An excerpt from We lay claim to the land

I was sorting through my grandmother’s paper files the other day when I came across one of those official-looking legal documents with fancy script and esoteric words that no one understands, and the first paragraph included a line like this: 

“Section F, Sub-division 14, Plot 42.” 

My first thought was that my grandmother must have land somewhere, which would be great since I heard somewhat recently that land has a monetary value. 

Maybe we can sell it!

Nope. I merely found the paperwork for my grandfather’s burial plot in the local cemetery. It seems we take our property rights to the grave, even in death refusing to relinquish our land claims.

But hey, at least we downsize. 

Our uniquely human obsession with the overarching concept of death gets its own chapter later, but that fixation, plus a heavy reliance on cemeteries, directly impacts how we allocate land. 

Cemeteries. Large swathes of land sub-divided into plots claimed by the deceased for eternity, with eloquent stones placed in orderly rows to let us know who is there. 

Or who was there.

The open space in between grave markers is maintained similar to our residential yards. Meticulous green grass where nothing else can grow, and no one walks on it unless you are visiting someone who isn’t actually there anymore. 

I would personally advocate for that unorthodox process where we bury ourselves below a newly planted tree, replacing mined stone with a natural living organism as our headstone, but I am confident each tree would eventually be cut down to build a convenience store.

While in death we lock up our bodies in those lovely coffins and urns, in life we shield ourselves from death, the one inevitability in life.

Despite legends of magic elixirs, fountains of youth, and the extremely well-off attempting to reverse the aging process for themselves because they can’t seem to find anything more selfless to do with all those fake money credits of theirs, death will eventually come for us all. 

And “us all” is a lot of fucking people right now.

As we all inevitably pass on, our sacrosanct customs and traditions dictate more land be set aside for the practices we deem unchallengeable by the very use of that fun word. 

Sacrosanct.

It is ‘sacred’ ground that can never be repurposed. We even claim these areas are haunted in an attempt to rationalize the lack of human presence there. 

It is off-limits. Untouchable. Says who though?

Think through the impact of such claims, as the entire planet could theoretically become one large cemetery a few millennia from now. I want to believe we’d alter our burial practices before we got to that point, but I’ll hedge my bets and challenge the practice right now.

Why does my grandfather, who died nearly forty years ago, still have a physical fucking address?

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