Probably one of the biggest fears that all humans have is fear of death. This is a natural phenomenon since if our species was not afraid of death, we would have not survived through natural selection. However, I was not sure if it is necessary for us to have a strong fear of death. Many years ago, we needed to develop this strong heuristic because humans were exposed to danger all the time. In modern society, we are much less exposed to them, despite the fact that we still have some. Is this heuristic bringing us more values than losing values? Also, why do we have to fear death in the first place? If this trait is developed by natural selection, and our cognition developed enough to realize that, do we have to be afraid of death? If the point of life is just passing down my genes to the next generation, which means that I am just a machine that is used to make my genes to survive as long as possible, is there a meaning of life? These questions can lead to nihilism (not the one Nietzsche suggests, but the one that gives up life), which is a disastrous ending in my opinion. To answer the second question first, I do think life is meaningless. Humans are incomplete and life is suffering, and without meaning it can be very tough to stay in this world. However, you get to choose the meaning of life because life is meaningless. If you have a blank sheet of paper, you get to choose the color you can draw on the piece of paper. You are the one that makes the decision. Will you fall into the trap of nihilism because life is meaningless, or will you choose to take up responsibilities to make life colorful. Now, you may ask how you choose the meaning of life, and you may also ask what if people choose the meaning that destroys human civilization, or bring negative values to the world. I believe that humans have a deep desire to make society a better place, so I think you have to trust your deep unconscious to choose the meaning. You may choose the wrong meaning at some point of life, but that struggle itself is already meaningful and helps you to move forward. In literature “Faust”, which is written by German poet Goethe, Faust struggles and makes mistakes throughout his entire life but in the end, he gets saved by God. Humans make mistakes all the time, and you should try to not make the same mistakes and be a better version of yourself, but that struggle itself is meaningful. This sounds very paradoxical since you choose the meaning of life, but that meaning might not be a choice you wanted (but stil, you made a choice), and that struggle itself is meaningful. This is the conclusion I arrived at after reading a lot of philosophy writings (mainly secondary writings though, I am practicing my reading comprehensive skills to read primary sources in the near future). Let’s answer the second question of what if people choose to destroy human civilization, and I certainly think that is possible. Based on natural selection principles, if more people wanted to destroy society and serve their own benefits, human civilization could not have grown this big. The optimal equilibrium will have some psychopaths who get fulfillment from torturing people and act irrationally, but there will be more people who want to bring values to other people, or at least bring values to themselves in a respectful manner. We can’t stop people from choosing the path that will have a negative impact on society, but as a community I believe we can have a better ending.
Back to the original question of fear of death, should we have fear of death? Death makes life beautiful, since eternal life will make our time not scarce. It’s hard to remove the fear of death completely since it is part of human’s traits, but humans should accept that we are going to die at some point and recognize the beauty of it. You also get to remove the burden of your life, and I am not saying you should commit to suicide to do that. It is completely different from accepting death. That is avoiding your responsibility and that would be truly losing the meaning of life. Setting your own direction and having struggles to get to the destination is the meaning of life.