The Silent Presence and the Tomestones of Aesthetics: Beyond the Scandal of Death

Participate in a living work of art. Silence is not a tool for self-improvement; it is an act of rebellion against the attention economy that demands we constantly "become" something. We often find ourselves wandering through a world that feels superficial and vulgar, seeking an ontological experience that isn't packaged in the plastic wrap of commercialized wellness. We look for depth, yet we find ourselves surrounded by the tomestones of aesthetics—those beautiful, curated rituals and structures we build to hide the raw, unmediated reality of what is. Why do we surround death with such elaborate ritual? Since prehistory, the body-mind has used funeral rites to cushion the blow of loss. But if we look closely, who are these rituals for? Unless one clings to the idea of a soul needing a ticket to paradise, the ritual is entirely for the living. When a loved one disappears, it is a piece of our own identity that is torn away. If a mother dies, the "son" dies with her. If a child is lost, the "father" vanishes. We grieve because the separate self we constructed in relation to that person has been hollowed out. We use the tomestones of aesthetics to manage this shock, to gradually transform the memory into something we can carry. But what is it that is being carried? Nature is both generous and wasteful. Thousands of seeds are scattered by the wind, yet only a few bloom. Some become towering trees, while others simply return to the absolute without ever sprouting. We are part of this nature. There is no grand architect designing a fair path, no project with a cosmic designer rewarding the "good" with long life and punishing the "bad" with sudden accidents. The separate self hates this randomness. It invents ideas of destiny, merit, and demerit to make sense of a car crash or a sudden illness. It says, "that person didn't deserve to die," as if there were a ledger of worthiness. These are just stories we tell to avoid the scandal of the body’s end. When we insist on a "great architect," we only create internal conflict and doubt when the world doesn't align with our moral fantasies. In the past, death was not a taboo hidden behind black plastic bags. It happened in the streets, in the homes, amidst the noise of large families where infant mortality was a daily reality. There was an intimacy with the end, an *Ars Moriendi*—the art of dying and accompanying the dying. Today, we have removed this art. We live in a virtual, aseptic world, much like a video game where blood splatters on a screen but carries no weight. We hide the dead because the decay of the body is a scandal to a society obsessed with the permanence of the separate self. We polish the tomestones of aesthetics to keep the reality of our own dissolution at bay, yet the absolute remains untouched by our preferences. Who is it that seeks to avoid this reality? Who is the one trying to achieve a state of peace or find a this moment?