Ideally we want to be not scared of death. There should be no qualms about life's fleeting nature and the transience of this life's possessions and its enjoyments as well as worries. Death is an inevitable destiny. It is the redeemer at the end of this dark tunnel that time marches us across forcefully with a stick. It's arms are wide open, ready to kiss you; to embrace you and make you hers forever.
Theology would want you to believe that there's life after death and there's more to death than just this life. It paints death as a gateway from one form to another. It takes away the sting from death by making it transitory like life on this world. However the silver linings of these beliefs end here, because it adds 'rung main bhung' by letting you know that the life you're currently living is a test of sorts. My sincere apologies for being presumptuous if you are a zombie, a ghost or any of the other undead reading this. The blogger stats fail to take you into account, or maybe you're all from some hamlet in Portugal because I really do not have any other explanation on why on earth somebody from Portugal would be tuning in to read this 'gob smack of desultory paraphernalia'. Anyway, almost all religions want you to think your life as some kind of an evaluation and the results dictate what will welcome you after death. Obviously sometimes good actions can lead to rebirth as a better creature in some beliefs, sometimes it is just peace and sometimes you get in to the good place (or the bad place; you can never be sure how good, your 'good' actions were). My point being, it is hard to take death seriously when it is only a doorway. And it is hard to take life seriously if the place the doorway leads to cannot be verified. Or if you aren't even sure there is a place afterwards at all. Which is why I think theologians have the hardest time explaining and reaffirming the significance of death.
Most of rest of philosophy (yes theology is a philosophy too), usually deals with life without taking into account the presence of an Omniscience or by negating the presence and talking about an absence of one. Some philosophy fetishizes death while some of it takes it to the next level by glorifying anti-natalism or non-existence. Some of it yet again talks about death as a gateway. But I want to exclude all of those definitions and only factor in the philosophies where death is agreed upon as an inescapable fact. It is the ending. There is nothing after it. And that is alright.
Maybe I just wanted to write the stoic idea of death but didn't want to mention exactly that it is the stoic idea I want to talk about. Too late now.
For some reason, I have found it really hard to come to terms with the finality of death. Maybe that's not the right wording. Let me bare myself of the fancy words and come clad to you in words like 'things', 'stuff', 'many', 'all' and 'good'.
I have no problem with dying. If I were to die tonight, I would die with no regrets. I wouldn't think of all the missed opportunities or all the things on my to-do lists (who needs bucket lists when you have to do lists filled with menial tasks, am I right or amirite?). I have no issues worrying about the state in which people might find my affairs. I do not care about the conditions in which I will die too. In the same manner, this conviction about death, still does not propel me to be ambitious or achieve great tasks in the fear that I might die tomorrow. Perhaps when you make peace with dying, you also make peace with the fickleness of life and the well that your ego is. No matter how much you throw in there, it will never fill up. It is wise to leave it as is. Maybe draw from it when needed though. I digress. Death also doesn't hold a charm over me. I do not want to die. I have been brought into this world, and although that isn't the best of things to happen to me or anyone for that matter, but it has happened. There is no reverting back to my embryonic form and going back into the womb. One does not simply do the Benjamin Button. So, I have been brought here, I might as well live, but when I die, I will die and that's fine. I'll go. I won't let my death feel like a piece of silk cloth stuck on a thorny desert plant to my soul. Hopefully. And you might be wondering, well what's the problem then. Why do you find it hard to come to terms with the finality of death.
Herein lies the problem. I think it comes from my long lasting need for validation and external approval. Or just the thought that I wont be enough. The other day, I got to bed after a particularly normal day. Maybe even a pleasant day. And just before I slept, a train of thoughts choo-choo-ed it's way into my brain. And suddenly, blank mind. Four words. In big red colored Times New Roman font.
You are not enough.
I might have started crying like a little pussy boy. Thankfully, the dogma came in handy. I told myself, I don't have to be enough for anyone except myself. Everyone else I just have to accept. And I can easily be enough for myself tomorrow by doing 3 out of the 100 tasks in my petty works to do lists.
I take so many winding routes before coming back to the topic. As I was saying; death. My only issue with dying, or the only thing I want modified is that I want a credits scene after my death. I want to know who directed, produced and wrote this C class movie. No seriously though, I want to be able to see what happens after I die. Maybe a week or a month or a day. How everyone I loved behaved on hearing about my death? Or more importantly did they know I loved them? Did they love me back? A part of me wants to ruin a couple lives by dying. The other part wants people to live their life unnoticed after my absence, save for the little photograph frame on their bedside that will remind them of me. Even in movies when rarely the main character dies, they show what happens to all the side characters. That's all I am asking for God, an epilogue type scene. I also want to know what happens to all my belongings, and how someone reacts after finding some unpublished half written writings in my phone notes. All of this makes me come out as deeply insecure maybe. I also understand that these things matter to me more as I live because of my conscience and ego, but when I die, and these elements scamper away from my self then technically they shouldn't matter any more. This last sentence possibly also reveals that this entire writing is wrongly titled and themed, and the problem might as usual be more intricately related to life and how I deal with it, instead of death.
I am not sure if I know the fix for this pattern of thought. Any ideas about death and life's fragility cannot be of much help here, I think. The change has to come from within like all effective and permanent changes, and it has to associate my relatively stable concept of death with this idea of wanting closure after death.
The funny thing about all of this is we do not know. We do not know. Maybe people do get closure after death and we simply do not know. It might be in the form of loss of any factors that make you care for any of this stuff.
Or, and this is a long shot:
Maybe there is a ephemeral personal cinema waiting for us just past our graves, with cosmic popcorns and neutron sodas. There are no crying babies or parents asking when the movie will be over, or friends trying to prove their wit by making ill-timed jokes. No one is going to ask you to give way "please". You don't have to really pee suddenly because you drank the large cup of the overpriced soda. There are no inconveniences. The movie is titled 'Your Life', and I want to believe that you came to watch the 'epilogue' but after watching the entire movie, the epilogue doesn't really matter.
(Final holler to my undead audience from the middle of the bumfuck in Russia or Portugal, if any of this is true, let me know.)
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