Premature Anxiety

All our lives, we have asked recurring questions; questions that lead to question upon question. We have asked all these questions, always in ambiguity. We speculate upon those which we don't understand. In effect, we fear that which we do not understand. And one of those most common things to be asked about is death. What exactly is death? Or better yet why do we have to die? This word that brings with it utmost grim and anxiety have often been shrouded in conventionalism and have lead to our ignorance on it. Death itself is not the true agenda, but rather it is of life.

To understand death, we always have to look its significance to life. Let's look at life at different aspects. First, what are we doing in our life? We go about our daily routine; go to school, go to work, earn a living and perhaps leisure ourselves. Not that I'm saying that we live as machine but rather, our rationality has only lead us always to one fact, and that is to have a secure lifestyle. We eat, sleep and drink so that we may prolong our physical existence so we may learn in the end what truth is and what life is worth, to be complete. However, to think it that way is as if saying that we have no true identity or true existence in this corporeal plain. Our purpose lies beyond that. And where can we find that meaning? In death? How peculiar that we must live in order to die so that we may be complete. Why not be made complete? Martin Heidegger would argue that if we we're made complete then there is no purpose for change thus there would be no corporeal and there would be no mutable entity. I'm not going to discuss what Martin Heidegger said about death. It is because I understand him to be a phenomenologist, and thus his thoughts although convincing enough are still his experience, his own subjective reality. However, he was right about us being fulfilled for we can not change the now fact that we are here, and we are changing. Now, we have the idea of transcendence as a means to reach our fulfillment. However, being corporeal destroy the very context of transcendence. Our idea of transcendence stagnates to a mere guess, a simple idea that sparkled from glimmering nervous impulses in our brain. These ideas of transcendence are just the by-product of our desires in life and thus inadequate. We create our on image of the absolute. Again, an evidence that fulfillment is only a subjective reality.

Looking again at why we fear death, we could see that we are truly the most selfish creatures in the world. we always look on what its effect on us. However, looking at it externally, we could see that we are merely a small screw in the whole mechanism of life. Looking at it objectively, when we die our bodies decompose. The chemicals of our composites are broken down and absorbed by the vegetation. Those same plants are eaten by herbivores. Those herbivores are prey for carnivores. And when those carnivores die, their carcass decomposes and the cycle revolves again. Our purpose to the world is then completed. We become fuel for the ever-flowing current that governs us all. How quaint to see that such rational creatures such as ourselves are merely chemicals quantified and estimated as 35 liters of water, 25 kilograms of carbon, 4 liters of ammonia, 1.5 kilograms of lime, 800 grams of phosphorous, 250 grams of salt, 100 grams of saltpeter, 80 grams of sulfur, 75 grams of fluorine, 5 grams of iron, 3 grams of silicon, and a little bit of 15 other elements. And death is merely a means to break the atomic bonds and return them to earth.

So what now? Why exist? We'll eventually die anyway? What values do we hold on to prove that we need to exist? Justice? Faith? Sanity? Escapism? Is there an indelible line between what's real and what's not? Is there a defining moment between sanity and insanity? We humans all sorrow our death for it is the only certain thing in life and yet it is the end of life. What would the future hold beyond life? We sorrow our death for in our culture we understand it to be the atonement and retribution of our sins. We create wars, murder, blasphemy and all known forms of evil that man is the only one capable. We build our future out of the money that oil our wheels. We create a world of lies and deceit to be the means for happiness as the end. What kind of happiness would that be? Is happiness to be found in a future that is gasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth? We are not the sinners, we are the sins. We are blinded by insatiable desire for independence, pleasure, and power. We each hold our own indelible sins and that is why in actuality it is not death which we fear but life, on the failure of it. If death really is a fulfillment then we fear to be fulfilled and complete. According to Socrates, to fear death is as if professing things that which you have full ignorance on. He is quite right indeed. We know not whether it be beneficial or not, the only thing we know is that we are going to die one way or another and perhaps the only consolation is that everything that changes will eventually die. How ironic life is that we may only understand it once life itself ends.