Death

"If the path be beautiful," wrote the author Anatole France, "let us not ask where it leads."

If only it were that easy. One day, you are going to die. To be completely logical about the whole thing, death, like taxes, is a dead cert, so there isn’t much point in worrying about it. Life goes on, and the less we let ourselves get wound up about its ending, the more enjoyable it’ll be in the meantime.

But logic aside, we humans seem to have an inbuilt obsession with our own mortality—and an unshakeable dread of its end. I’m not talking about the grief we feel when others die, or the deep regret that cherished relationships and projects will one day be cut short. I’m not even talking about the fear that we may have a long illness ahead. I’m talking about that horrible, sinking dread that washes over us when we contemplate the inescapable fact of our own mortality. It’s the sheer inevitability of it: as Plato put it, “must not all things at the last be swallowed up?”.

And that throws up an obvious question. What are we so scared of?

Perhaps it’s the concept of not existing—the sinister idea that, one day soon, you and your vibrant, living consciousness will just cease to be. But hang on a minute. Why should that be scary?

Think about it this way: you already know how it feels not to exist! No matter how old you are, there was a time in the past when you weren’t yet born. So do you look back on the years before your birth and recall how horrific it felt not to have been brought into the world yet? Of course not. It didn’t feel bad; in fact, it didn’t like anything at all. And the same goes for your future oblivion: you won’t care because, frankly, you won’t be around to see it. Why worry so much about something you’ll never have to experience?

Besides, in a curious way, death doesn’t cut short your life so much as give it meaning in the first place. Consider the alternative, immortality. If you lived forever, you wouldn’t care if any particular ambition or project succeeded, since if it didn’t come off, you’d still have forever to try again.

And why put any effort into friendships or relationships when it wouldn’t matter if they went wrong, no matter how many attempts you had? Umpteenth time around and you’d still be left twiddling your thumbs for eternity. Immortality would rob your life of all its meaning, leaving you listless and apathetic. Be careful what you wish for!

So far from being a terrible curse, the certainty of death lends a sense of perspective to our lives. Without it, we’d be adrift on a sea of pointlessness, capable of savouring nothing, enjoying nothing. Death defines life, frames it and gives it meaning… In a funny way, it makes it all worth living.

 

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