Well, if you read my previous blog post I believe you should have expected this time to come. It is this post that we will discuss death. I will do my best to approach this topic as gracefully as one can but in doing so, I won’t be hiding any features of truth in an attempt to ease one’s sensibilities. If you are ready to read about death and what that brings for you and those you love, then please carry on. However, if you believe the read gets too overwhelming then I trust you will do what is necessary if that occurs.
Death and You
Whether you get to live to old age and pass in your sleep, whether your routine doctors visit turns up to have grave news and you find yourself on a short leash. There is no avoiding the inevitable truth that you will die. But why does it seem that most humans have a negative feeling towards death? Some feel sorrow, some feel panic and even the most depressed of society view it as a pitiful reward for a wasted or wayward life. We also often look at death as the ultimate just punishment. When you watch the bad guy in the movie slaughter and lay terror unto innocence and the hero or fate happens to smite them. We often feel this sense of gratification for justice being served. But what if I told you that we have been viewing death wrong. Life is something precious, we as adult humans tend to have a soft spot for the young and innocent. It seems that the younger you are the softer society is towards them. I know that I also have that notion as well. As I imagine most fathers do. But why must Life be treated as sacred and death as a curse?
Life and Death
The truth is that both notions are the beginning and the ending of a life. There is nothing, logically, about them that makes one less or more sought after. We could get thick into the weeds as to why most run towards youth if only to run away from death but that is something that is unique for everyone and is a question best served through deep reflection. Something I personally would encourage you to do. However, keep in mind that you are seeking the answer of why you prefer youth or why you fear death and with knowing what you are seeking that means you may stumble upon a fear that has hide itself that you may not be fully aware of, I suggest that if you do find yourself unmasking a deep seeded fear or truth, that you have someone you can confide in with that will be able to help you work it out if it turns out that it unearths more than what you were willing to discover. Aside from that, the truth is that every human completes this cycle and from the very first human to the very last. We will arise from nothing and be with life and have that life taken with out our consent or knowing back to the nothing we were and given that there is no concrete evidence of an after life and that we are not aware that memory transcends with the very phenomenon we call a ‘Soul’ unto such a after life. We can simply focus on the idea that everything you experienced, loved and felt will vanish along with you and the only reminder that you ever existed will be the dead corpse that once temporarily housed that ‘Soul’.
Good news
I am sure by now most are not enjoying this read and I understand that it isn’t easy to digest this but I hope that if you made it this far I can offer some relief for now. The good news is that this isn’t a message of doom, quite the opposite. It is a message that you and everyone else is destined to one day exist and then not and what happens between then is absolutely up to you and when the time comes that you do expire just short of the generation that you were with and as long as your deeds weren’t of complete significance then you will be forgotten entirely by the human race, yes that includes your extended and close family. Granted I can understand that reading that didn’t seem all that good but what is it about death that makes it bad? or what about what happens to your existence after death makes the truth bad? Nothing, death isn’t bad and what happens after death is the same thing that happens after every death. So what makes that uncomfortable to you? ponder on that.
My story
I was fearful of death. As a father I was afraid of dying too early and leaving my children before I could see my daughter go to school or graduate or see my son get into a sport he loved and play that sport straight into a full ride scholarship. I wanted to see my grandchildren. I was afraid of death because I was attached to the future. not life…but the possibility of the future. I was also afraid of death because I wasn’t sure what would happen once I did die. Would I have left this earth at least being able to kiss my wife and say I loved her? I needed to get some relief because the panic and anxiety was needlessly taking a toll on me. That is when I took to listening the Marcus Aurelius dairy entries. He gave some very fine logic to death and even went further into the truth of death. For me, what I got from it was that, yes I will die and no one will know when that will occur. So why should I wait or feel that I have to wait to be the father I wish to be or the husband I want to be. If I can’t know if I will be able to see my daughter or sons graduate or have a family of their own then perhaps I ought to focus more on enjoying the moments I am having now because they might be all I get and why spend those moments scared stiff of a time that may never occur for me or them. After all, they too are humans and can die at any moment.
So what do I wish for you, the reader to take away from this?
Understand what your connection is to death. do you fear it?
Then ask yourself why and be brutally honest with yourself.
Are you running away from death just so you can catch up to your wishful future?
Choose the present, cherish and enjoy what you have now and be grateful for what it is you have.
Accept that your time and the time of your loved one’s will come whether that is short or long. It isn’t about the duration but the content within each moment that matters the most.
Please consider giving this audiobook a listen. Take it in strides and reflect heavily on how the thoughts Marcus has written relate to you.
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