A call to action: Excperts from Chapel
This project was, in part, inspired by some writing I did for an all-school speech I gave. At my school, we have a tradition in which a few times a week, a senior gives a 15-minute speech to the whole school. It’s given in a building named “the chapel”, hence the title of this entry. I used mine to combine anecdotes of grieving with philosophy to create something that would resonate with the student body. Though not referenced explicitly, I was writing with the Newton Critique in mind. Many of the students at my school are from Newton or other similar town and I wanted to give a call-to-action. Something that encouraged them to break the cycle of lawn-sign-liberalism or performative activism and truly care for one another. I present the first 5 sections here because I think it explains how I was liberated by the collective attitude of many Newtoners, how I came to possess these beliefs, despite being born and raised in Newton my entire life. The names have been changed for privacy.
Section 1: BEGINNING
When my dad first knew he was going to die, he started asking me questions: about life, about an afterlife, about my emotions. A stubborn kid, I was too immature to meet his questions with anything other than insults. I would tell him he was being corny, or scold him for “getting sad on me”. To this day, my refusal to indulge him in these conversations is one of my greatest regrets. Perhaps worst of all, I remember him worrying that his death would ruin my life—that the ensuing grief would overwhelm me. I remember being too afraid to reassure him, to do anything other than look away. I was not strong enough to witness my father in his anguish, and not strong enough to tell him his worries were unnecessary. To the audience, I hope you will find my experiences with grief illuminate something for you. To my father, let me begin again.
Section 2: IT AIN’T ABOUT MONEY
My maternal grandfather, to whom I was very close, passed away a few months before my father. I think one of the reasons my dad worried so much about me was that he knew that my grief would compound, and he feared the double gut-punch of both their deaths would be too much to bear.
The double-gut punch turned into a triple-gut punch when John passed earlier this year. At the service, Chris read a beautiful eulogy. The day before, he asked me to help edit it. I eagerly agreed and tried to help the best I could. Hearing it at the service, I felt a deep sense of fulfillment and pride. But the truth is, Chris had already written the entire eulogy, and most of my edits were relatively trivial, so I had to ask myself: Why did this experience of giving feedback feel so cathartic, so fulfilling?
Section 3: THE CAPITALIST GLASSES—Adapted from Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Zizek’s concept of "surplus enjoyment”
My father once told me a story about a Mexican fisherman. Each morning, the fisherman catches a few fish, sells some at the market, keeps what’s left over, and spends the rest of the day relaxing on the beach with his family.
One day, the fisherman meets an American who tells him, “You should fish all day, earn more money, hire others, and grow rich.” The fisherman, confused, asks, “Why?”
“So you can retire,” the American replies.
“And then what?” asks the fisherman.
“Well, then you’ll be able to afford only fishing a little in the morning. Then you can spend the rest of the day relaxing and spending time with your family.” The American responds.
Of course, the fisherman laughs and says, “Well, that’s exactly what I’m doing now.”
Perhaps the American is wearing special “capitalist glasses” that blur his view of what matters in life. If we imagine capitalist glasses as lenses that distort reality, making sure we prioritize work over all else, we can imagine grief as a piercing red light that shatters the glasses, burning our skin in the process. Yes, there is suffering and pain in grief, but the beauty in loss comes from how it illuminates the rest of the world; how it cuts through the fog and buzz of our daily lives, and forces us to focus on what is directly in front of us. When you get that call and realize a loved one has passed, you are not worried about your college applications or that assignment you left untouched for too long. You are reduced to your surroundings: the objects in the room you are in, the well-being of the people close to you, and how your body feels in that moment. The jarring nature of grief forces us to reconsider where we are putting our time. In this way, it becomes an unwanted respite from the monotony, an opportunity to care for one another, to take off the capitalist glasses and consider what matters.
The reason I felt so fulfilled when helping Chris with the eulogy was that, for the first time that semester, my time was being used for something that mattered. The grey, overcast uniformity of senior fall had been disrupted by a burning, piercing, red light. And yes, it hurts. Yes, it burns. Yes, it strains our eyes to see the bigger picture. But at least now we have light. At least now we can see. The lights of all whom we have lost illuminate for us what matters. Thus, this light, as we saw in the weeks after John passed, leads to an outpouring of love. Our manufactured desire for productivity loosens its grip on us, and we remember that we care for each other more than our schoolwork.
I felt that love in each hug given from a person I had barely spoken to before. In the way, Jack put his arm around me when my voice trembled too much to tell him what happened. The way Xander looked at me as I was crying, like my sadness was his, each tear burning his skin just a little. The way my mother demands that I come home, not because she’s angry at me, but because she needs to hug me, if nothing else. It is Chris who asks me to help him honor our friend. This love is what fulfills me: not looking to the future, but all that I have done in my life to be surrounded by these caring people in a moment of absolute suffering.
But this intentionality and care fade as the glasses slip back onto our faces, and we become passive again. Two months after John died, I remember feeling this slip in intentionality around the school. I remember seeing someone walk into the bathroom and peeing while never breaking eye contact with the Instagram reel he was watching. As he washed his hands, he did not notice me; even as he walked out, his eyes stayed fixed on his phone, letting the door slam in my face. In Eytan’s chapel last year, in a section titled respect, he wrote, “you will have many opportunities to hold the door, do it.”
If there is anything I learned from grief, it is to heed Eytan’s advice and hold the door; it is to be intentional in how I move forward; it is to realize how beautiful it was to be in a community where productivity and Instagram reels took a back seat to care. Today, I write almost exclusively about those whom I have lost because if we forget, we let their light fade, obscured, again, by these glasses. We do a disservice to both the deceased and ourselves. We lose what has brought us together.
To respond to my dad’s fear. I hope it is clear that my grief did not ruin my life. Because it is your memory that has lit up my life and given me the chance, in the words of Thoreau, to live deliberately. To focus on the community rather than just myself. To focus on the stuff that will matter on my deathbed.
Section 4: HEGELIAN GRIEF
My father and I would not have agreed on much. I remember some of the political beliefs he tried to impart on me when I was little, and today, I look back at them with disdain. I once imagined myself standing on this very stage and giving a chapel about the danger of deifying the dead, but instead, much of this chapel consists of the best memories I have with my father, the first being the story of the Mexican Fisherman. Here is why I feel a responsibility to give such a chapel:
The other night I was watching YouTube when I stumbled upon a video about the Phenomenology of Spirit, a book I have never read. But apparently, in it Hegel argues that each time period in history serves as a repository of information. He contends that we can improve our understanding of what it means to be in community by looking at the ancient Greeks, or our understanding of honor by looking at medieval times. Hegel argues that the role of a historian is to collect such ideas to “compensate for the blind spots of the present”. To take, for example, the Greeks’ teachings and apply them to our modern-day crisis of community. To use the wisdom of the past to help the present.
Like those historical periods, people have problems. But there is wisdom in every person, as there is in every time period. And I believe that, like the historian, the people who live on after a death have a responsibility to find such wisdom. Not to whitewash the past or deify the dead, but to collect the light from a life and lay it bare in hopes of improving the world.
This is the beauty of chapel. We find these slivers of light and share it with the community, in hopes of changing something, in affecting someone.
Section 5: THE LOGIC OF A CANCER CELL—Inspired by Edward Abbey’s quote in which he described capitalism’s constant need for growth as “the ideology of a cancer cell”
I remember my father’s eyes, which sometimes turned a pale green, getting darker when he was sick, no longer able to focus on my face. I remember that he had terminal agitation, a condition of anger and restlessness that can occur in the final days of someone’s life, especially when they are young and strong and dying before their time. I remember when the cancer that started in his pancreas spread to his brain, rendering him barely able to speak. I remember reaching down to touch his hand, and thinking that it was colder and softer than I had remembered. But I remember that, in Jack’s words, “there was a touch of warmth within”. It is with that warmth that my father gave me his final piece of advice:
“Don’t worry too much about college.”
My father always placed the utmost importance on academic excellence. But as the life was draining from his eyes, he realized how naive he had been—how little his college degrees were worth. He used his last bit of warmth to correct my course. To channel his regret into advice.
I will not attempt to tell you all what a life well lived really is, but my father’s final wish taught me that a life well lived is not grinding your college applications to see a prestigious school next to your name on the CA college decisions account, it is not going into finance because you feared being uncomfortable, it is not success for the sake of success or growth for the sake of growth. Because that is not the logic of someone living a fulfilling life. That is the logic of a cancer cell.
