fear of death
what do you live for?
i think i was 5 years old the first time i recall being afraid to die. i’ve lived around 7,600 days since then, but The Fear, when it arises, feels no less potent.
back then, my toddler self was afraid to sleep: “what if i won’t wake up?”
i ran into my parents bedroom, waking them up in the early hours of morning. i don’t recall their reply to my existential queries, but i distinctly remember not finding it comforting. after perfunctory cuddles i was shuttled back to bed, where my insomnia continued for several more hours.
1,300 days pass, and i’m in the 3rd grade, aged 9. my english teacher gave us an assignment to write about loss: 200 words on “what, if you lost it, would you miss the most in your life?”
Most of my class wrote about their pets. i studiously avoided thinking about the question. i procrastinated the assignment until the morning it was due, then burst into tears. having no pets, of course the thing i would miss the most is my mother (and father).
the thought of losing those most dear to me left me in tears, all day.
i remember the teacher noticing me welling up as we presented our homework, and taking me aside for a word. though i don’t recall his response, i distinctly remember not finding it comforting.
no response ever is.
every few years, perhaps every 1,000 days or so, i’m thunderstruck by intrusive thoughts about my own mortality. one time it was brought on by the death of a girlfriend’s relative. one time by my own long-term illness, and most recently by witnessing the decay of my elderly relatives. the stimulus is always different but the response remains the same: no matter what i do, eventually i will cease to exist.
how do you handle it? how do you fully integrate the knowledge that no matter what you do, you, and everyone you love, and everyone you’ll ever meet, will die?
i read the wikipedia page on “Death Anxiety” and it said that humans have maintained one successful coping strategy with these existential feelings of mortality: denial.
we ignore it. we submerge it. underneath work, passions, religion, thrill-seeking, sex-chasing, soulmate-finding, accumulating wealth, extreme sports, having children, hopes of miracle cures, dreams of immortality—underneath every thought, feeling, desire is the knowledge, felt consciously, and embodied in our million-year-old self-preservation instincts, that our life is finite.
if one takes good care of oneself, one can expect to live around 30,000 days in good health. in my current existentially anxious state, this fact shocks me: i have, at most, around 20,000 days left to live. my life is roughly 1/3 over, 33% complete. the next day is, at minimum, 1/20,000 = 0.005% of my allotted time in this universe. the next month is 0.15%. the next year, 1.8% of my entire life.
20,000 reads like a big number—it would take me over 5 hours to count to it—but in my current mood it feels infinitesimal.
no matter what, i won’t be able to do everything i want. there aren’t enough days to ski every slope and then teach my kids how to as well; to witness every friend’s wedding; to learn all of physics, maths, chemistry biology, ecology; to see whether agi or nuclear fusion will really happen; to watch whether humanity will make it past the great filter.; to eat at the restaurant at the end of the universe. not enough time.
but what scares me even more is death itself: what is it like to die? where do we go? what is the point of doing anything if entropy will get us all in the end anyway?
heaven, hell, DMT gigadoses, oblivion. not knowing your fate is like skiing off a cliff when you can’t see the landing—except the uncertainty in your stomach comes with you everywhere you go. even if you can’t feel it, it’s always there. buried.
like you will be.
whether or not you accept it, it’s true.
i wonder if it’s healthy for people to experience bouts of death anxiety.
even though this past week i haven’t been as “high energy”, i think i have spent my time in meaningful ways: connecting with friends, loving my family, reconsidering my profession and social life.
many contemplative practices that encourage meditation on death. stoics use a memento mori—a physical token, like a human skull—to remind of death. democritus used to walk through crypts to remind himself of the ultimate end.
wikipedia says death anxiety peaks in one’s mid-twenties, and tends to smooth out over one’s life. it also says that people who accept their inevitable death tend to be happier in middle and later life.
personally, that sounds like propaganda by Big Death to me. but perhaps there is some truth to it: i notice contrasting attitudes in my grandparents.
on one side, my grandma has been a widow for nearly 30 years. on the other, i have two elderly grandparents who are increasingly decrepit, but still alive and creaking.
my grandma’s house is laid-back, funny, peppered with ironic reminders about death: she’s been living with it for 30 years. my other grandparents’ house feels somber. under all the nicities, hugs, and jokes, there is a lingering existential unease that hangs in the air.
maybe the question comes down to this: what are you living for?
my grandparents used to live for travel, but now they are too immobile to leave home. all they live for is each other, and you can sense the fear that each has for the other’s demise.
my grandma lives for her grandchildren, and for the daily crossword, and new episodes of coronation street, and for famous grouse. perhaps because her simple pleasures are more accessible, she is more content?
what do i live for?
i live for my partner, S, for my parents, my sister, my family—including family members yet to be born. for my friends’ happiness. for curiosity about the world and a deep urge to understand it. for the wind in my face, the muscular burn of exercise, for the thrill of scoring a try, the ecstasy of an orgasm, the pleasure of a perfectly cooked steak, the pain of grieving a dead friend. i live to love, and i live to help people. and i live for the giddy experience of experience itself: the feeling of feeling anything at all.
i hope i live for a long time. and i hope every day i truly live for what i love.
what do you live for?
remember:
everything is a scam. (except death)
life is long if you know how to use it.
life is a game: either you write your own rules or have them written for you.
i hope the next dispatch i bring you is a bit cheerier.
happy new year.