Social and Biological Death

Social / Biological Death

Humans are bound to die inevitably. Not a single person, no matter how much money you have, or how beautiful you are, death is inescapable. While we all know we are eventually be deceased, we try to make the best of it. We all strive to make our life as comfortable as possible; surround ourselves with warm people, fall in love, start a family, make friends, and the list goes on. Majority of people lead a normal, satisfying happy life until their age catches up and passes away. But not so many people might agree with that statement. As a matter of fact, some people might live a miserable, bitter lonely life. Why? It's not that they choose to, but it's the society they live among that they can't be compatible with. Obviously no one would choose to live a life full of hate and regret. Sometimes, in the cruelest circumstances people come across social death before biological death. Now how is that possible, you ask. Excellent question. We humans come in two forms. Physical and emotional. While physical is what is presented towards others, emotional cannot be seen because its our feelings and emotions. Even though emotions has no actual presence, physique is considered nothing when there are no emotions living inside. There is a deep underlying meaning when we say that a person can die a "social death" before actual biological death. So what is it to be when one is socially and biologically alive? That is having emotions and being able to show them, all the while with completely functional physical movements. To be able to think, feel, touch and see! It's basically the people we see around us everyday. They laugh, cry, get angry, and show all sorts of facial and emotional expressions. Our emotional feelings connect to our physiques and show physical movements. For example, when we get mad, we tend to act violent and enforce power into our arms our legs. And when we are sad, we cry. Also when we are sexually aroused, we have physical intercourse. By being socially and biologically alive allows us to express and understand each other, makes us a part of the building blocks of society. We shouldn't take what we are able to express for granted, for without one or the other capabilities, life can become a difficult obstacle to survive. Although experiencing social death before biological death is possible, experiencing biological death before social death is impossible. Aside from the social death, the essence of being human is independent of physical properties. Because the soul has no corporeal manifestation, its departure cannot be seen or determined; thus, the termination of breathing has been taken as the sign of death as the whole. However, as medical advances have made it possible to sustain respiration and cardiac functioning through mechanical means, the concept of brain death has also the determinant of actual human death. In this view, the irreversible loss, or the halt of the brain activity is the sign that human death has occurred. And when the physical properties are no longer functional, the mind and consciousness will as well be dead. Social death occurs within the soul, which is dependent on the functional brain. So when the brain itself is not able to function, then one cannot be experiencing social death because human biological death has already taken place. For a human to be socially dead, or to be socially inactive, it can be due to many reasons. Being mentally disabled, it is difficult to think nor behave normally, for abnormal brain activity might make the person incapable of showing any emotions or the ability to think normally.
Societal influence can be a factor to lead one to a "social death." It comes to a realization that some people are not capable to embrace with fast-pace popular culture. Also the death of a loved one, going through traumatic childhood, and labeled a social outcast for being different might make them shut themselves out from the outside world and the people within. From then they may have no close relationship with anybody, and have no one else to depend on. That may lead to depression and withdraw from the society. To be socially alive is to be a part of society, to have an interactive social life and to have the power to be able to communicate with other individuals. And when a human being is incapable to conquer those tasks, they are considered socially dead. They may be biologically alive, but the outer shell of the soul doesn't serve any purpose without the mind being able to tell the body what to do. The biological body can still function normally, such as walking or touching and sorts, but mind may be totally out of it, not being able to have any feelings, or inept to developing and adapting new emotions. Death is predicted in everybody, therefore it is considered socially structured, since it can and will happen to anybody at anytime. It is part of our social norm to acknowledge the fact that we are all going to come face to face with death at one point or another. But acknowledging social death of a human being might be quite difficult to understand, since not everybody will go through with that process. Then again, not many people might be familiar with the two forms of death since the issue is viewed within a deep sociological issue. Suffering sociologically death is basically like a battery operated doll. It will physically move, but there is nothing living inside; just an empty soulless shell.