The expression «one does not take anything» although it is very popular is absurd. It refers to the fact of dying. Faced with the absurd act of death, people say: «You don’t take anything, not the house, not the car, nothing…»
When you die you don’t go anywhere. He stays on the site and that’s it. It is a mere dead body.
But, the illusion prevails that when one dies one goes to the place, be it celestial or infernal. That matters little for the body, because it is still there in its lack of life.
The expression is also confusing. Confused because one does not know what the intention of it is, nor what state of mind it generates. We could speculate that it is a phrase of resentment towards those who do possess material goods, and we want to show them that in death we are all equal in having nothing.
We want to justify our poverty or our lack of material goods with such an expression, consumptive joy, we would say. Because nothing changes the condition of dying.
Or we can speculate that it is a phrase of resignation, since poor or rich we die anyway. We cannot change the inescapable.
But beyond that, what is interesting is the hope that the phrase holds. Because whoever says it is convinced that he is going or is destined to go to a place after he dies. Life after death. Where no one has anything.
Because that «we don’t take anything with us» gives the impression that one is moving from one place to another. There is still that consolation in the face of dying. «I go to a place, with nothing; but I go».
The body-soul duality predominates, which some Babylonian or Egyptian or Hindu invented many centuries ago. The possibility of continuing to live in a place that we do not know where it is. It is a vain illusion.
We are a dying body. There the story ends.
We’re not going anywhere. Unless they take the body to the graveyard or incinerator. Whether we have material goods or not, we die. If we enjoy or live unhappy, we die. Whether we went to parties or not, we died. It’s that simple.
The hope of an afterlife can be a nice idea; But it’s just that, an idea.
Death is a human concept; for the rest of the species it is just a death, even if they perceive death.
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