I think since having become divorced from religion (at least with Christianity, I still find Dharmic spirituality interesting, but I still don’t believe in the supernatural), the idea of death has become a bit more difficult for me.
I tell myself that I am okay with dying, since it’s inevitable, and out of my control, but I think deep down, when I really think about the end of my existence, there is some deep terror there, perhaps related to the fear of the unknown. I can think of all kinds of fantastic quotes about death and finding peace with it, but when I think about what it will feel like to die, it instills great terror within me.
It’s not even a fear of the pain or anything. Just a fear of what may or may not be next. I think part of it too is some sort of fear of missing out. A fear of not getting to see the great things that are to come in this world. A fear of not having the time to learn the innumerable interesting things that there are to learn. So much to learn, and so little time. I think it also has to do with the thought of being forever separated from my loved ones. From my partner. From the person who I share my life with and have created my life with. Imagining being separated from her for an eternity, it brings me to tears.
Interestingly, this is a fear I’ve always had, ever since I was a child. I remember being 4 or 5 years old and asking my dad what happens after death, what death feels like, where my friends will go after death, and remember him becoming almost frustrated with my questioning, because these are obviously answers he doesn’t have and are honestly fairly strange thoughts for a child so young to be pondering.
For some reason, death has always been something on my mind since I was a child, and a very emotional thought at that. I think my brief stint of being religious from early childhood into mid-teen years was an emotional ‘band-aid’ of sorts, but since I’ve come to the conclusion that I truly don’t know what death will feel like or what will happen after death, these thoughts have again started racing through my head, giving me moderate emotional discomfort.
Have any of yourselves come to term with death? How have you managed to find peace with it besides “just don’t think about it”?
I’m going to put it off for as long as bloody possible! But the idea of dying doesn’t scare me. Perhaps the method. I wouldn’t like it to be drawn out or painful. But I don’t fully understand how anyone can fear death itself. Living for eternity seems scarier. And losing others—that’s another thing entirely.
There’s nothing after, so it doesn’t matter. You won’t be around to regret or ponder it. It doesn’t trouble me to think about death at all. Sometimes I think that I can think this because I’m content that I’m living properly along the way. But then I realise again that even if I died when I wasn’t living properly, to the fullest, I wouldn’t be sentient to care, so even then it wouldn’t matter.
The realisation of what death really is might be the most liberating thought. You’ve got one go at life, it’ll be too brief however long it lasts, so try to make it count and live knowing that your individuality is tangential to being part of history.