Death

I never really wanted to write an article about Death. Its something we are all afraid to talk about. Death is too intense to internalize the reality of it, so we just don’t think about it and remain in slight denial about the magnitude of the situation. Some people think it as fearful while others think it is beautiful. Some think it is the cause of our life while others think it is the result of our life. Some people think it is an accident while others think it is planned. I don’t want to go into the religious aspect of death. We die because our cells get damaged with age. In 100 years, all people alive today will be dead. If the structures in the brain that encode memory and personality have been so disrupted that it is no longer possible in principle to restore them to an appropriate functional state, then the person is dead. Death has no level of certainty. The only thing that has been observed is that all living things inevitably die. We cannot experience it nor can we imagine how we would handle the situation simply because as we enter into it, we cease to be exist. When you know you are about to die, you realize that nothing matters anymore. Nothing else can effect you. You have no obligations or responsibilities and thats a great relief. It’s not death that scares us but it is the attachment we have with the world that scares us. We know we are all going to die but we fear that after our death what would happen to our worldly possessions, our homes, our children, friends, family, our wealth and memories. Things we spend all our life on gathering and gathering, forgetting that one day it would all vanish. We are afraid to loose our identity. All the important things flash right in front of eyes and regrets flow as tears because that’s what is left with a dying person, lessons learnt from own experiences. Imagine if I told you that I am going to cut off your hand. I say I will do it but I won’t tell you when, where and how. You would be scared because you are going to lose a hand. Thats death. It is about the end of opportunity. It’s the end of being able to experience and be experienced. Since birth, everybody is actually in the process of dying. All the wisdom that one gains is only in this process. Life is a process of dying. Every day we die a little. We have no purpose, no meaning to our existence and therefore no destiny beyond the grave. We prepare for everything in life but not death. The most important component of evolution is death. If it wasn’t for death there’d be no way to bring in new organisms and create change.

Nobody will remember you in a long run, even if you are famous enough to be known in the whole world, they may remember you and your achievements for 100 years but after 500 years you will be a real story and after 1500–2000 years you will be a fictional story and people will wonder was there someone like you even existed. After 3000–4000 years your name will be buried somewhere in the books and very few can acknowledge your ideas. After death your body will slowly disintegrate and rot, being digested and processed by countless species of animals, bacteria, fungi and maybe even plants. The molecules that made up your body will eventually be spread across many different parts of the food chain. Eventually, the molecules will break apart in a chemical reaction or something else and the atoms will be spread all over the Earth. You will just stop existing. Think of it, your life makes no significance whatsoever to the trillions of years left for the universe. In fact in the multiverse theory our universe is just one an infinite amount of universes. Therefore, if you appreciate the vastness of the reality we live in and understand your utmost insignificance, death does not matter at all.

Imagine if we were immortal. Things would have been really different then. You would have been living with 108 billion people who ever lived on the earth. Now imagine everything in reverse order, your are born old, become an adult and then an teenager and finally a baby. Things would have been a lot better. Death is like a tunnel. You’re standing in a tunnel. During childhood, it’s dark, you don’t see what’s in front of you. But as you walk forward, you see what lies at the end of it. Make sure when the curtain comes down, the audience leaves with a sense of satisfaction.