Lessons on life from a forensic pathologist

As someone who sees life through the lens of working with those no longer living, I find it easy to see the mistakes we make when we’re alive. Here are the lessons I’ve learnt in my days as a forensic pathologist.

1: Get out of your own head. Socialise.

Every human being in the world is trying to rid themselves of their inferiority complex and self-esteem issues. They are trying to keep face. Even the most deranged megalomaniac has an inferiority complex.

People need to find outlets for their lives, loves, and passions. They need activities which will help them gain greater self-esteem.

2: Nature doesn’t care about your private logic. Watch David Attenborough. You’re a mammal.

Nature and life are irrational, illogical, and unpredictable. Time and death, living and dying, are all irrational and unpredictable.

Just look up at the sky at night. Look at the awful brooding silence of the stars – that uncanny, enveloping silence. It should speak to you in the tones of a full orchestra.

To deny this is to forego the vitalising forces of nature and life itself. Therefore, learn to embrace life’s challenges with courage, insight, and a sense of humour.

You need to add continuously to the sum total of human happiness. Attack life with intellectual and emotional enjoyment.

3: Finitude. Spend your earthly time solving earthly problems.

Make the world a better place to live in. Devote time, energy, and private resources to the cause of human service.

Live dangerously. Refuse to accept life’s bogeys and taboos.

As Daniel Burnham said, “Make no little plans – they have no magic to stir men’s blood. Make big plans. Aim high in hope and work.”

Time will soon be hanging heavy on your hands. Use constructively the leisure of the future years. Turn your hobby into a business or a profession. Don’t waste time, spend time.

There are 16-year-olds who are old, rigid, unadaptable, and pessimistic. There are 66-year-olds who bubble over with the constant joy of fresh discovery and new enjoyment of life. Youth is a matter of one’s point of view, not a problem of chronological age.

Don’t spend too much time with middle-aged people who suffer their middle age. Spend time with those younger than yourself, and stay in closer contact with the changing world. And those older and more experienced in the technique of being mature.

Don’t stay too close to your family hearth. Spread your wings. Those who fly solo develop the strongest wings.

4: Beware your contacts in life.

We weigh, we measure, we analyse, we understand. We’ve lost sight of the poetry of life. We’ve become cut-off from the mysterious earth force. We’ve become deaf to the pounding rhythms of the sea and quiet whispers of the wind.

We need to return to the primitive fountain of strength and archaic well-springs of nature. Living in concrete jungles has removed us further and further from it.

Our eyes were made to scan horizons of savannah for game, and ocean horizons for ships out at sea. Now, our eyes are in constant near focus – we all live with constant myopia.

We’ve also lost touch with the earth. When last did you feel the earth beneath your feet? You need to feel grounded by the earth. Shoes separate you from nature.

5: Be a lighthouse. Stand up, shine, be battered by the waves. Know where the dangerous reefs are.

We all need heroes. Thousands of years ago, even the most primitive tribes told their children of the mythical exploits of their ancestors to stimulate pride and activities. Try to become an unsung hero. Do good without expecting a thank you or recognition. Find out where your contribution lies.

6: Live dangerously. Life is short. Time is a thief. Precious minutes seep through the hourglass. Put aside the taboos that you accepted uncritically in your youth. Bravely seek that which will fulfil your life. Take chances! Make little journeys of discovery to remote places.

7: Achievement appears to mean nothing nowadays. New structures and systems appear to have wiped out excellence. The problem starts in junior school – there are no leaders, and no prefects. Everybody gets an award so that feelings don’t get hurt. This phenomenon breeds mediocrity, and kills striving for excellence. We’re hardwired to compete. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition to bring out the best in us. We must compete with ourselves and others, even though this new, postmodern world requires us not to compete.

8: Communicate better. The sudden, unexpected death of a person will leave a family feeling desperate and unable to accept what happened. Sensitivity and clear communication from all healthcare professionals during this process is crucial to support grieving families and help them to understand the circumstances surrounding their loved one’s death.

9: Cultivate a hobby of dealing with social service, lest you spend your old age in unhappy isolation. Cultivate a hobby which will enable you to get along with yourself in your lonely and leisure moments.

10: Your first three or four decades of life are but preparation, a sharpening of tools, a learning of techniques. In those decades, you plunge into the stream of life with enthusiasm and inject love and passion into your career. Beyond that comes the real work which gives a meaning to life.

11: The fifth, sixth, and seventh decades of life may prove to be empty husks. You’ve tested your previous decades and may have found them wanting. Maybe you sacrificed everything for fame, money, or prestige. Maybe you’ve attained the goals of your childhood, and discovered that it was an empty fiction.

Professional prestige or business acumen, even money in the bank, have a curious way of being small comfort on a cold, wintery night. You cannot go on working your whole life for fame, for security, or money. Your name and fame mean nothing if you cannot share them with someone. Old age is solved by acceptance or help from children, relatives, or the community.

12: You’re never too old to be a complete human being. Make a psychological inventory of your assets and liabilities as a human. Look forward to the years ahead to enrich your soul with the great classics, music, poetry, drama, the great history of human civilization.

Never before has information been so cheap and available. Even if you live in the most isolated community, just flick a switch, and you’ll be in New York or Paris, or in the company of beloved friends. There’s no more need for unhappiness, emptiness, and loneliness.

13: Nature doesn’t care if you’re happy or unhappy, how much money you have, or how powerful or popular you are. The only thing nature cares about is whether you’ve passed on your genetics or not. You’ll need something more.

The best insurance against melancholia, depression, and a sense of futility in old age is the development of wide horizons and the cultivation of mental elasticity and interest in the world.

Fill your days with work and recreation. Fill your nights with the enjoyment of social and intellectual activities. The best investment is a wide horizon of interests, emotional vitality, broad social activities, and a career of service to your fellow human.

Keep busy – many of your worst problems are the result of too much introspection. Plan future activities in such a way that there will be the thrill of new interests in your life.

14: The term “burnout” is a fashionable diagnosis, but I don’t think it exists. At autopsy, there’s nothing to suggest any pathology behind the term “burnout”.

Adrenal fatigue is a term used by alternative health practitioners to explain tiredness and other symptoms which are thought to be due to chronic and long-term exposure to stressful situations. However, it isn’t a recognised medical diagnosis, it’s a general term used to describe a group of symptoms that aren’t specific. Examples of those include tiredness, weakness, sleep problems, and cravings for sugar and salt.

In my experience, one gets adrenal cortical lipid depletion – a stress hormone response – when one is lying in intensive care for a length of time.

“Burnout” is a postmodern diagnosis. Our ancestors never suffered from it. I believe people aren’t busy enough. The human can always do more.

• Professor Ryan Blumenthal is a prominent figure in forensic pathology in South Africa and aims to improve public awareness of forensic science in his books, including his bestsellers, Autopsy and Risking Life for Death, and his documentary, Lightning Pathologist.