Death is Fake: an Exposé
If you clicked on this article expecting it to be silly and comedic, you made a big mistake, but one that was likely for the best, as this is incredibly important. This is by far the most serious topic ever covered on WLHS, possibly on all of Medium, and I will be treating it as such. Please only continue reading if you are prepared to handle a topic of this caliber.
Now, we can get to the true topic of this article: what exactly do I mean when I say “Death is fake”? It sounds like such an absurd thing to say. “People die all the time”, you say, “I just saw it happen yesterday.” And while this might be true, it is only true from one perspective. I’m not talking about religion here (if you are in an afterlife it is safe to assume you are dead), but rather, the broadness of death that is never discussed.
First, however, we must discuss what death means commonly. Websters Dictionary describes it as, “That state of a being, animal or vegetable, but more particularly of an animal, in which there is a total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions when the organs have not only ceased to act but have lost the susceptibility of renewed action”. This description is good for what it is trying to be: a baseline understanding of a vastly broad concept. It specifically describes one aspect of death: an individual's death. Unfortunately, this is all it does, so it is all we should look to it for.
Now, this baseline description does make sense: we have people who are alive, and people who are dead, so we must clarify between the two. In a world of description and understanding, there must be some way to establish a difference. The issue arises when we discuss the topic of EVERYONE being dead. If everyone is dead, there is no need for clarification, as everyone is exactly the same. This goes for every organism in the universe: If one organism is still alive, it does not count as ‘everyone’. But when literally EVERYONE is dead, what exactly would it be called?
It would be silly to call everyone ‘dead’, because, well… it’s everyone. The need for a word such as ‘dead’ is no longer there, as there is no counterpart, no yin for its yang. So is the answer… nothing? We, as a (now entirely deceased) society, use nothing to describe our (now dead) selves? Maybe. But I have a better option.
Consider this classic line from the children’s movie “The Incredibles”, delivered by the villain Syndrome: “When everyone’s a super, no one will be.” This incredibly memorable line does a fantastic job at characterizing his character but also makes the audience think. If everyone did have superpowers, then no one would be super-powered. We would all be equally powered.
If you thought this line of thinking simply established a compelling villain in a children’s movie though, you would be sorely mistaken. On top of that, it finally establishes what we would call our dead selves, and it does it so perfectly, that it is difficult to imagine it wasn’t intentional. Just like how everyone being super makes them not truly super, everyone being dead makes no one truly dead. No one could possibly be dead if ‘being dead’ is no longer a thing.
So have we just debunked the topic of death? Well, almost. The final step is establishing what exactly we would be after that. We aren’t dead, that much is clear. But now that we aren’t dead, what have we become? Well, I believe this answer is clear: we are alive. Being alive is the logical opposite of being dead, and there is very little in-between with the two concepts. Just think about it: when you aren’t dead, you would be alive!
I know this is a lot to handle, and you might not be on board at first. Trust me, I understand how insane it must sound. But the logic is 100% foolproof. When death is all-encompassing or nonexistent, there is no need for a word for it. Therefore, death cannot be real if everyone is perpetually alive. And everyone is perpetually alive when everyone is dead. So, when we fill one of these two spots (namely the death of everyone), it will instantly switch, with the word (and therefore the concept) breaking down, ultimately meaning nothing. And that means that, at the end of it all, when we finally die…
We’ll all be more alive than ever before.
