on death

[summercloud]

I'm terrified of dying. Not even so much the acutal dying part, but of what comes after. Of not-existing. I've always been scared of this, for as long as I can remember at least, and I think I'll always be scared of it. If I let myself think about it I start to panic. Really panic. And so I generally try not to think about it

Comments

[sevda]

I've never been much afraid of dying (or of being dead), but I am afraid of being old and looking back on my life and realizing that I haven't lived the way I should have. That thought is deeply frightening to me, especially on the days when I feel like I'm not doing enough to make the world a better place, or like I'm not loving other people the way I want to and should.

Like the first commenter, I find the idea of eternity more alarming than death. The thought of trying to make an infinite life meaningful just strikes me as almost impossibly hard. As it is, I find it difficult enough to make meaning out of a month of vacation between a job and school, or something -- what would I do if I knew I had an eternity of life ahead of me? The knowledge of my death (and my family's and friends' deaths) drives me to live as well as I can right now.

Of course, it's possible that I'm just not spiritually advanced enough to deal with the thought of eternity. Perhaps minds more enlightened than mine would be able to cope with it better. For my part, though, I have no trouble accepting (on a philosophical level) that I will die.

But I don't think any of this makes much difference to your problem, Amy. You might even start to agree with me that death is necessary to make life meaningful, but you'd probably still have a strong visceral fear of death. I think some of us are just born that way, and others aren't. I bet it will decrease as you get older, though.