Death has never been something I have thought deeply about before. It is a known fact of life, but it is one that I never gave much attention until recently. It has plagued my mind at some point in each day for the past 12-18 months. At times I find it incredibly liberating, as it reminds me that every single day on this earth is a blessing. A blessing that so many human beings lose needlessly on a daily basis.
The fact that 24,000 children under the age of 5 die of starvation every single day is enough for me to call clean drinking water and a roof over my head an absolute embarrassment of riches. The fact that in North Korea, cannibalism is a necessary method of survival, is enough for me to look at the food in my fridge as if it were full of gold bullions. North Koreans are on average 4 inches shorter than South Koreans, due to the incredible malnutrition that they suffer from. The only source of protein you will find in North Korea comes from either rats or dragon flies — unless of course you decide to murder and eat your own neighbour.
The flipside to this is when I start thinking about death, and instead of feeling a great sense of gratitude, I instead feel deeply concerned and destabilised. What is the point of all this if it ends as swiftly as it began? Is it analogous to falling asleep and not knowing exactly when the lights went out? Is consciousness substrate independent? Must our minds be made from meat for the lights to go on? Or can a certain sequence of atoms and subatomic particles be uploaded into a silicon brain for consciousness to continue for perpetuity? Is it liberating or destabilising to know that on a planet that is 13.7 billion years old, in a mere 200 years, no one alive will know that you ever existed?
These are some of the many questions and thoughts that run through my mind when I contemplate death and end up on the wrong side of this arbitrary coin flip. The universal statement of “ignorance is bliss” is one that comes to mind when I end up down this rabbit hole. I will ask myself; “Would I rather think deeply enough about these issues, to then reap the subsequent benefits and eventual pit falls of these thoughts?”. “Or would I rather lose the ability to do so, and instead experience a baseline level of happiness and appreciation for this thing that we call life?”.
This has been a question that I can answer with complete confidence. I would much prefer the former, rather than the latter. Ignorance to me is not bliss. It is instead a failure to explore the vast open space of consciousness itself. Horrible facts about life can be very hard to deal with at times, but when you grapple with those facts and learn to understand them, you are then able to equip yourself with the tools needed to fight against whatever misery life may throw at you. When you learn that in the year 2021 there are still people eating each other to survive, suddenly waiting in line for 10 minutes with a trolley full of food at Coles or Woolies isn’t such a big issue after all. Knowledge is power, and our epistemology must be constantly challenged and updated if we are to grow and evolve into successful human beings.
I am still yet to pinpoint exactly where this near obsession of death came from for me. I originally thought it came from a conversation I heard with Frank Ostaseski. Frank is a Buddhist teacher and one of the leading voices when it comes to end-of-life care. He co-founded the Zen Hospice Project, which was the first Buddhist hospice in America. He has devoted his life to ensure that his patients last months, weeks, and days on earth, are filled with as much love and happiness as possible. Some of the stories he shared about his patients were equal parts heart warming and heart wrenching. I believe that I have extrapolated this dichotomy of emotions all the way out into how I feel when I think deeply about death. Sometimes I am overwhelmed with happiness, and others I am engulfed with despair.
More recently however, I feel that there may be something else happening beneath the surface of consciousness that I am not yet fully cognizant of. I believe it has something to do with the passing of one of my best friends. My friend Norman committed suicide 13 months ago. I have been besieged by thoughts of death for the past 12-18 months. Correlation does not always equal causation, yet I can’t help but feel that these events must be intertwined. I have thought about Norman every single day since his passing. Only very recently are these thoughts starting to become less painful and arresting every time they enter my conscious awareness. I know that thinking about his death will make me sad and upset, however I cannot seem to identify the reason as to why it is making me fixate over my own mortality and the underlying meaning of life itself.
This is an issue I am still dealing with daily, but please do not read into this as cry for help on my behalf. I am not depressed, nor do I have crippling anxiety with a side of Hypochondria and Thanatophobia. This is a difficult challenge that I am facing right now, but it is one that I welcome with open arms and wish to explore as deeply as possible until I am able to make sense of it all. The greatest gain from all of this has been my newfound appreciation for life. When you learn to truly understand the finite supply of life that each of us has been given, you then genuinely begin to appreciate all of the small things that are encapsulated within it. The small things — that over time — become increasingly more salient and breath-taking. None of us know what the future will hold. All we can do is live each day the best that we can possibly manage, and hope to awaken the next day to be able to experience life’s beauties all over again.
“We have two lives, and the second one begins when we realise we only have one” — Confucius
