death

"We fear what we do not understand."

i've never spoken this to anyone. i have trouble enough speaking any of my feelings, let alone my deepest, darkest fear. i've always been better with written/typeset words than speech, and this "confession" is more for other people to learn about me than for my personal benefit. and i don't want them to talk to me about it. i just want their pity/sympathy/whatever you want to call it. it means they care. and God knows too many people in this world are apathetic.
naturally, i used to fear death, because i don't know anything about it. but now, it's not death that haunts me, but rather nonexistence. death is a part of life, i understand that. but would all these memories and thoughts i have now die with my body? i have nightmares beyond compare about nonexistence; nothing causes me more emotional pain. the slightest thought of it makes me shudder, cry, close my eyes and hum a tune just to change the subject in my mind. i would rather die than to think of not existing, and i mean that truly.

Peter Pan: "To die will be an awfully big adventure."

i have known someone who died and was brought back to life. i wanted to know of the "experience," if you could call it that. did he see something? or is there no recollection of what happened, like a camcorder stopping and then hitting 'record' again? i've felt the latter once, when 'going under' for my wisdom teeth-extraction. it was as though i blinked; i don't even think i dreamed, so there was no concept of time for me. would death be the same? a dreamless sleep? to die would be a new experience, but to not live -- i don't even want to imagine.

Gandalf: "Death is just another path, one that we all must take."
-tLotR III

the author of Ecclesiastes wrote on the blunt, bleak facts of life. "For the living know that they will die,/ but the dead know nothing;/ they have no further reward,/ and even the memory of them is forgotten./ Their love, their hate/ and their jealousy have long since vanished;/ never again will they have a part/ in anything that happens under the sun" (9:5-6, NIV). as is a theme in the book, both the righteous and the wicked, the wise man and the fool come to the same end; all that they gain in life -- piety, riches, fame, power, wisdom -- serve no purpose after death; "everything is meaningless." death, whatever it may entail, is inescapable. if anything, it is something that puts us all in the same boat.
we cannot understand (that is, our minds do not have the capacity to comprehend) the reasons for which everything happens -- quite believable considering we look at things from our lowly perspective. and though we may not agree with death coming to some rather unexpectedly, in hindsight its purpose may begin to show.

Ernie: "Dying is something you have no control over. Why waste your life being afraid of it?"
-K-PAX

everyone must die. as i believe, a physical death is a consequence of Adam's and Eve's sin, and the spiritual death that follows depends on an individual's choices in this life. a physical death is inevitable, so why fear it? we are alive now so that we might change our (and others') spiritual standing.
perhaps life is like a homework assignment, a book with a definite number of blank leaves. there's a suggestion for an outline, but ultimately, how you fill those pages is up to you. you cannot turn ahead to see how close to the end you are; you just write. some things happen which you cannot control -- so then you write your reactions. no two books are alike in characters, events, or morals to stories. but they all share the same conclusion: death. that is when all books are turned in, whether the writers feel they have finished them or not. and depending on how the Teacher grades them, that book may be put on a shelf, or burned.

post-script: rightly so, when discussing such a topic, my religion has a strong influence on my beliefs. but my fear of nonexistence is not at all related to my religion. i do not base my personal Christian beliefs upon a hope that there is something after death (my reasons are more circumstantial than that). it is merely a fear by which Satan has oftentimes tried to win me over.