die to.
The world is a better place having folks like Roger Ebert and you all.

What a loss for you!

What they say is true: Cancer is a disease that attacks not just individuals but families. Horrible disease.

about death...in reality, its neither good nor bad...just is

And if I had my way it wouldn't have Ebert either

I don't fear death either. Just the pain associated with it.

And they can have vigorous debates on films again.

I didn't know he was missing.

This is the most hopeful thing I have read in a long time. I love reading his writing, no matter what he is writing about.

I've always like him and had no idea he had been so ill.

I loved his response.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/02/roger_eberts_last_words_cont.html#more