Free Response

“The Need to Die”

Gentlemen:

It pleases me to inform you, by means of these lines, that death, more than punishment, penalty or limitation imposed on man, is a necessity, the most imperative and irrevocable of all human necessities. Our need to die surpasses our need to be born and to live. We could do without being born but we could not do without dying. Until now no one has said: “I have a need to be born.” However, one frequently does say: “I have a need to die.” On the other hand, to be born is, so it seems, very easy, since no one has ever said that it was very difficult for him and that he put forth a lot of effort to enter this world; whereas dying is more difficult than one thinks. This proves that the need to die is enormous and irresistible, since it is well known that the more difficult it is to satisfy a necessity the larger it looms. One yearns more for that which is less accessible.

[…]

Ruben Dario has said that the sorrow of the gods lies in not reaching death. As for men, if, from the moment they are conscious, they could be sure of reaching death, they would be happy forever. But unfortunately, men are never sure of dying: they feel an obscure desire and a yearning to die, but they always doubt that they will die. The sorrow of men, we declare, lies in never being certain of death.

{Cesar Vallejo, from “Four Prose Poems” Paris, 1926}