There are only two sure things in the world: death and taxes.

I’ve been writing a lot lately about the latter, but this past week I’ve spent a significant part of my days thinking about the former.

Lately, a few hours of each day have been spent with a lovely group of people kicking around some of the big questions that surround death.

It’s part of a workshop of Mozart’s Requiem. If you haven’t spent much time with the piece it’s definitely worth a second look. Even if classical music isn’t your thing, this is one of those pieces that transcends any particular genre. It’s brilliant, and profoundly human.

A requiem is a catholic mass for the dead, and in exploring this piece we’ve discussed death from multiple angles: our ceremonies, the ways we grieve, the desire for forgiveness, and the purpose of tears.

Needless to say, that kind of talk can really get the brain turning. There are no satisfying answers when it comes to death. It’s definitively unknowable. We have ideas, guesses…. hopes… but we can’t know. It’s the kind of thing that could drive a person crazy.

I think there’s an incredible beauty in unknowable things. We can sit around a table and share beautiful thoughts. Even in our fears about death there seems to be a peace in the realization that you simply can’t know. In some ways… death is simple (it’s definitely simpler than taxes)… At least it seems rather simple for the one doing the dying. But for those of us who are left behind… it can get rather complicated.

We are constantly surrounded by death in this world, and yet we seem as adept at ignoring it as we are at avoiding our taxes.

It’s not until it forces its way into our world that we must face it, and its decimating simplicity.

We must grieve a friend, a family member, a teacher, a neighbour. We feel their lack in our lives. In those cases death has taken something specific from us. Our lives will never be the same.

The challenge we’ve faced in the discussions of the last few days has been asking ourselves why it’s so easy to ignore the other instances of the death and loss around us. Not just the overwhelming amount that happens every day on the other side of the world, but specifically when happens in our back yard, in our city, in our community.

It’s a question I’ve heard before. But this time it sunk in a little deeper than usual.

How do I deal with a plane crash, the loss of 150 people? How do I connect to over a thousand missing and murdered First Nations women and their families? How should I to react to the many hungry and homeless here in Toronto?

At my best I give them brief moments of attention, and then I forget. My life remains the same.

What is my responsibility as a citizen of Toronto, of Canada, and of the world to these, my fellow Torontonians, Canadians, and humans?

Because right now it feels like I’m doing nothing….

That’s been an ugly realization.

As a young artist there’s so much that takes up my resources. My money. My time. My attention. There is success to chase. Opportunity to capture. A living to make. A thousand seemingly valid excuses.

And living with the sadness, the realness of loss and death is hard. Because it makes me feel helpless. What could possibly be done? To understand it, to prevent, or simply to honour….

And so I prefer to write about life’s other constant: taxes.

We pay tax as a fiscal cost for being a member of society. Every member pays an amount deemed fair, so that we make sure that, ideally, everyone in our society is being taken care of. Here in Canada part of that goes to things like healthcare, and social services. We’ve decided that it’s our responsibility to pool our resources for the common good. I pay taxes now, even though I use very few of the government services they pay for.

But money is only one of the resources that we have, and often it’s the easiest one to part with (even for those of us who don’t have very much). As helpful as it can be, it falls short of providing any kind of real connection to an issue, or the person behind that issue.

So what is the social ‘tax’ required of a functional society, of a healthy community? Your time? Your talent? A few generations ago volunteering was much more a part of the social makeup, but now less and less.

Because let’s be honest… who has the time?

Perhaps social tax should also work on a marginal system. For those of us early in our careers with less time to spare, only a small amount of time is demanded, and later in life when time becomes a little more free, we’re “taxed” more heavily. Government mandated community service…

Of course that’s crazy. But perhaps it’s still a useful thought. There is a profound disconnect in our society. In the way that we live every day of our lives… when there is a tragedy: a death, a loss… it becomes difficult even then to find connection amongst each other. The divide seems so big and impossible to breach that I know I’m not alone in ending up just … doing nothing.

I know I can’t force myself to grieve for people and situations that I don’t understand.

But instead of choosing to block them out, maybe I can try to let them in. Instead of ignoring the death until it batters up against my carefully constructed community, I can open myself a bit more. Open myself to the people and their stories. Sit with them. Know them a little better…

And allow them to change me… a little, or a lot.

Not just for a day, or the length of a news cycle.

But change me in a way that will mean that I’ll never be the same again.

An unsatisfying answer to be sure, not one worthy of the true change that is required. Not nearly enough…. but when it comes to death and taxes I guess I have to get used to unsatisfying answers.