Lately I've been getting it a lot. I think about dying...it's not the pain or process of dying- that doesn't bother me. No, it's the fear of not existing anymore. Of nothingness... the world carrying on and no me.
It terrifies me when I really think about it. I mean how utterly surreal to think that I will cease. That I will be reduced to matter, the atoms that form me will form into something else. Maybe in a few hundred years I will form part of a vehicle or a tree or a pair of boots!
I don't nor do I believe I will ever have a belief in a greater being....in life after death in a religeous kind of way- you know- in a heaven or in re-incarnation etc. I truly believe that there is no real purpose to existance- just randomness and pure chance. I wish I had the comfort of faith- but I don't.
We as humans understand the concept of a beginning and an end and understand that death exists- I believe we have developed our belief systems as coping mechanisms.
All I know is the here and now- I try and seize the day everyday- but get bogged down by the daily stresses of an incredibly stressful job, of managing money, of negotiating relationships and affairs of the heart.
Not being scares me like nothing else. Not existing, not feeling, no sunshine on my face, not being with those I love. I love love. I love life.
Not being anymore...it's too much to get my head around.
7 comments:
Me too.
My outlook on life is probably if not exactly the same as yours, very similar. It is quite scary when you consider life in such a way, no wonder we have developed belief systems, that panic? It's almost worth going to church to avoid! Interesting post :)
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i've been thinking about the same thing lately...i think that mostly i start to think about those i've lost, and then my thoughts naturally go to what it would be like if i weren't here...very scary stuff to contemplate...i haven't been able to make peace with it...i may never be able to...but that's a good thing, right?
Congrats on not taking false refuge in theism. Now you can actually face yourself, your life, your emotions, and the universe. Love your loved ones now, today. Cause when they're gone, there ain't no fuckin celestial theme park in the sky that they go to.
But becoming something, even in a hundred years, is such a great part of the cycle of the universe. It means that a part of you continues to exist, even long after you're gone. And how cool is that?
And you leave behind a part of you when you're gone--through the lives you've touched, even tangentially, and through the words you've put out in the universe that have filtered into other people's existence.
Fear is always based on ignorance. The truth is that we are dying constantly, I believe. Whatever dying is, in terms of a conscious experience, is happening every time you have a new thought. It happens every time you fall asleep. We are changing and being reborn in our minds---and ironically, the rebirth is the painful part, I think. I was something 5 minutes ago which doesn't exist anymore. And physically, you didn't exist for eons before you were born... did it inconvenience you in any way? Dying is so easy... because we are already nothingness. This apparent separation from nothingness is an illusion. Death is nothing to fear... what you fear is being reborn as nothingness while simultaneously maintaining the illusion of the separate self. That is impossible. Sorry for getting all PREACHY :/
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