You know when you hear a news story about a young person who has died and the reporter writing it has to go on and on about all the potential that person had? Oh, she was going to be a scientist, a movie star, a businesswoman. She was popular and well-liked. All that jazz. When I was a teenager, I never wanted to be one of those people. I didn’t ever want a newspaper (even if it was just the local town newspaper) saying my life ended too soon.
I’m in the beginning of my fourth decade of life, and I feel okay about things. I’m no Superman. I’m not Mother Teresa, Malcolm X, Susan Brownmiller, Greg Mortenson, or John Lennon. I’m sure there are cool things I could have done up to this point in my life that I haven’t yet done. Nevertheless, I have no lingering regrets, and I feel I’ve lived a pretty full life.
I’m not saying I want to die. I look forward to whatever God has planned for me in the future. I wouldn’t want to leave my wife widowed or our cat fatherless. I’m sure there would be people saddened by my death, so I don’t really relish the idea of dying any time soon. Nevertheless, I don’t fear it any more. If I die, I die. There are worse things that could happen to the human race than losing me. Death isn’t scary to me now.
The actual process of dying I do fear, though. Recently, there was a news story about some dude in Canada who decapitated and partially ate another passenger on a bus ride. The other passenger had been sleeping when he was stabbed and beheaded. I’m sure he woke up when he was stabbed. What a way to wake up! I don’t really know how I want to go. A violent death isn’t particularly appealing to me. Nor do I want to slowly wither away fighting cancer or Alzheimer’s. Would I want to know I was dying as I died? Or would I want to just go to sleep and not wake up? This post is getting morbid. Let’s not dwell on the dying bit to much, shall we?
Well, thank the Lord I’ve lived this long at least. I’m glad for what I’ve been able to experience and accomplish so far. And all the friends I’ve made along the way (both in-person and online) I consider blessings.
You hit on a age old question I love answering:
Is there something worse than death?
My Answer: There is. Pain. Being dead forever is better than feeling pain for eternity.
Pain during death is probably the best and worst example of this. If it is a slow death, the torture will drive you to madness and you will…
VERY dark topic. I don’t want to go on…
I wrote my views on death after a friend died here is a quote from me.
“I only find peace in the perception of death; I imagine that death is an eternal sleep without any dreams. No thoughts, no actions, no worries, no commitments, no identity, no roles or obligations to fill, an eternal absence of light and dark.”
I think it is naive to believe that there is life after death, we will probably never know if there is anything there but I’m certain when I say that there is definitely no traditional afterlife as described by every major religion.
I’m really surprised that people are religious in this day and age. Considering the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and even with out scientific evidence I find all traditional religions to be completely irrational and contradictory.
I think if there is any chance of life after death, then it’s probably a lot more complicated and unexpected then we could ever predict.
For example perhaps there is a way that the universe stores history, therefore anything that has ever existed exists in some memory bank.
Or maybe, if matter is limited and time is infinite the big bang and the big crunch reoccur infinite times. Therefore eventually the structure that makes our conscience is remade over a very long and unimaginable time.
if death is an eternal state of unconscious in my opinion this would be the worth case scenario
then all the death ,all the pain ,all the suffering , where for nothing , then justice will never be made and answers will never be answered ,
think about death as being n eternal state of unconscious and you will see hundreds of billions of horrible deaths pass by your eyes and all for nothing ,