Death awaits all of us. He is calm and patient. Some will arrive at his doorstep early. Some will take many years. But, at time’s end, he will greet all of us at his door. There is no escape.
Death is such a grave concept (pun intended). It marks the point where something ceases to live. Everyone lives to avoid death. We eat to not starve. We exercise to stay healthy. We avoid dangerous situations to preserve ourselves. We (and every other creature) have a biological impulse to live. It’s what has allowed us to survive to this point in time. We want to live, but we’re also afraid of death. But, why? What is it that makes us fear it so? Is the pain in our final moments? Are we afraid that our loved ones will grieve? These are factors in the equation, but the concept is much more terrifying and much more daunting than any of these reasons alone.
I think it boils down to humans being afraid of the unknown. We don’t know what happens in death. Maybe our souls are reincarnated into another body, another universe, or another lifeform. Maybe there is eternal nothingness that ensues. Maybe we will rise to heaven or be dragged into the pits of hell. Maybe we will cease to exist, our final breath being the final moment of us. Not knowing what will happen to us at death is terrifying. There’s no predictable next step. You can’t make plans for the unknown. It’s the same existential dread that we feel when we’re alone, lost in the dark. You don’t know if you’re surrounded by threats. You cannot predict anything, and you have no control over your surroundings. The same goes for death. It is something that you cannot control; it’s only something you can delay.
We cannot fathom what it means to not be alive. Our consciousness arose when we were born into this world. We cannot know what happened before our birth. There are no memories, no feelings, no well…anything. We didn’t exist, and we cannot understand what it meant to not exist. Just grappling with that concept is quite terrifying. People have tried to define death. In other words, people have created ways of thought to define the unknown. Different religions have been very useful in defining life and death. They define what happens to the soul or happens to the body. They establish definite systems of thought that make death less daunting. It’s like having the answer to a practice problem. You don’t have to guess whether you are right. It works, too. I heard of many religious Christians who were not afraid of death in their final moments. They believe they will be united with Christ and sent to Heaven. These belief systems are a really powerful tool that humans created that can combat the unknown.
There’s a little more to death. It marks the end of our lives. It marks the end of our identity. I watched an interesting video that dives into a bit about why we fear death. The author of the video claims that we spend our lives cultivating our identity: a father, a son, a dentist, an athlete, etc. We craft our individuality, define our goals, and form countless relationships. In life, it’s easy to lose a part of your identity. The author uses an example of a dedicated rising basketball player failing to make his high school team, which tears that part of his identity away. It’s a painful process to lose pieces of yourself, and it takes time to repair the damage. But, what does it mean to lose everything? Every piece of you will be gone, the pieces that you spent your life working on. Gone. And you don’t know when or how that will happen. Now, does it get more terrifying than that?
Note that in the third paragraph, I mention that humans are afraid of the unknown. I say humans because we are likely the only species on Earth that wrestles with the deeper and philosophical concept of death. We have minds that developed in a way that allows us to grapple with why it. In other animals, fearing death might just be an impulse, nothing more than a mechanism to keep the host alive. In a way, fearing death is a privilege to humans. And honestly, that is a good thing. It’s better to understand something than it is to be ignorant of it. It allows us to explore what it means to live and what we should do with our lives. Even though death awaits, we can still find ways to find meaning in life.